In Luke’s gospel account, the women at the empty tomb were asked a question they could not answer. The angels said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” It’s a great question! But the truth is, they didn’t seek the living among the dead. They sought the dead. They were looking for a dead body.  

The angels asked a question that strikes at the very heart of where most people find themselves today. “Why are you spending time rummaging around death and the dead hoping that you will find life there somehow? Why would you go among the dead expecting to find fellowship there?” Or as Paul said, “What partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” 

It is an important question for us to ask ourselves today, isn’t it? Are we looking for the living among the dead? I have to assume you, dear reader, are looking for life as you go through your days. No one in his right mind is looking for death. You are all looking for life, you are all looking to live, you are all looking for purpose, you are all looking for meaning. So, why would you seek that in a graveyard? Why would you look for meaning and value and purpose for your life in those things which are meaningless and purposeless and will ultimately be destroyed? Why seek the living among the dead?  

Remember in John’s gospel when many of the followers of Jesus turned back and no longer walked with him? Why did they do that? He had told them that they could only live by feeding on Him. That He alone was the source of life, the bread of life that they could eat and never be hungry again. He was the bread come down from heaven, and He said, “If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” In other words, there is only life eternal and the life you are desperately seeking in Him. You cannot find it anywhere else. After this, many of those who were walking with Him turned away and did not walk with Him any longer. Jesus turned to the twelve and asked if they wanted to go away as well. Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.” Why seek the living among the dead? Jesus alone has the words of eternal life.  

At the empty tomb, the women were asked a question they could not answer. They were also given a treasure they could not contain. Mark’s gospel tells us the angel said, “You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you in Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.”   

What is the message of the cross and the empty tomb? He is risen! At every cemetery on earth, you can find the graves of great philosophers and world leaders and religious holy men and gurus and teachers and shamans and priests and soothsayers and fortunetellers and cult leaders. And you can wipe the dust off their tombstones and say, “He is not alive. He is here!” 

But the testimony of the angels 2000 years ago in a graveyard outside Jerusalem is the greatest proclamation of our faith: He is not here. He is risen! Why seek the dead among the living when you can walk with the living Christ among the dead? 

David Mathis wrote, “Easter has become our annual dress rehearsal for that great coming day when our perishable bodies will put on the imperishable. When the mortal will finally put on immortality. When we will join in the triumphant song of the prophets and apostles, ‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’” 

You know what I really love about these first witnesses? They were terrified, Mark tells us they fled the scene and said nothing to anyone. They acted just as we would have. But wait. We know from the other gospels that they were able to overcome their fear and tell the disciples. They could not keep the news to themselves. The world had to know, so the women went and told the story. We must do the same. The world still needs to know. It needs to hear it from people like you and me, people who have seen the Lord, not face to face, not yet. But we have met Him, and His risen life has made us new.  

Go tell it! He is risen! 

Mark 16 1-8 He is Risen!

My understanding of the cross was expanded recently by Jeremy Treat, who said, “When I look to Scripture, I see that you can’t understand the kingdom apart from the cross and you can’t understand the cross apart from the kingdom. And it’s Christ himself who holds those together. He is the King who goes to the cross in establishing his kingdom and ransoming us into it. In this kingdom, the throne is a cross and the king reigns with mercy and grace.” The cross a throne! Paul wrote of Jesus, “He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Even death on a cross. We preachers sometimes talk about Jesus having to push his raw and bloodied back up against the rough cross in order to breathe. But notice that the gospel writers did not do this. Though the physical suffering on the cross was extreme, the Bible emphasizes the shame, not the pain. 

The Roman soldiers crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them. Jesus was naked on the cross. And Jesus was mocked on the cross. Passersby wagged their heads at him and said, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!” They mocked the King, saying, “Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” The Gospels highlight the shame, because this was a shame and honor culture

In a shame and honor culture, the pinnacle of shame, surely, was to be crucified. Jesus “endured the cross, despising the shame” for you and me. He disregarded the shame and suffering for the future joy of accomplishing our forgiveness. We all, as Paul wrote, “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” That is the shame we are born with and can do nothing about in our own strength. That is the shame that Jesus chose to take upon himself for our sake, so that we might be saved. The cross of humiliation became the throne of the King. Jesus said earlier that week, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Then he said it again, in reference to the cross: “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.” 

