The Living Among the Dead

Common English Bible Chapter 24

24 Very early in the morning on the first day of the week, the women went to the tomb, bringing the fragrant spices they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 They didn’t know what to make of this. Suddenly, two men were standing beside them in gleaming bright clothing. 5 The women were frightened and bowed their faces toward the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He isn’t here, but has been raised. Remember what he told you while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Human One must be handed over to sinners, be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” 8 Then they remembered his words. 9 When they returned from the tomb, they reported all these things to the eleven and all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles. 11 Their words struck the apostles as nonsense, and they didn’t believe the women. 12 But Peter ran to the tomb. When he bent over to look inside, he saw only the linen cloth. Then he returned home, wondering what had happened.

Introduction- Missing Ellie

We have what seems to be a nightly ritual in the Freyer household.

Each boy has a pile of stuffed animals, but of course in that pile of stuffed animals are a few favorites that have to be in the bed with them in order for them to go to sleep.

Julians change from time to time, depending on who’s the newest stuffy and his general mood.

Joshy though has had Ellie from before he was born, and that’s his most special animal.

If there’s no Ellie, there’s no sleep.

I don’t know what miracle of physics happens each night that no matter how hard we work to make sure this doesn’t happen, Ellie seems to evaporate in to the either each and every single night.

So we have a family game of hide and seek.

There are the usual guesses:

Maybe Ellie fell in between the couch cushions?

Did you leave Ellie in the car after we visited G-ma and G-Pa?

Is Ellie already in your messy bed and we just can’t find her?

And then after you exhaust all of those, you have to start getting creative.

Is Ellie in the dog’s toys?

Did you leave Ellie in the downstairs bathroom?

Is Ellie hanging from the ceiling fan?

(These are all things that have happened before)

Why would you look in any of those places?

Because that’s what we’ve been trained to do over years and years and years!

I’m guessing that many of us have heard the resurrection story before.

But there’s this question in the middle of this text that I think is very much worth some extra attention this Easter morning.

Bible Breakdown

We’ve met these women before.

Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James actually showed up before in Luke’s Gospel.

These are the women who provided for Jesus’s ministry.

When the dinner check came around, they were the ones who always picked it up.

And it is absolutely worth mentioning that while there are traditions out there who don’t believe women should occupy pulpits like this, the truth is that the very first people to preach the good news of Christ’s resurrection were women.

Mary, Joanna, and the other Mary run to the disciples and say Jesus is alive!

We would do well to listen to the women in our lives as well when the Holy Spirit grabs hold of them.

Bringing Burial Spices- This happened fast.

It’s also helpful to understand that they have gone to the tomb to prepare Jesus body for burial three days after he had died.

We have been looking ahead to this cross and this empty tomb moment for 40 days, so we might lose sight of how quickly this happened for Jesus and his followers.

On Thursday morning, he was fine.

By Friday at 3:00, he was dead.

After they buried him in Joseph of Arimathia’s tomb, it was so late that they had to go home without doing the traditional Jewish burial rites.

The next day being the Sabbath, they weren’t allowed to do them then.

So this really is the first chance they’ve had to mourn.

Now, the women walk to the tomb with a pretty basic assumption in mind:

Dead people tend to stay dead.

Once again, we have to kind of recognize that if we’ve grown up with the Jesus story our whole lives that we might miss how disorienting things are.

They find the tomb open and the body gone.

I’m betting they had a few questions on their mind, huh?

Body Snatchers?

Rome plotting something?

Are they at the wrong tomb somehow?

Eventually they discover two men standing in bright clothing.

Luke doesn’t call them Angels, but we can make some assumptions, right?

And this is where things get interesting.

These men have a question for the women:

Why do you look for the living among the dead?

On the one hand, this is a totally reasonable question for the angels.

Jesus has told them a couple of times actually at this point that he was going to rise again after the third day.

But either these women weren’t listening, or they didn’t understand, or maybe something of both.

So the angels are a little surprised to see them here.

Why would you look for Jesus in this place? He’s outta here!

It’s a totally reasonable question for the angels.

But the reality is, we do this all the time don’t we?

When you are addicted to something, you are looking for the living among the dead.

There may be a momentary high, a false feeling of life.

But ask any recovering addict and they’ll tell you for sure, the death of addiction is no place to look for a source of life.

What feels like life is actually killing you.

When you think your chosen political party has more power to save than God does, you are looking for the living among the dead.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with supporting a politician.

But in the last couple of elections I’ve noticed that a lot of folks put so much faith and trust in a particular candidate or party or ideology to make the world better that it kind of reminds me of what our faith in God is supposed to look like.

People who have staked their whole livelihoods on gaining your vote aren’t as interested in making the world a better place as we might think they are.

Especially when God has told us that he’s on our side always and constantly, when Jesus has told us he’s here to save us, when Jesus has told us that his way of life is the best way to live,

Why would we look for the living Christ among the dead political parties and power grabs of our world?

When the only way you can find your own self worth is to put others down, you are looking for the living among the dead.

I was asked to present something about bullies in high school a while back.

You know bullies, right?

These are folks who only know how to feel good about themselves by putting other people down.

They somehow assume that by knocking someone down a few pegs on the ladder means that they got taller.

And they’re on each and every school campus in America, of this I am certain.

But you know bullies aren’t just for kids, right?

There are some people who only find their self worth in making someone feel worse.

There are some people who can only get ahead by making someone else fall behind.

There are some people who’s only taste of life is in someone else’s misfortune, another form of death.

Why would you look for the living among the dead like that?

When you try to white knuckle your way through life on your own power, you are looking for the living among the dead.

I have seen so many people in my office time and time again who think that the only way to live life is to do it under your own power.

