Go!

Living God, long ago, faithful women proclaimed that Jesus’ tomb was empty, and the world was forever changed. Help us to watch them. Help us to listen to them. Teach us to keep faith with them, that our witness may be as bold, our love as deep, and our faith as true.[1] Amen.

* * *

The scene is cinematic in its scope: It’s sunrise, first thing in the morning. A huge stone has been rolled away from the tomb’s entrance. Five or more women, charged with anointing the dead body of a man they loved, linger at the entrance, wondering what they’ll find inside. Then, a question:

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” Perhaps after two thousand years of telling the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection, after hearing it over and over again, we might want to ask them the same thing. If we’re thinking of it as a movie, it’s like a movie we’ve watched dozens of times – we know more than the characters do, and we find ourselves yelling at the screen. 

“The poison’s in the other glass!” or “Don’t leave the deposit in the newspaper, Uncle Billy!” or just “Don’t go in there!” This morning, taking in this scene, maybe we want to yell at these women: “He’s alive! Don’t you get it?”

But they don’t. And of COURSE they don’t! Because these are the women who saw Jesus die. They saw him beaten and nailed to a cross; they watched, from a distance, as he was mocked; they saw him suffer, heard him say, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”; they watched as he breathed his last; they saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. Of course they were looking for him among the dead – they saw him die.

But they saw other things as well.

Luke tells us that these women had been following Jesus since Galilee – that means they had been following him since the very beginning of his ministry, on a day perhaps three years before, when he stood up in the synagogue in Nazareth (his hometown) and read from the book of Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” he said. “and has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind; to set the oppressed free; to proclaim the Lord’s favor!” The women saw how the crowd first adored him, then turned on him.

They watched as he moved from town to town, teaching wherever he went, spreading the news of God’s love in a way that changed people’s lives. And then, in a synagogue one day, they saw something terrifying: a man possessed by a demon, crying out, “Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” Jesus simply and sternly said, “Be quiet. Come out of him!” The demon obeyed, and the women were amazed.

They watched as he continued casting out demons, freeing people from all the things that tried to possess them. And then, he did something new. It started with a woman whose fever mysteriously went away after Jesus spoke to her; the skin of leprous people cleared up; those who were paralyzed stood and walked; a man born blind was able to see. 

Before long Jesus was inundated with the sick and disabled – people who had long ago believed they would never recover from their maladies – and he brought healing to all of them. The women were astonished at these events, these miracles, but more than that, they were shocked because, unlike every other healer they’d ever seen or heard about, Jesus did it for free.[2]

Along the way, these women saw Jesus take an interest in the lives of all kinds of people. One day, he stopped at a lakeside, inviting some poor fisherman named Peter, James, and John to follow him. Later, as he was passing by a tax booth, he invited a rich tax collector named Levi to join them. 

When people brought children to him, seeking a blessing, he didn’t send them away as his disciples assumed he might; instead he was giddy, saying, “The kingdom of heaven belongs to these ones! The Lord has hidden things from the wise and revealed them instead to little children.”

He spent time with the Pharisees – the religious elites of the day – and went to banquets at their homes. He also ate with people from all walks of life – Jews and Gentiles alike, and even people the Pharisees believed to be unworthy sinners.

As the women listened to Jesus’ sermons, they began to hear him teach more and more about loving their enemies: “Bless those who curse you,” he would say, “and pray for those who mistreat you. … Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” And Jesus didn’t just talk about these things – he did them! He healed a Roman Centurion’s son, even though the Romans were the Jews’ oppressors. He healed Samaritans and told stories in which they were the heroes, even though they practiced a different religion than the Jewish people.

He also talked about the Kingdom of God, which didn’t exactly sound like a particular place. He said it was like a mustard seed – an invasive weed that could take over a whole garden; or like yeast, just a little bit of which can leaven a whole ton of wheat. To the civil authorities, this sounded like code language for rebellion. To the religious authorities, it sounded like a threat to their power.

And that was when the women started to hear people plotting against him. There were whispers at first, and then the threats became bolder and more specific. As time went on, it was more and more obvious that, if Jesus were to set foot back in Jerusalem, he would be killed. His disciples tried to temper his rhetoric: “Why do you always say what you believe?” they asked. “Every proclamation guarantees free ammunition for your enemies!”[3] The problem was, he didn’t just say what he believed; he did what he believed. Despite the protests of those who loved him most, he continued his trek to the city that kills its prophets.

He wasn’t there a week before they arrested him. One of his closest friends betrayed him, everyone deserted him, and the authorities killed him.

And the women saw him die.

That’s why they were looking for him in the tomb that morning.

* * *

It seems odd to me that, of all the characters who appear in today’s scripture reading – the appointed reading for Easter this year – Jesus himself is not one of them. The women don’t find him in the tomb, and neither does Peter. Luke’s story of the first Easter morning does not include an appearance by the risen Christ.

So what does that mean?

It means we’ve got to go! We’ve got to get up and go and find him. We’ve got to stop looking for the living among the dead. Perhaps this seems like a daunting task – it’s hard to know where to begin. But the women in this story can help us, because they’ve followed him throughout his ministry. They’ve seen where he’s been. They know where he would go.

He cast out demons. We should look for Christ among those who are wrestling with drug addiction, credit card debt, self-harm, alcoholism, depression.

He healed the sick. We should look for Christ in the cold and flu aisle, in the ambulance screaming down the highway, in the operating room, in the ICU, in the rehab center, in the assisted living facility.

He welcomed children. We should look for Christ in classrooms and schoolyards and daycare centers; in orphanages and foster homes and juvenile detention centers; on the ball field and the ballet studio and the playground.

He ate with the poor and the rich. We should look for Christ at the fast-food drive-thru and the French restaurant and our own humble kitchen tables.

He embraced his enemies. We should look for Christ in the people we’d most like to avoid – at work, in our families, perhaps even in this very sanctuary; we should look for Christ in the political candidate we’d be least likely to vote for; we should look for Christ in suicide bomber.

He sought out the lost. We should look for Christ among the grief-stricken families in Brussels, the undocumented workers in our country, the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, the refugees throughout the world.

This is what resurrection means: the Kingdom of God is not a place we discover after we die, but a place God is making, here and now, in this broken and hurting world. The empty tomb is a call to each one of us, to go! Go out into the world, seeking the risen Christ wherever he may be found, serving everyone we encounter along the way. 

So go! Go! He is risen! He is risen indeed! 

Amen.

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[1] Adapted from a prayer written by a woman named Kris

[2] Reza Aslan, Zealot. New York: Random House, 2013. (103)

[3] “Non-Stop” from the Hamilton soundtrack, Lin-Manuel Miranda, original Broadway cast of Hamilton.