The hour Jesus referred to was his death. It was on the cross that Jesus was glorified and given the name above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. I know the disciples did not understand this and were in mourning, or even hiding, after Jesus’ death. But we need not preach it that way anymore. We need not say, as I have been guilty of saying, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming.” As if Jesus had lost the battle but we knew he would win in the end. No, it was on Friday that Jesus was enthroned as King. He cried a victor’s cry: “It is finished!” The word is “tetelestai,” a cry of victory from one who crossed the finish line and won. It was a cry of triumph from the cross. 

Instead of saying that Jesus proved he is King when he was raised from the dead, we should say that the resurrection revealed on Sunday what was true on Friday at 3pm. Jesus defeated the devil. Jesus conquered sin. Jesus reversed the curse for you and me. On the cross. Then he rose again and 40 days later he ascended to heaven. If either of those had not happened, we would have no hope. But they did. If Jesus does not come again to take us to be with him where he is, we have no hope. But he promised to come again and the Lord keeps his promises. We have hope because of his victory on the cross.

Jeremy Treat wrote, “Herein lies the paradox of the gospel. The self-giving love of God transformed an instrument of death into an instrument of life. The cross is the great reversal, where exaltation comes through humiliation, glory is revealed in shame, victory is accomplished through surrender, and the triumph of the kingdom comes through the suffering of the servant.”

Our victory was won on a wooden throne.

I love the story Luke tells of the two men, Cleopas and another unnamed disciple of Jesus, walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, discussing the events that they have just witnessed. And while they talk and reason with one another about these things, Jesus walks up beside them and asks them a question. Why didn’t they recognize Jesus? We don’t know, but the simple answer may be that God prevented them from recognizing Jesus. Isn’t that the case with many whom we talk to about the Lord? We have the Spirit of Christ but they cannot recognize him. Their hearts are hardened or broken over the circumstances of their lives or it is simply not the right time yet. 

Jesus asks them a question, as he has done so many times in his ministry. You know, Jesus never asked a question because he lacked knowledge, but in order to peel open hearts, that he might speak into them. (Never underestimate the power of a well-placed question! It will often provide access into a life that nothing else will.) Jesus asked them what they had been talking about as they walked.

We see that God has a sense of humor, when Cleopas responds, “Are you the only one in Jerusalem who does not know what just happened there?” I can imagine Jesus stifling a grin because he is the only one in the city who DOES know what just happened. Saints, we can come to the Lord sometimes with our prayers and say, “Lord, don’t you see? Don’t you know what is going on with me here?” And the truth is, he is the only one who knows what is going on with you. We don’t ever fully know what is going on, even with ourselves. But the Lord does, and cares.

Jesus says, “What things?” Never underestimate the power of an open-ended question.

Cleopas and the other disciple of Jesus respond with a word that reveals dashed hopes. They say that Jesus of Nazareth has been crucified, and then they reveal their hearts: “But we had hoped that he  was the one to redeem Israel.” Two things about their response: first, they had misplaced hope. Their hope was for a Messiah who would come as a victorious champion and conquer Rome and deliver Israel from bondage. They did not understand the truth, that God had always told his people that the One who came to deliver them would have to do it through his own death. That the path to glory went through suffering. They have ignored the bloodiness of Isaiah 53:5, “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” Instead they have gone right to Isaiah 61: 1-2 “…he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord‘s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God…”

Second, it was hope that had been buried with Jesus. We had hoped, they said. In other words, we don’t hope any more. We were hoping, but all hope is now lost. Jesus of Nazareth is dead. In fact, he was put in a tomb. That’s where you put dead people. That’s why the women went there today, to see the body, but when they got there to see the dead body, the dead body wasn’t there. He was crucified and buried, but now he is gone. An angel said he was alive, but they didn’t see him. They just know his dead body wasn’t there. You get the point, right? They were sure that Jesus was dead.

