In the resurrection story, we get an Easter image as confounding as it is hopeful. Not only that Jesus is risen, but we still never expect it.
among the living and not the dead
Great Vigil of Easter | Luke 24:1-12
Disciples are taught to follow their rabbi. Literally. They walk, you walk behind them. They turn, you turn.
This is the position of which the writer’s remind us when Peter steps out from behind Jesus to stop him from going to Jerusalem. Jesus rebukes him saying, “Get behind me, Satan!” It is to say, Get back in place behind me, tempter!
That following, walking behind, observing and listening, brought them all over the region. Until it finally brought them to Jerusalem.
It must have been strange to see him teaching the crowds in the Temple and then going up to the Mount of Olives in the evening. Then that night, in the Garden. The Passover eaten, Jesus is arrested and Peter follows at a distance, to see him turn back at his denial.
He knows!
Only the women stuck around to watch it all. The crucifixion and his short suffering and death. To see where they took the body.
They spent years following behind him and now he’s gone.
The absence brings confusion.
Where do you look?
When your eyes have only ever looked forward? Where do they go? Who do they see?
When the rabbi has gone, where do you look for him?
Of course, the place is obvious. You look in the tomb. They laid him there at the end of the first day, rolling the boulder in front to wall him in.
That’s where you’d look for him. Where he was.
That’s why the angels’ question is so odd:
“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
Why? Are you serious? Because that’s where he was.
“He is not here, but has risen.”
So he somehow walked out?
Among the dead
It’s a provocative exchange because it isn’t the easiest way to say He isn’t here. Look somewhere else. They question why they are looking there.
Why? Because he died.
“Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”
In other words, Jesus told you he wouldn’t be here. So why are you looking here?
There’s a very literal truth to their response. It all makes the disciples look like they didn’t believe Jesus about the resurrection. Much like they didn’t believe him about the crucifixion.
But there’s another reason the phrase tickles our ears.
“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
It isn’t just about faith and logic.
The angels are asking them why they’re looking in the exact last place he would be. They’re looking for the living among the dead.
The unspoken next question is:
Why don’t you look for the living among the living?
And the reason is pretty simple. It isn’t about a lack of belief in Jesus. But in his mission.
They don’t believe they’ll find Jesus in the living world.
Belief
They’ve watched the man walk on water, make a few fish feed thousands, and shove a thousand evil spirits into a bunch of pigs. A little death-defying magic shouldn’t be so outside the realm of possibility.
So what we’re not talking about is belief in some wild Jesus power.
And the guy told him all about how this would happen, so it isn’t a 100% surprise.
So we’re not talking about belief that God could do something amazing. We’re talking about belief in God’s doing something so miraculous now.
And I can’t help but wonder if this lack of belief came because they heard Jesus without really listening to him.
As he was transforming the lives of thousands, healing and teaching, empowering and sending them out to do the same. He kept saying This is what the kin-dom is like.
He kept telling them that God frees the oppressed and rejoices at the lost becoming found.
Love your neighbor the very love that comes from God!
Show compassion and mercy on everyone.
It’s a picture of a flattened hierarchy and a generously shared power. A picture he keeps showing them and telling them: This is what we’re doing. This is what you’ll do without me.
Then sent them out into the world, to share and be and love like Jesus.
The Ends of the Earth
When Jesus walked into Jerusalem with great celebration and fanfare. The disciples and crowds made such a ruckus, the leaders feared retribution from Rome.
But Jesus didn’t stop them. They were doing precisely what they were supposed to do: proclaim the good news.
This is the Messiah. He has arrived to lead us out of the clutches of death and into the hands of the living.
How were they to know that Rome would execute him like a terrorist? Or more potently, that God would raise him from the dead like nothing happened?
They weren’t.
But…they knew where to take the good news. The authority given to them way back in chapters 9 & 10. To the ends of the earth.
They are looking in the wrong place for the risen Christ because the tomb is the last place they’d find him! Not just as a matter of logic! Or because of some metaphorical sense of truth.
God’s purview isn’t a culture of death.
It’s life. Among the living.
God stared at the human death machine and flicked it off like a bug. God doesn’t do death. God’s into life.
This is where you’ll find the risen Christ!
In those places the living are walking and working, breathing new life with loving hearts.
Christ isn’t on the cross any more than he is crucifying children.
He isn’t in the tomb any more than he’s shoveling children into freshly-dug graves.
God doesn’t crucify. God redeems the crucified. And that’s where we’ll find Christ. Among the redeemed. Crucified then, now risen.
Why do we look for the living among the dead?
Because we’re afraid to look among the living!
We are afraid to truly live risen like Christ!
Listen to Jesus when he says “Don’t be afraid!” He reminds us that we have what we need. Don’t worry about the words; they’ll come to us.
We’ve followed him here. All over the countryside, into towns and villages, cities and capitals. He’s shown us how to live and be, who to protect and who to confront, where to place our trust and with whom we should eat. We’ve followed him all the way into Jerusalem to face death and what did we find?
Death was there. But so was God.
We followed him to the cross and we weeped and we sat in our doubt and confusion and fury until this night, when the stone was rolled away and we find what? That we’re looking in the wrong place.
But…
We know where to look—not here among the dead. But out there in that same country, those same people, this same world we followed him through.
And when we walk those roads, we’ll see it. Not only the rigid culture of death, but growing through the cracks of the sidewalk what we always miss. The new life growing all around us.