They think that they have to work to earn their salvation.

They think that their worth comes from the things they’ve done.

They think that life is only available to those who are worthy.

They think that no one is going to help them if they won’t help themselves.

And almost every person I know who is like that is worn out, tired, weary, and exhausted.

Why…why…why…why would you look for the living among the dead.

Christ is the Living One

The contrast of course is where we find life.

Christ isn’t in the tomb because he’s alive!

Christ isn’t like the quick hit of a drug, he is eternal life.

Christ isn’t like the imagined power of our political system, he’s the king of kings.

Christ isn’t interested in condemning or putting other people down, Christ is interested in raising us up!

Christ isn’t in the buisness of watching us try and try and try and try, he’s in the buisness of offering us grace upon grace upon grace, and doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Jesus Christ is not just a great moral teacher.

Jesus Christ is not just a role model for us to mimic.

Jesus Christ is not just some cultural icon.

Jesus Christ is not a weapon to prove our worldview is the right one.

Jesus Christ is, was, and always will be the Living, Resurrected One.

Jesus Christ is the source of life!

None of this made sense then.

Luke uses an absolutely incredible pair of words in this story.

He says that the women were “aporeo”, which means to be “In a confused state of mind,”

which is probably where we’d all be if we approached a tomb, found angels, and a missing body.

I like this one even more!

He says Peter was “thaumazo” which is to be extraordinarily impressed or disturbed by something.

In Peter’s case, maybe all at the same time.

Resurrection sure is impressive, but also maybe a little bit upsetting!

None of this situation made any sense to the people who were witnessing it in Luke’s telling.

It might not make much sense now.

There are those who would tell you that this is all a fairy tale.

There are those who would continue to (reasonably) contend that the dead don’t rise up, they stay dead.

There are those who would tell you that there is no life in cold religion.

There are those who would tell you that the powers of this world are the only source of life.

There are those who would say that absolutely none of this makes sense.

And according to Luke, they’re in good company!

This is where preaching the Gospel comes in, and it might not look like you think.

This is where I point to recovering drug addicts who meet in our Church every week who would absolutely tell you they found life in the person of Jesus Christ, as God of their own understanding. They found the living among the life of Christ.

This is where I point to people who have come to discover that a life marked by kindness and joy and generosity is in fact a legitimately better way to live, because Jesus led us there. They found the living among the life of Christ.

This is where I point to miraculous healing stories, situations where even the doctors don’t know what happened or how it could possibly be, and the only explanation everyone walks away from is God was directly involved. They found the living among the life of Christ.

So many different instances of Christ at work in the world.

What would you tell us about Jesus?

How would you point us to the living among the resurrected Jesus?

How have you experienced resurrection?

You see, I get a pulpit and a fancy robe.

But each and every one of us bares responsibility for preaching the gospel.

He’s not here.

He’s not among the failures of our past.

He’s not among the attempts at finding life among the dead.

He’s not among the characters of religion our culture paints.

He’s not among those who are just in it for power and prestige.

He’s been raised.

He’s been raised in my life.

He’s been raised in yours.

He’s been raised everywhere we look.

Point.

Show.

Tell.

Apprentices

Find someone who can remind you of the truth.

Whenever people find out what I do for a living, it almost always leads to interesting conversations.

One of the biggest ones is when they find out I’m a pastor, there are so many people I’ve come across who defend why they don’t go to church.

I don’t need organized religion, I’m pretty good all on my own.

Church is just some stuffy social club.

The church is full of a bunch of judgemental and self righteous people.

My mom made me go when I was a kid, and I just hated it.

And my response to them is almost always the same.

If Church were really like that, I wouldn’t go either.

Those of us who call this place home know what church is really about.

Church is about reminding each other of all the times we’re looking for the living among the dead.

Church is about sitting together with each other when we are at our lowest moments, so that we are fully aware that we never walk the darkness alone.

And similarly, Church is about celebrating with each other on the mountain tops of life, rejoicing when things are at their best.

Church is about reminding each other of the tremendous and overwhelming love that Christ has for us.

If you don’t have a church home, if you don’t have a place where someone can remind you to not look for the living among the dead, then please know that you are very welcomed here.

Looking for the life of Christ everywhere you go.

But that’s not the same thing as saying that this place is the only place that we can experience Christ’s life-giving resurrection.

The life of Christ is available to you in the grocery store as much as it’s available to you in this room.

The life of Christ is available to you as much at the family reunion as it is under the steeple.

The life of Christ is available to you as much on Laundry day as it is here on Easter Sunday.

Sometimes, we keep looking for Jesus only in the familiar and sensical places.

Maybe it’s time to look for the life of Christ in the odd places, the places where no one would ever think to look.

Because Christ is resurrected for all time, and in all places, so there’s no where we can go where we are outside the bounds of his life giving love.

Know that all of this is for you.

There are some folks out there that believe that this is for a select few.

There are some folks out there who think that they are on the outside looking in.

And there are other folks out there who want to make other folks think their on the outside looking in.

Friends, hear me on this:

This resurrection of Christ is for you.

This love of Christ is for you.

This new life, not to be found among the dead but among the living, is for you.

It doesn’t matter what you’ve done.

It doesn’t matter where you’ve been.

It doesn’t matter what’s in your past.

It doesn’t matter what you think your future holds.

Christ’s love is for each and every one of you in this room.

Christ’s love is for each and every soul out there in the world.

Christ’s love is for the people you assume don’t have it.

Christ’s love is for the people you assume do.

Christ’s love is for each and every soul I’m looking at right now.

So my brother’s and sisters, don’t look for the living among the dead.

The risen and reigning Jesus Christ wants to make his life in you.