It was when he was breaking the bread and blessing it that these two finally saw Jesus. I love the way Luke says it: “And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.” Was it that they saw the nail prints in his hands as he was breaking the bread? Or was it the way he broke the bread that reminded them of times when Jesus broke bread and fed five thousand in the wilderness? Or was it the way he spoke to the Father as he blessed the bread that reminded them of the way they had heard Jesus talk to the Father before? The truth is, we don’t know, but what a difference was made in the hearts and the lives and the attitudes of these two men!

When Jesus opens our eyes to the truth of who he is in every situation, the situation itself may not change at all, but we do. And if we have believed a lie and then Jesus opens our eyes to the truth, it is resurrection day all over again. 

The men knew they had to go find the other disciples and tell them all they had just seen and heard. Night is approaching, they have just walked seven miles, but neither of those facts deter them now. They rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem. How many want to wager that they ran a little, if not the whole way back? Truth sets us free. Free to run. Free to live without fear and guilt and shame. 

Jesus Christ is risen in our hearts. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

As the story goes, a man was watching TV with his wife when the doorbell rang. He went to see who it was and found his friend on the doorstep. “What are you doing?” the friend asked. He said, “Watching a movie.” The friend said, “Oh, which one?” The man knit his brow and worked on that thought for a moment, then said, “What’s that flower called that smells good but has thorns?” His friend replied, “Rose?” “Yeah, that’s it.” The man then turned and called back into the house, “Hey Rose, what’s the name of that movie we’re watching?” Now there’s a man with a memory problem. His forgetter is working overtime.

It’s important to remember the names of our loved ones, and diseases that strip that ability away are cruel and unrelenting in their torture. But what about those who forget the very reason for their existence simply because they are consumed with lesser things? Why would Paul write to Timothy, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead”? Surely that is the last thing this young pastor would forget. Not so fast. You might argue that the banner over Israel in the Old Testament was, “They forgot God.” Moses said it this way near the end of his life: “You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.” It is one of the reasons why I believe Jesus gave us the Lord’s Supper. “Do this,” he said, “in remembrance of me.” It is a regular reminder for the body of Christ that employs all of our five senses as we taste, smell, touch and see the elements, and as we hear the Words that he spoke, “This is my body, broken for you…this is my blood, poured out for you.”

The Taj Mahal is perhaps the most beautiful structure in the world. It was built in the 1600s by an Emperor for his favorite wife after she died giving birth to their fourteenth child. It took twenty thousand men more than twenty years to build this magnificent shrine. The sad irony is that by the time the building was completed, the favorite wife had been gone so long that most in the empire did not know her memory and had no idea why the Taj Mahal had been built. They marveled at the edifice, ignorant of the life it celebrated.

It can be true of a church, can’t it? We build magnificent structures and cathedrals that dazzle the eye. We spare no expense to have the finest architecture, the tallest steeple, the largest sanctuary, or the most “cutting-edge” programs. Then we drift away from center. We forget the reason we started the church in the first place. The stained glass windows tell the story of the Gospel that we long since quit preaching. “The Gospel? It is just too exclusive,” some say. “We need a more tolerant message.” The church bells still play the old hymns through the week, songs that many would be embarrassed to sing on Sunday. Songs like, “We’ve a story to tell to the nations, that shall turn their hearts to the right.” Or songs like, “Jesus shall reign wherever the sun does his successive journeys run; his kingdom spread from shore to shore, till moons shall wax and wane no more.” You want to get hissed at, or worse, just stand up on a college campus today and speak the words to either of those two hymns.

Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead. We may forget who is enshrined in the Taj Mahal, because she is long gone. Jesus is not. He is risen from the dead. The living Savior is the very reason for our existence.