Why Do You Look For the Living Among the Dead?

Luke 24:1-12  But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 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.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

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In Cuba, we once talked our tour guide into stopping at a cemetery, because we were curious about it.  She finally agreed and instructed the driver to stop.  He was surprised and dubious.  Why would we want to spend time in the cemetery?  When we got out of the bus our Cuban guides were scandalized that we wanted to walk among the tombs.  This was unseemly.   We were somewhat aware that we were breaching a cultural taboo.  But we were too curious to care about it.

The cemetery in Cuba looked much like the cemeteries in New Orleans that you might have seen in pictures or films.  The tombs are above ground.  Walking around them we noticed that the backs of some tombs are open.  Inside you can see the bones of the buried. 

It was clear that families visit the tombs of their loved ones from the evidence they left.  In this country we are used to seeing bouquets of flowers left in front of gravestones.  In Cuba the offerings were more diverse.  People would leave food or trinkets that they perhaps thought their loved ones would need or want to have.  But why?  Bones have no need of food.  Bones don’t read books or play with games or wear clothing.

Why were people leaving things in the cemetery that could only be of use to the living?   Were they looking for life among the dead?  It would seem so.  It looked as though these people were expecting that – even though their loved ones were now only dry bones – they were still, in some sense, alive.

The women who visited Jesus’ tomb early this morning had none of those kinds of expectations.  They only wanted to care for the body of their beloved – to honor his body and their religious duty. 

It had been a pretty horrible week.  These are the women who, we are told, have been with him from the early days, back in Galilee.  They have traveled with him, caring for him, supporting him in any way they could.  They have been privileged to hear his teaching and to witness his signs and wonders.  They were there when he was arrested, tried, and crucified.  They followed him as he dragged his cross up the hill.  They bore witness to his crucifixion; they stood vigil that day while he died.  They were there until the end.

I can imagine that it must have been an unbearably mournful Sabbath for them.  They thought about the devastating loss, and about the one thing they could still do for him – wash and anoint his body for the grave.

They did not go looking for the living on this early resurrection morning. 

And so what they found at the garden was something they had no way of understanding.  A gaping, open, empty tomb.  Two strange, dazzling men.  A puzzling question: why do you look for the living among the dead?

At that moment, they began to have their entire worldview reframed.  He who was dead now lives.  He is king not of this world but of eternity.  In dying, he has defeated death and given us life.  Life!  He has given us, in exchange for the life that ends in death, a new life eternal.  For, as the Apostle Paul said, “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”  This small life is nothing compared to the life he fought for us to have.  He lived and died and went through hell to prove to us that death is not the final word. 

Why look among the dead when this fullness of life has been given to us?  Why choose to live among death, dry bones, when Christ has given us a window straight through death and into life? 

Why choose to live a life that is small and limited by the conventions and expectations of this world, when we have had a glimpse into the kingdom of heaven?  A realm where love reigns supreme.  And we don’t have to wait for it.  We can choose this life today, and every day.

Christ has opened the door for us to enter the life of eternity, and we are challenged to begin living this moment, this day.  Not tomorrow or sometime in the future, but this day. 

Let our every breath from this moment on say, “Christ is risen!”  He is risen indeed.