Looking for the Living Among the Living Preached at Wollaston Congregational Church On April 21st, 2019 Scripture: Luke 24:1-12 There’s a meme that has been showing up on my social media feed recently. It resembles and church sign, and says: “In the interests of biblical accuracy, all the preaching about the resurrection this Easter Sunday will be done by women.” It didn’t take long from someone to comment “and no one will believe them.” And so, I will preach about the resurrection this Easter morning … and perhaps you will believe what I say, perhaps you will not. If not, don’t worry, I’m used to it. My invitation for you today is to listen for the deeper truth in the story I tell and to ponder, where might we look for the risen, living Jesus? And so the story begins. Women go to the tomb very early in the morning on that first day of the week, while it is still dark. These are the women who have been traveling with Jesus all the way from Galilee to Jerusalem, over the past months. They bring spices that they have prepared. It is their earliest opportunity to care for Jesus’ body, following the Sabbath. They are doing the right thing in their grief, coming to prepare the body of their loved one for burial. When they arrive at the tomb they immediately see that things are not as they expect them to be. The large stone that was sealing the cave has been rolled away. They go in and discover that the body is not there. They are confused, but don’t have much time to ponder the mystery. Two men in dazzling clothes suddenly appear in front of them. The women bow down to the ground in terror, but the men ask a question: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” and then they deliver unbelievable news “He is not here, but has risen.” They remind the women of what Jesus told them in Galilee, that he would be handed over, crucified and on the third day rise again. At this the women go to tell the other disciples this news, but the men do not believe them. Peter dismisses their words as an idle tale. Still, he is curious enough to go and look for himself. And so he runs to the tomb where he finds only the linen cloths Jesus was buried in. The men in dazzling clothes – angels, we assume – asked the women a strange question: “why do you look for the living among the dead?” It is strange because, after all, they were not looking for the living. They had come to embalm Jesus’ dead body. They had come to grieve their loss and do the right thing. They were not looking for anything other than what they left here on Friday evening. These messengers of God totally reorient the women’s thinking. The message is good news … remember all that he told you? Look for the living among the living. The women need to be reminded of what Jesus said, and we need to be reminded too. We might ask ourselves the same question: why do we look for the living among the dead? I’ve noticed just these last days of Lent how easy it is to slip into being forgetful. Even though we’ve had more than 2,000 years of reminders, collectively. Even though I have lived many Easters myself. I still need to be reminded to look for the living among the living. It is too easy for me to see fear, violence and anger, every way I turn. I notice angry drivers, fast and erratic. I notice hardened faces and sour looks. I notice men who leer at women in the street. I notice the self-absorption of my fellow travelers, focused on devices, unwilling to smile or make eye contact. It has been too easy for these things to become my focus, and for them to raise my hackles of anxiety. The angel’s message helps me to reset my default. It helps me to start looking out for the things that are life giving. The angels’ message redirects my sights toward tender, loving scenes … children in the park who have begun their spring sports, running and catching, cheering one another on … the gentle elder, who stoops to pay attention to a wriggly child in a stroller … … persons of different ethnicity who treat one another courteously and with respectful curiosity. Just the other day I sat at a communal table in a local coffee shop and there I met a man from Minnesota who told me an amazing story. He and his wife founded an organization that rescues dogs and gently retrains them become service animals for people with disabilities, such as autism and epilepsy. He had brought a dog he had been training all the way from St Paul to be adopted by a family in Boston. He was grabbing a cup of coffee while the new family had time to get acquainted with the dog. The organization gives new life and purpose to the rejected dogs, and the dogs provide life-giving support for their new owners. A win-win! And yet the question remains: Why do we so often look for the living among the dead? I suspect we humans are like the women who followed Jesus. Generally we are not looking for the living Jesus. Generally we are not looking for anything at all, other than for things to be the way we left them. And yet, if Jesus has been at work, if the living have been among us, things will not be as we left them. Time and again I am surprised when bursts of life have rearranged things here in the church. On Wednesday I came to work expecting most of our space to be as usual for a weekday morning: quiet and empty. Instead of that, wonderful musical theater melodies from the Greatest Showman drifted down the stairs. And the stomping feet of dancing, reverberated in the church office. Laughter and chatter was coming from the social hall which was marked out ready for a performance. The children’s musical theater group was holding a vacation camp, of course. I had forgotten. I had come expecting emptiness and quiet. These signs of life in our church provide another opportunity find the living among the living. The invitation for us, today for you and for me, is to seek out the living in our daily lives. We are not to ignore of deny the troubles of the world, grief and death, but we are prompted set our focal point on the places we might find the living Jesus. In school, at work, on our daily walk or run, on the bus or subway, in our neighborhoods, we are invited to look for signs of the living. We are invited to notice when things are not as we expected, when they are not as we left them. The season of Lent is over, and the season of Easter lasting for 50 days has just begun. Perhaps this is the challenge for us these next 50 days. The story we heard from the gospel of Luke this morning begins at the empty tomb, with the two men in dazzling clothes. We do not even meet the risen Jesus in this episode. Later in the chapter we will hear of the two disciples traveling the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and meeting Jesus along the way. They travel along the road with him and invite him to dinner at their destination, still thinking he is a stranger. It is only when he breaks bread with them that they recognize him as the risen Jesus. The resurrected Jesus popups up now and again in the disciple community for 50 more days before he ascends to the Father. Then the disciples receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and they are empowered to preach the good news of Jesus, and bring his ministry to fruition in Jerusalem and all the world. We see the disciples’ transformation from an end of the line, “our leader is dead” perspective. They reorient to “the Spirit is with us”: we are empowered, we will are here to serve the living, breathing people of Jerusalem and the world. It all begins with the empty tomb, and the story told by women that is no idle tale. There will be more meaning to make of this mysterious and wonderful story. We will continue to follow along in the coming weeks. But, for today the reminder to look for the living among the living is meaning enough. May all God’s people say, Amen
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