What Are You Looking For?
based on Luke 24:1-12
by Rev. Karen Goltz

            “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  It’s a good question.  Jesus himself had told them what was to happen to him, and that on the third day he would rise again.  And here it was, the third day, and the women were in the cemetery, carrying the spices used for treating a dead body.  They weren’t looking for the living Christ; they were seeking a corpse they could treat with respect, bury properly, and then leave in the tomb marking his final resting place as a remembrance of him.  Similar to our modern cemeteries today, they probably expected to return again and again to that tomb, to remember Jesus’ life, to feel close to him, and to miss him.

            We hear the story so often and know it so well, it’s easy for us to sit back and snicker at the women and the other disciples for their lack of faith.  Of course Jesus had risen from the dead; he was the Son of God.  That should have been made clear by all the miracles he’d performed, and of course they should have believed him when he’d said he would rise from the dead.  But we have an advantage; we have two millennia of people telling the story, believing it enough to pattern their lives according to it, and passing it down from generation to generation, to billions upon billions of people over the centuries.  It’s old news to us.

            But to the women and the other disciples, it wasn’t a story.  It was their reality.  Imagine it.  You’ve been following this man for months, maybe years, believing that he was the long awaited Messiah.  He’s supposed to save Israel and make her be a light to the nations.  But then you see him captured, and killed.  Dead.  No pulse.  No extraordinary measures available to bring him back.  He’s dead, and placed in a tomb, and left there for days.  Despite what you may have believed, despite what he may have told you about himself, death seems pretty final.  So you make yourself get used to the idea that this man, no matter how much you loved and admired him, was in the end just a man, and now a dead one, at that.  Try to imagine yourself accepting the death of a loved one, a death that you yourself witnessed, only to find that the plot they’d been buried in was now empty.  Is your first thought resurrection?  Probably not.  You think either grave robbers or vandals, or maybe you’re so discombobulated that you can’t think of an explanation at all, and you just stand there, perplexed and confused.

            Now if you’re standing there and two men in dazzling clothes suddenly appear out of thin air and tell you that he is risen, you might be a little more open to a crazy idea like a dead man being alive again.  But if you’re at home in mourning, and a few of your distraught family members or friends come in and tell you the same thing, would you believe them?  Be honest now.  Your distraught cousins, who were so scarred by witnessing the death that they’ve been hysterical all weekend, return from the cemetery and tell you that the person you saw die isn’t really dead.  Most of us wouldn’t believe them; we’d call and make an appointment for them with a grief counselor.  It’s not healthy to live in that kind of fantasy world; you have to accept the reality that you live in a hard, unfair world, and deal with the facts of the day.

            But here’s where the disciples have an advantage over us.  In the verses that come after today’s gospel reading, Jesus himself appears to the disciples.  As hard as it is to argue with the finality of death, it’s harder still to argue with the dead person standing in front of you three days after the deed was done.

            The two millennia of people telling the story now work against us.  It was so long ago.  They were a backwards, superstitious people existing without the benefits of the enlightenment and modern science.  Miracles can be explained.  And more importantly, stories get changed in the telling.  Maybe an idle tale born out of wishful thinking got told so many times that it morphed from “if only it had happened” to “it really happened.”  Isn’t that much more believable?

            “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  In other words, “why are you here?  This is not where you’re going to find what you’re looking for.”  What are you looking for?  And where are you looking for it?  Some are looking for comfort, some for answers, some for guidance, and some don’t know what they’re seeking; they only know that something’s missing from their lives.  And when all else fails, they come to these buildings that seem like monuments built to remember a crazy story.  I mean, when nothing else works, a lot of us are willing to give crazy stories a chance.

            I loved the TV show 24 when it was on.  Trust me, this will tie in.  In one episode, a tough guy who seems to wrap himself in rules and regulations to justify some pretty unscrupulous actions does something very much out of character for him; he breaks the rules himself cover up a serious mistake made by a man he hates, and who hates him back just as much.  When a Muslim woman who works there questions his actions, he quotes her a verse.  She recognizes the verse and says, quite incredulously, “You’ve read the Koran.”  He replies, “And the Bible, and the Talmud,” and he goes on to list virtually every sacred text ever written for any religion.  He then tells the woman, “You’re fortunate; you’ve already found your answers.  I’m still looking for mine.”

            Like many of us, he was ready to give every crazy, ancient story he could find a chance, because nothing else was working.

            The problem is, stories aren’t the answer.  They can give us information, but information is not what we’re seeking.  “He is not here, but has risen.”  The living Christ is not locked inside the pages of a book, no matter how sacred, nor is his residence Joy in Christ Lutheran Church.  The living Christ is not in here, but out there, in the world, working in, with, and through people and events.  The Bible gives us information about Christ our Lord, and Joy in Christ Lutheran Church, along with the other Christian churches, can help us to interpret that information, but all that is to help us see him in our lives.  We worship God in Christ here, and we interpret the information we get from the Bible here, but he is not here.  At least, he’s not here any more so than he’s anywhere else.

            Earlier in the service we sang, “Jesus Christ is Risen Today.”  Note the tense.  He is risen.  We didn’t sing, “Jesus Christ rose two thousand years ago.”  Big deal.  What does something that happened two thousand years ago have to do with us?  But it’s not a mere historical event we were singing about.  It’s our present reality.  Jesus Christ is risen.  Today.  And every day!  Every Sunday is a little Easter.  Every Sunday we worship the Christ who is risen, and every Sunday we try to interpret the story in light of how God in Christ is working in our lives throughout the week.  Because God in Christ is working in our lives throughout the week.  Alleluia!

            “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  I won’t go so far as to equate the church with the dead.  I’m not saying that at all.  But I am saying that Jesus is not locked up inside a book or a building anymore than he was locked up inside the tomb.  He is risen.  He is alive.  He’s walking with his disciples on the road to Emmaus; he’s guiding them in the upper room.  He’s on every road, in every room, walking with every one of us, guiding every one of us.  The book and the building can, should, and do help us understand what all that means, but you needn’t come looking for him here; he’s already found you out there.  Amen.