Why seek the living among the dead?

 

Easter (Resurrection of our Lord) Luke 24:1-12

 The women came to care for the body of Jesus.  It was their horrible, loving duty.  But the stone was rolled away and His body was gone.  Of all the horrors of the week, now this. Then the annunciation of the two men in dazzling apparel – “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” He had been raised, just as He had told them that He would be! When the women told the disciples, it seemed to them an idle tale.  Peter, impulsive Peter, ran to see for himself, and went home amazed.

 We do not expect our heroes to die.  We expect them to vanquish the foe.  We expect that they will struggle against evil but overcome it in the end.  We expect that they will live to fight another day.  Jesus had died.  They lay His lifeless body in a tomb for later burial.  It was over.  All their hopes and dreams of a better world, ushered in by God’s Will through Jesus, were dashed.  All the teachings and declarations, the confrontations and signs and wonders, and all the miracles and lessons in life were over.  Jesus was dead.  Empire and those who flourished under it, had won.

 But wait!  The tomb was empty! Angels!  A new declaration!  A new miracle!  Jesus was not dead, but had been risen from the dead!  What does it mean?

 What it means is that God’s victory was one over evil in the political and ecclesiastical realms, but not only in them.  God’s victory is over sin and death itself!  Someone had to pay the price for sin.  Jesus did that.  He who knew no sin, took sin to its death with Him on the Cross!  Sin no longer wins!  Humanity can live lives of Love and Grace with one another, because sin does not hold us in bondage any longer!  We can live in bold certainty of God’s Love and Grace because sin has been defeated, along with the fruit of sin – death.

The ideologies of empire and Kingdom clashed on Jesus' Triumphal Entry in Jerusalem.  But the Will of God, the Way of God, the Way of Jesus, the Way of Love and Grace wins!  God triumphs, through the death of Jesus!  God triumphs over division, destruction, oppression, injustice, inequality, inequities, greed, abuses of power, false supremacy, hatred and war!  The ways of empire lose, in the end.  God wins because love wins.

 Even death, our greatest enemy does not win!  That which many of us still hold as our greatest fear has been conquered!  Jesus took it out!  Death is now something else for us – NOT uncertainty about what comes next or of what our plight will be because of sin, but by God’s Grace, death is but the gateway to everlasting life with God!  It has lost its sting!  It no longer holds sway over us!  It is just something to go through in order for us to be with God and for eternity in a state of well-being, completeness and wholeness with the source of Love and Joy and Peace!  It is but a portal to that new life!

 The worst thing that can happen to us is that we die.  In Christ Jesus, that is not even a defeat.  It is life for us.  All those who are struggling to survive across the world, who are in a living hell of famine, war, oppression, violence, addiction, poverty and hopelessness have a Lord who has gone through those things, and who identifies with them!  This is not a God who is far off and detached from humanity, but one who has come to experience our greatest temptations, our injustices, our suffering and even our death!  This Lord sustains us by being with us in our struggles in life.  Where is God in the midst of all the suffering of the world?  On the Cross, with us in it.  Our hope is in the teachings of this Lord, who calls us to the living of Agape Love with one another and a better world because of it.  Our victory is in a Lord who took on even our death for us, to conquer our sin, so that we could have His resurrection and life eternal with God!

 So, why would we seek the living Lord among the dead things of the world?  Why would we just claim the name and then embrace the things that produce the suffering, violence, injustice, oppression, poverty, hopelessness and even death of our sisters and brothers in the world?  Why would we just claim the name of Jesus and then NOT live what Jesus taught, commanded and modeled for us in the living of Agape Love?  Our seeking of the Lord in the midst of those things is like going to a tomb to look for someone who is alive!  Those are not the things of the Living Lord, but the things of a dead one!  Our Lord cannot be found among the things of death and destruction, but in the things of life and living!

 We have a God who commands us to transform the world in love, who is with us in the struggles because of a lack of that love, and who has already given us the final victory over ALL OF IT by dying for us and being raised for us!  We go where Christ Jesus goes!  In life, we go where Jesus went in how we live with one another, in the struggles of life we go with Jesus to the Cross and in the end, we go to be with Jesus for eternity!  Our hope is in our endurance in believing in Jesus and Jesus’ Way for us to be in the world – the Way of Agape Love and Grace, even or especially in the midst of the suffering we must endure because of the ways of death and destruction!  Our hope is not in human invention or initiative or the ways of empire in the world, but in the Way of Jesus that transforms the world to be in alignment with God’s Will for us!  Our hope is that, even in the suffering, or especially in the suffering, we have a Lord who identifies with us and all those who are suffering!  Our hope is in a Lord who has conquered even death for us, to give us an eternity of well-being, Love, Joy and Peace – the very things that He taught us to produce in this part of God’s Kingdom, here and now, by the living of Agape Love and Grace!

 Jesus took on our frailty, hunger, homelessness, injustices, suffering and even death.  Jesus taught us God’s better way for all humanity.  Jesus took sin to its death and conquered death itself!  He died our death to give us His resurrection!  As He is raised from the dead, so will we be raised!  By God’s Grace in Love, WE have a promise of life everlasting in Jesus our Lord!

 Why do you seek the living Lord among the dead things?  He is Risen!  He is risen, indeed!