Why Seek the Living Among the Dead?

Luke 24:1-7 “The women went to the tomb in the very early morning of the first day of the week, carrying the spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, and when they went in they didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus. As they were at a loss what to make of it all, suddenly two men in shining clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified, and bowed their faces toward the ground. But the men said to them, “Why seek the living among the dead? He isn’t here – he’s been raised! Don’t you remember? While you were still in Galilee he told you that the son of man must be handed over into the hands of sinners, and be crucified, and rise again on the third day.”

Luke 24 is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. To start, it’s a literary masterpiece. Many Christians have read this passage a thousand times over, and expect to meet the risen Christ. Yet Luke still manages to create a sense of tension, anticipation and mystery.

The women go the the tomb “very early” in the morning. Many people love the early morning hours. Its a time of tranquility, when you expect to find some peace and quiet before the real hustle and bustle of the day begins. But for these women, this tranquility is marred by their heaviness of heart and shattered expectations. Luke names some of them, “Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and the others with them.” They had come from Galilee. And they were followers of Jesus of Nazareth. “He was a prophet. He acted with power and he spoke with power, before God and all the people.”

Some said that Jesus was even more than a prophet, perhaps even the Messiah, God’s anointed king, the one who would bring justice and flourishing to Israel and to the whole world. The Messiah would come to Jerusalem to fight the great battle against the Romans who held Israel in bondage and oppression. He would cleanse the temple, so that Israel might properly worship the one true God. He would usher in the “age to come”, when God’s people could live in freedom and joyful abundance. Israel would finally enjoy safety and security from her foes. Then she might be what God had always desired her to be: a light to the nations. Offering true worship to the creator God, and living in obedience to him, Israel would demonstrate to all peoples how God intended the world to function and flourish. Ancient Jews had a phrase which summed all this up: “We were hoping that he was going to redeem Israel!”

But that’s not how things worked out. These women knew it, and the disciples knew it too: they had bet on the wrong horse. Instead of breaking the power of pagan empire which had enslaved God’s people, Jesus had died a horrific death at the hands of the pagans. As was their custom for those revolutionaries who dared to oppose their power, the Romans had beaten and flogged Jesus, stripped him naked, and nailed him to a cross, there to suffer a prolonged and agonizing death. Crucifixion was a judicial execution, of course, but it was much more than that, it was a political statement. It was the most humiliating and yes, excruciating death the Romans could devise. Crucifixions were performed in broad daylight, in full view of the public, often along busy roads near city gates. In this way, the Romans sent the message to any and all: “we run the world, and this is what happens to those who oppose us.”

So the women trudge to the tomb, likely in somber and bitter silence. They carry their spices, to complete the burial process. The disciples are nowhere to be found. They are hiding in fear, knowing that the same powers that executed Jesus might now come for his followers. They know all too well that Jesus’ death has put a sudden end to their hopes. (James and John had even requested seats of honor at Jesus’ side when he was enthroned as king!) But the dream of God establishing his kingdom must wait for another savior to come along. There are precisely no expectations for what has transpired this morning.

When they arrive at the tomb, the women are perplexed. The stone is rolled away, and the body of the Lord Jesus cannot be found. They couldn’t possibly be at the wrong tomb. After all, on the day of his crucifixion, they “saw the tomb and how the body was laid.” What has happened? Their first thought was most likely that grave robbers had stolen the body. The burial spices were quite valuable, so grave robbery was common in the ancient world. Again, we must hold firmly in our minds that, despite what Jesus had previously told them, his followers simply could not understand what he meant by “rising from the dead.” They did not need modern science to tell them that dead people stay dead.

Confusion is followed by shock. Suddenly two men appear, adorned by “shining clothes.” The women are terrified, and fall to the ground. Clearly these strange messengers are figures of great power and authority. And the message they convey changes everything: “Why seek the living among the dead? He isn’t here – he’s been raised!” Yes, this is a stunning declaration of Jesus’ resurrection. But fascinatingly preceded by a question: “Why seek the living among the dead?” Every time I read this account, this strange question jumps off the page at me. So much so that I have chosen to make it the starting point for this blog! What do we make of it?

1) My first thought is that the angel’s question seems more than a little unfair. Like the disciples, these women had left everything behind to follow Jesus. They had more than just admiration for him. They believed him to be, at minimum, a powerful prophet calling Israel back to her God. And they likely nursed growing expectations that he really was God’s chosen king, the one who would establish God’s kingdom over all the earth. That was why they left their homes in Galilee. They marched up to Jerusalem to confront the powers of evil, the idolatrous pagan power of Rome as well as the corrupt Jewish temple leadership. The timing of this journey was crystal clear. It was the celebration of Passover, when God had freed the children of Israel from slavery and bondage in Egypt! Now, with Jesus at the lead, would God once more act with power to free his people?

