Why Do You Look for the Living Among the Dead?

“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” They were baffled, those faithful women. He had died on Friday afternoon, just as the Sabbath was beginning, so they couldn’t prepare his body. He had been executed as a criminal. They had to put him in a strange, unused tomb, then they rolled the big, round stone, the one that looked like a huge chariot wheel, over the entrance. It was done. The Light had gone out of their lives forever. But the women, those ever-faithful women, came back on the first day of the week to finally take care of his body. And they were baffled. The big round stone had been rolled away, his body was gone, and the two dazzling angels reminded them of what he had said: don’t you remember how he told you so early on that he would be executed, and that on the third day he would rise again? And they did remember! They did remember that he had indeed said all that! And so they told his friends! But, of course, since they were women, no one believed them. Except maybe Peter. He went running over there to see for himself, but even he couldn’t figure out what happened. He was baffled!

Are you also baffled? Most of us are. Someone rising from the dead absolutely defies reason! It just doesn’t happen! I’ve been to many funerals, and I never saw anyone come back to life in a new and different body, and neither probably did you. In dreams maybe, but not in a new and perfected body. The Resurrection is an absolutely unique event in human history. In the last two hundred years, we’ve all become such skeptics. If we didn’t see something with our own eyes, even though most of us know that even our own eyes are untrustworthy witnesses, if we ourselves didn’t see something, then it didn’t happen. Or, if we don’t have an absolutely convincing, water-tight historical record, then as far as we’re concerned an event didn’t happen. If science can’t replicate the event, then for sure it didn’t happen. We weren’t there, we didn’t see it happen, and we can’t fit it into the neat boxes of our limited, human reason, so how could the Resurrection have happened? Like the women and Peter, we are baffled. You may even wonder why you are here in a church celebrating such an unlikely event! You know this celebration is about more than bunnies, and springtime, and girls in new dresses. But what is this day really about?

Something happened the first day of that week so long ago! Jesus’ friends discovered that what he had promised them actually happened. He had fulfilled all his own prophecies. He had conquered death and was alive again in a new and different body. The experience of Jesus alive again was so powerful that his followers collected, treasured, remembered, and eventually wrote down all the eye-witness accounts of people who had seen Jesus alive again. Paul tells us that, besides Jesus’ closest friends, five hundred people saw him alive. Paul himself met Jesus on the road to Damascus. All of our Gospels record the testimony of those who found Jesus alive again. One of the many compelling accounts of Jesus’ showing himself to his disciples alive again was one we won’t hear this Easter tide. Perhaps you remember it. In the afternoon of the very same day that the women and Peter came away baffled from the empty tomb, two of Jesus’ friends were walking to the village of Emmaus, about six miles from Jerusalem. Jesus joined them, but, of course they didn’t recognize him. As they were sharing with him their grief over Jesus’ death, Jesus himself began to do Bible study with them, showing them how the Scripture was fulfilled in his Resurrection. When they got to Emmaus Jesus joined them at the table. As he broke and blessed the bread, suddenly they realized it was he! He disappeared from their sight, but they ran all the way back to Jerusalem to tell the others. They were no longer baffled!

Maybe you’re still baffled, but you’re also still here. Perhaps something in your heart still hopes that all those old stories are true. Despite all the skepticism of our age, perhaps in your heart of hearts you still long for resurrection! Actually, you may be surprised to learn that the historical and archeological evidence for the Jesus’ resurrection is quite strong. Taking into account what we know of ancient Jewish society and the remains of it that we have actually found, if there’s any shred of truth in the Gospel accounts, Jesus’ resurrection is the only convincing way to explain them. But history and archeology are not our primary evidence for the resurrection. Our primary evidence for the truth of the Resurrection is the lives that have been changed by encountering the risen Christ. Mary of Magdala and the other women became leading figures in the early Christian community. The men walking to Emmaus told others whose lives were also changed. Peter went from being an illiterate fisherman to a respected leader of a new community. Through his contact with the risen Christ, he became a dedicated and articulate spokesperson for the Way – as we will hear in our readings from the Book of Acts in the weeks to come. Paul was transformed from a persecutor of the fledgling Christian community to a tireless preacher to the Gentiles of the good news of the risen Christ.

What’s most important, the Resurrection has changed our lives! The Resurrection is not about “going to heaven.” In the resurrection we have evidence that the Enemy has been conquered, that God’s reign has begun. We are no longer bound hand and foot by the powers of this world or of the Enemy. We are no longer imprisoned in the depths of our own depressions, addictions, limitations and sinfulness. We are no longer hopeless. Rather, we look ahead to the even greater future that God has waiting for us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Yes, my sisters and brothers, the Resurrection is about the here and now in this world. Our own lives in this world have been changed by the Resurrection. Because of Jesus’ victory, we have eternal life, and the quality of our lives in this world has been changed forever. And God invites us, God invites us every day, not only on Easter, to partake of the blessings of God’s new world order, and to invite everyone we know to come into the community of God’s love. As we roll away the stone from our own hearts, as we spread the good news of life and hope, we encounter the risen Christ for ourselves. Out of death comes new life, and we are no longer baffled!

Out of death comes new life. A writer tells about a school teacher assigned to visit children in the hospital. She was called to visit a particular child. The child’s regular teacher told her, "We’re studying nouns and adverbs in this class now. I’d be grateful if you could help him with his homework, so he doesn’t fall behind the others." When the visiting teacher got to the boy’s room she realized she was in the hospital’s burn unit. No one had prepared her to find a young boy badly burned and in great pain. She didn’t want to just turn around and walk out, so she just said, "I’m the hospital teacher, and your teacher sent me to help you with nouns and adverbs." This boy was in so much pain that he barely responded. The young teacher stumbled through his English lesson, ashamed at putting him through such a senseless exercise. The next morning a nurse on the burn unit asked her, "What did you do to that boy?" Before the teacher could finish apologizing, the nurse interrupted her: "You don’t understand. We’ve been very worried about him. But ever since you were here yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He’s fighting back; he’s responding to treatment. It’s as if he has decided to live." The boy later explained that he had completely given up hope until he saw the teacher. It all changed when he came to a simple realization. With joyful tears, the boy said: "They wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a boy who was dying, would they?"

We are not baffled. We too have encountered the risen Christ. Even when all we see around us is pain and disappointment, and brokenness, we know that on the other side of pain there is resurrection. The great Easter truth is not that we are to live newly after death. That is not what we celebrate. We are to be new here and now by the power of the Resurrection. Our lives are transformed by the power of the Resurrection. “Let the whole world see and know,” we pray in the liturgy for Good Friday, “that things that were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new.” By the power of Christ’s Resurrection, it shall be so! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!