Why Do You Look for the Living Among the Dead?
Luke 24:1-12
Let’s talk resurrection. The Bible presents us with four versions of what happened at the tomb that first Easter morning. Not one…four. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each tell the story in their own way and highlight different aspects of it. It’s as if the mystery of the resurrection is such that no one account can fully capture all its glory and wonder.
The accounts all differ in the details. For example, who were the women who came to the tomb to anoint the body—Mary Magdalene by herself (John), Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James (Matthew and Mark), or Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, plus Joanna and other women who are mentioned but not named (Luke)?
Was the stone covering the tomb already rolled away when the women arrived (Mark, Luke, and John), or did an angel come and roll it away in their presence (Matthew)?
Was there just one angel (Matthew and Mark), or were there two (Luke and John)?
When the disciples learn that the tomb is empty, do they go rushing to the tomb to see for themselves (Luke and John), or do they later meet the risen Jesus in Galilee (Matthew and Mark)?
Yet despite all the differences, one thing that all four Gospel accounts of the resurrection have in common is that no one was expecting it. No one! Not Peter, James, or John nor any of the other disciples who abandoned Jesus. Not the chief priests and elders who accused him. Not Pilate who condemned him. Not the Roman soldiers who crucified him. Not the bystanders who jeered him. And not the women who went to the tomb on the first day of the week, at early dawn, taking the spices they had prepared.
The reason the women went to the tomb with spices was to mask the smell of death. They fully expected to find in the tomb Jesus’ lifeless body. The first indication they have that something out of the ordinary has happened is when they approach the tomb and see that the large stone that had covered the entrance has been rolled away. Upon entering, they see no trace of the body. In the place where his body should be there is…nothing.
Let’s note that the women’s reaction is not one of joy. They don’t immediately think that an empty tomb is proof that Jesus has been raised from the dead. Rather than joyful, Luke writes that the women were perplexed. Perhaps someone has moved the body. But who? And why? And yet, what other explanation could there be? Dead bodies don’t just get up and walk around.
Again, no one was expecting the resurrection. None of the disciples, not even Peter, race to the tomb with excitement first thing in the morning like children on Christmas morning rushing to see the presents beneath the tree. The disciples are absent, because as far as they are concerned, Jesus is dead and buried and gone from their lives forever. The women believe that as well. They have come to the tomb to place spices around a corpse.
But instead of a corpse they encounter not one but two bodies who are very much alive. The bodies belong to what Luke describes as “two men.” But these are no ordinary men, as indicated by their “dazzling,” angelic attire. Another indication of their unearthly origin is that upon seeing the men, the women are struck with terror and bow their faces to the ground. In Luke’s Gospel, fear and terror is the typical response to an encounter with an angel.
But fear and terror must give way to wonder. And it’s wonder—not fear or terror—that the angels want to inspire in the women. That’s why the’ve come. They’ve come as messengers bearing good news, news that is almost too wondrous for the human mind to take in. Perhaps that’s why they phrase it as a question: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
That question changes the focus from the empty tomb to the one who was crucified, died, and was buried but who somehow lives. An empty tomb in and of itself proves nothing. Again, when the women find the tomb empty, their first thought isn’t, “Well, if Jesus’ body isn’t here, that means he must have been raised from the dead. Hallelujah! Let’s go tell the disciples!”
Instead, they are perplexed. They are confused. They are concerned. For them, an empty tomb just means that someone must have moved the body.
But the question “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” suggests that the real story is not the empty tomb but the living Christ. “He is not here,” the angels tell the women. Not because someone has moved the body but because “he has risen.” The one who was crucified, the one who died, the one who was buried has risen.
As impossible, as incredible, as earth-shaking as this claim is, it’s hardly new information. The angels aren’t telling the women anything that they haven’t already heard from the mouth of Jesus. “Remember how he told you,” they say, “while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to the hands of sinners and be crucified and on the third day rise again.” Remember!
Three times Jesus had told his disciples that he was going to be crucified. The final time occurs shortly before he enters Jerusalem:
31 Then he took the twelve aside and said to them, “Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. 32 For he will be handed over to the gentiles, and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon. 33 After they have flogged him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise again” (Luke 18:31-33).
That sounds pretty clear! I don’t know that Jesus could be any more explicit. He’s not leaving a lot of room for interpretation. But then Luke says of the disciples that “they understood nothing about all these things; in fact, what he said was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said” (Luke 18:34).
They did not grasp what was said. They could not or they would not understand this talk about dying and rising again. In fact, never mind being raised from the dead, the disciples never expected Jesus to be crucified! I mean, a crucified savior? As far as they understood, that was never the plan. That’s certainly not what any of them believed they were signing up for when they became Jesus’ disciples. And it explains why when he was crucified they all—to a man—abandoned him. They wanted nothing to do with a crucified savior. Crucifixion meant death, and there’s no coming back from death. Death is final.
Such was the way things were from the dawn of human history until the dawn of that first Easter morning when a new reality was revealed by a simple question: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” Why do you look for a dead body when he has risen, just as he said he would?
It’s Jesus’ birth that divides time, BC from AD, but it is his resurrection that marks an even more significant division in time. There was the time that came before Jesus was raised from the dead—an era in which death had the final say over every human life—and there is the time in which we now live, i.e., the time of resurrection. After the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, death still speaks, but it no longer has the last word. That word now belongs to Jesus Christ, the one whom God raised from the dead.
True, death is not yet destroyed, as it one day will be when Jesus returns in glory, but it is defeated. What power death still holds over human life and over creation is transitory. Death’s days are numbered while yours and mine and those of our risen Savior Jesus Christ are infinite. This is no idle tale; this is the new reality.
I began by describing how the four Gospels differ over the details of the resurrection, but let me underline again what they share in common—no one was expecting the resurrection. Even when the women tell the disciples about the empty tomb and the words of the angels, what do the disciples do? They dismiss the women’s story as an idle tale. “Oh, come on! That’s impossible. You sound hysterical. Don’t waste our time with this nonsense about resurrection. Let’s not kid ourselves. We all know that death is final.”
Absent Jesus’ appearing to them in the flesh, the disciples still don’t believe. As told in the Gospel of Matthew, even when the risen Jesus appears before their very eyes, some of them still doubt. They still doubt!
And so do we. As we prayed in the prayer of confession, even in the midst of resurrection, we still look for the living among the dead. We live as though Jesus were still in the tomb, as though our hope were buried with him. We live as though our greatest hope were not already a reality. Jesus Christ is risen, and your life will never be the same!
Just look at Peter. Peter had three times denied even knowing Jesus, just as Jesus predicted that he would. Peter’s denial of Jesus was a kind of death. He died to the man that he thought he was. The man who had boldly asserted at the Last Supper that even if all others fell away, he would never fall away. That man died.
But when Peter hears the women’s story, it seems to him no idle tale. He gets up—he is resurrected—and he runs to the tomb as fast as he can because…my God…what if everything the women said is true? For Peter, it would mean that his denial of Jesus would not be his legacy. It would mean that he wouldn’t be defined by his failure, by his worst and weakest moment.
What would it mean for you? What does it mean for you?