But just as their hopes reached a crescendo, those same hopes fell to the ground with a crash. The women had witnessed Jesus beaten, scourged, and executed. (And Jesus didn’t even resist!) His body had been hastily wrapped in a shroud, and placed in a tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea. The finality of these events must have been utterly unbearable. Think of how disappointed you might have felt when a political leader you supported has lost a close election, then multiply that by a hundred, or a thousand. That morning these same women have come to that same tomb, bringing spices and ointments in order to prepare the body more adequately, a powerful expression of their love and devotion to Jesus. Considering all this, the angel’s question seems almost cruel towards those in shock and grief. What else would they be doing?

2) So what else can we make of this question, “Why seek the living among the dead?” Jesus himself asked a lot of probing questions during his ministry. Many times, when Jesus was asked a question, he responded by throwing a question right back. This response wasn’t meant to frustrate people, it was more of an invitation, an opportunity to re-think and re-imagine things from a different perspective. When we think of the angel’s question in this light, I think things begin to make much more sense.

These women knew their broken world. Their lives were not easy. King Herod and the Romans imposed heavy taxes, taking from them what they had worked so hard to produce. They likely knew men, perhaps fathers or husbands or brothers, enraged by such injustice, who took up the sword against their oppressors, only to be cut down by the sword or crucified. (In 6 BC, just before Jesus’ birth, a man named Judas had led a rebellion in Galilee in response to Roman taxes. As they always did, the Romans brutally crushed this rebellion, leaving 3,000 young Jewish men crucified among the hills of Galilee.) These women undoubtedly had a sharp sense that the world was not the way God intended it to be; it was out-of-joint, unjust. Surely they asked themselves, where is the God of Israel in the midst of suffering, injustice, and ultimately death? If the world is such a rotten place, why did God make it in the first place?

The angel’s question is like a shaft of light that powerfully pierces this darkness. It’s an astonishing invitation to completely re-imagine everything, to dare to imagine that the God who made the world really does still love the world. He is not capricious or malevolent. Nor is he an absentee landlord who fashioned the world but is no longer involved. No: he is indeed the God of the Scriptures, a God who grieves (even more than we can imagine) at the suffering and injustice of the world but is utterly determined to set things right again. The women had hoped that Jesus might be the Messiah, God’s chosen king, the agent through whom God would undertake the grand project of getting his creation back on track. The angel’s question now invites these women to understand that, by raising Jesus from the dead, God has announced that Jesus really is that true king who will bring healing to the world. They are invited to see that the world is now a different place, where injustice and death no longer have the last word. They are invited to realize that a whole new creation has now been brought to birth, and they are called to become a part of this new world.

3) My final thoughts about the angel’s strange question dovetails with the purpose of this blog. For in this story of the women going to the tomb on Sunday morning, we can find a symbol of the whole human race in its search for life and flourishing. You don’t have to be an ivory tower philosopher to ask yourself what life is all about. In fact, every single human being both asks and answers that question whether they consciously realize it or not. As a Christian, I believe that all life and goodness comes from the God who made the world, who has now made himself fully known in Jesus the Messiah. When people look for life, peace, truth, meaning, satisfaction, purpose, joy, pleasure, or any other good thing apart from God, they are doomed to failure because God himself is the only true source of all these good things. Seeking goodness apart from God is then like seeking life in a graveyard, among the tombs, surrounded by dry bones and decomposing flesh. To people who seek ultimate joy apart from him, I think God would ask the question, “Why seek the living among the dead?”

Too many people in our world are rummaging around among the tombs, looking for life where none can be found. Jesus famously claimed that he was “the way, the truth, and the life”, and I believe him. This is true, not just on an individual level, but also from the perspective of whole societies. Our culture and nation pursue the noble ideals of justice, peace, and freedom. Again, there is only one true source of all these good things. When our nation seeks to order our society according to the wisdom of men, rather than the wisdom of the creator God, we are doomed to failure, trapped in the graveyard.

So the ultimate purpose of this blog will be to explore how we can find true life and flourishing through the triune God, not just as individuals, but through corporate structures; families, communities, businesses, schools, governments, and nations.

I hope to accomplish this goal in three basic ways:

1. I hope to help people think clearly about the life-giving God who made the world in the first place; this is obviously a theological task, to think and speak accurately about God.
2. I hope to help people think clearly about the Scriptures, the sacred writings through which God has revealed himself. This would be an exegetical task.
3. I hope to help people apply a Christian worldview to their own lives, and to the world around them, with the ultimate goal of producing life and flourishing.

Thank you, dear reader, for embarking on this journey. I have not begun this endeavor lightly. Many things compete for our time and attention these days, and I consider it a great privilege that you would invest some of that time and attention in what I write. I certainly believe that your investment is worthy of my best efforts, and I pray God’s blessing as well.