Luke 24:1-12
April 17. 2022
“Why do you look for the living
among the dead?”
The Dead Sea is a dead place. It is
a hypersaline body of water. Its intense concentration of sodium chloride and
mineral salts make it perfect for therapeutic mud baths and peaceful floating,
but it does not support animal or aquatic life. To go fishing in the Dead Sea
would be as foolish as trying to sunbathe in Mammoth Cave or go water skiing in
a mud puddle. The Dead Sea is a dead place. That’s it. There’s no more to it.
Except … it isn’t completely dead.
I spent a quiet hour walking the
shoreline of the Dead Sea, and I would never have questioned it being anything
but devoid of life. Until I met two Palestinian children who showed me that
there were tiny creatures surviving at the point where the water and the shore
met. The Dead Sea is a dead place, but at its edges, life persists.
“Why do you look for the living
among the dead?”
When the two dazzlingly dressed me
asked the women this question, the women went from being terrified at their
presence in the tomb where Jesus had lain to understandably confused. Where
else should they look for Jesus? After all, dead is dead. What are those two
certainties of life? Death and taxes. And the women were certain that
their teacher was dead. They knew what had happened to him two days before.
They were certain that Jesus’ lifeless body was placed in that tomb, so the
question these strange men in their dazzling clothes asked was pointless. Dead
is dead.
But the messengers knew otherwise.
Jesus is risen. The tomb could not hold him. Death could not contain or restrain
him. He was resurrected. He lives. He is risen. He is risen indeed.
Luke does not describe the way in
which the women went to tell the disciples what they had seen and heard, but I
suspect they ran. I think they must have sprinted back to the disciples with
this incredible news.
“He is alive! The Rabbi is alive!
The stone is rolled away! The tomb is empty! Jesus is alive!”
But instead of jumping up and
joining the women in their exultation, the disciples dismissed their story as
“an idle tale.” This is a rather watered-down translation. What we read as
“idle tale” in English is a translation of the Greek word, leros. We get
our word delirious from leros. The disciples thought the woman’s
story was nothing more than hysteria, nonsense, foolishness, ludicrous and
outlandish. What the women said was nuts!
The women’s story about Jesus being
alive was hysterical nonsense to the disciples. After all, dead is dead. Jesus
was crucified. He took his last breath on that cross. They all saw it. They
knew it for a fact. So what foolishness was this story that the women told? It
was nonsense. They must be delirious. Dead is dead, and Jesus was dead. Except
…
“Why do you look for the living
among the dead?”
You know the interesting thing about
language is that the same words in the same sentence structure can take on
entirely new meanings with just a slight twist in punctuation, or with a
different inflection or tone.
The question those men asked of the
women, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” conveyed
their incredulity that the women did not already comprehend the truth that
Jesus had been resurrected. But change the inflection, modify the tone, and the
intent of the question changes.
“Why do you look for
the living among the dead?
Try to explain to someone why your faith is grounded in the story of a
fully human man who was also fully divine, brutally executed, was really,
really dead for three days, then was resurrected into new life, and because of
that we also have new life, and you might get asked this very same question
with this very same tone.
“Why do you look for
the living among the dead?”
The angelic messengers were
incredulous that the women didn’t already get it that Jesus was resurrected. A
whole lot of other folks are incredulous that we believe that he is. An idle
tale indeed. But truth be told, there are times when I wonder why I persist at
believing in the resurrection. Surely this must be an idle tale. Certainly, I
need to stop looking for the living among the dead because dead is dead. Death
and its sorrow seem to permeate every corner of this broken world of ours. War
and violence rage on. People are hungry. Children are dying. The pandemic has
taken the lives of millions of people around the globe. And even if we are not
hungry or sick or actively dying, we still live in a constant state of us
versus them. If ever there were a people in need of resurrection, we are. But
death seems to be the undeniable consequences of our brokenness, our
destructive violence, our enmity, our sin. So, I cannot help but admit that it
is a struggle to live as an Easter person, as a person whose hope is firmly
grounded in the resurrection and its promises, because death seems more
persistent than life.
Someone once told me that the
definition of sin is this, “I was always on my mind.”
We are always on our minds and death
is persistent. Some days it is far too easy to dismiss the resurrection as an
idle tale. It seems prudent and wiser to shrug our shoulders or change the
subject when someone asks,
“Why
do you look for the living among the dead?’
But
here’s the thing about resurrection. We can’t prove it. Even the people we read
about in scripture don’t try to prove it. They attest to those who witnessed
it, but there is no mention of proof. There is no explanation of what happened
in that tomb. There is only the assertion that something happened because Jesus
is risen. So, if the gospel writers, if the disciples, if Paul cannot prove the
resurrection, then it is futile for us to try. Yet, here is the good news. We
don’t have to. Proven the resurrection is not the point. Coercing others to
believe it is not the point. All we can do is witness to what we have seen, to
what we have experienced. When we are feeling most unsure about what the
disciples dismissed as an idle tale, we need to search our memories for those
times when we have witnessed life arising from death. When the angelic
messengers asked their question of the women that early morning, the women
remembered. The women remembered what Jesus had told them. They remembered the
promise he made. So, we need to remember as well.
On
this Easter day, when have you experienced God’s grace? When have you witnessed
God’s kindness in action? When have you felt God’s hand on your shoulder? When
have you most firmly and unflinchingly believed that Jesus is risen because you
have witnessed or lived into that new life? When has God’s love filled you so
completely, so surely, that death and its consequences had no room to seep in.
The consequence of our brokenness may be death – death of hope, death of faith,
death of kindness – but the consequence of Love is what we proclaim this day.
The consequence of Love, of God’s Love, is that ultimately the grave does not
win. Death does not have the final word.
On
this Easter day and on every day, may the good news of the gospel ring out! The
consequence of Love, of God’s Love for us and for all creation is new hope, new
joy, new life in abundance. The consequence of Love is that Jesus is risen! He
is risen indeed!
Let
all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!”
Amen!
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