Looking for the Living among the Dead
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
April 8, 2007--Easter Sunday
Luke 24:1-12

1 Corinthians 15:19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. 21 For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; 22 for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Luke 24:1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

• BEGINNING

BEGINNING

Angels really get all the best lines.

We encounter one such statement today in reading Luke's telling of the Easter story. Mary Madgalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women go to the tomb early on Sunday morning to anoint the body--they had not had time before the Sabbath came. They arrive at the tomb and find it empty. They are perplexed when suddenly two men are before them in dazzling clothes. The women bow down to the ground in fear and the angels say, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here but is risen."

"Why do you seek the living among the dead?" It's a great line. Full of power and poetry and typical Hebraic simplicity.

THE DEAD

To be fair, it should be noted that the women were not seeking the living among the dead. There were seeking the dead among the dead. They had just seen Jesus crucified at the hands of the state. They had seen him taken off the cross, dead and laid in a tomb. Why on earth wouldn't they expect him to be dead? Why wouldn't they account their teacher, their master, their friend among the dead?

Death is a sure thing. As Benjamin Franklin once quipped the only guaranteed things are "death and taxes." Death is not an unusual occurrence. Since time immemorial, the death rate has been exactly the same: one per person. Death was the expected thing. They certainly expected Jesus to be dead.

More to the point, the world is a very broken place. There is a lot of pain and injustice in it. A review of the headlines in the daily paper will bear witness to this.

They sought the dead among the dead because the poor stay poor, the oppressed stay oppressed, the persecuted stay persecuted, the brokenhearted stay brokenhearted, and the dead stay dead. It is, sadly, the way of the world.

The Reality of Death

This is not something that we can easily dismiss. After all, death is not merely a perception of the world that we have--it is a stark reality.

As we mentioned last week, we live in a culture not all that comfortable with the idea of death. We like to downplay it, in our thoughts and words and actions. Even in the Church, we diminish the power of death.

A few years ago, my friend Allison was murdered while she was in graduate school at UVA. Her neighbor came to her apartment and wanted to borrow her car to go to a party. When she said no, he stabbed her repeatedly, killing her. It was a brutal, senseless crime that snuffed out the life of a talented and well-liked individual.

On the drive to the funeral, one of the people in the car remarked, "It's good that they're calling it a memorial service, not a funeral. That way we can celebrate, because it's only the body that is dead--the important part still lives on." I was apoplectic. If the 'important part' still lived on, why be sad? More importantly, why be outraged at our friend's murder? All the murderer did, after all, was kill her body, he didn't really harm her.

No, our deep commitment to justice does not allow us to downplay death. The millions who sleep in the dust of the earth who suffered injustices and oppression, whose lives were bitter toil and exploitation, have not had those injustices rectified by their deaths. When Christ died and entered the realm of the dead, he declared God's solidarity with the dead and the living. A unity of love that binds us all--the living and the dead--together in the power of the Spirit.

A healthy spirituality acknowledges that death is real. We cannot write off suffered injustices by saying that everything is fine, the dead are in a better place.

No, my friends death is real. The women at the tomb that first Easter, if anything, understood that reality better than we do.

It is important to affirm that Jesus' death was a real death. It was not God playacting, or a deep sleep. It was death. Often times Boards of Ordained Ministry or District Committees on Ordained Ministry like to ask ministerial candidates: "Where was Jesus on Saturday between Good Friday and Easter?" My answer has always been: "Dead."

The women sought the dead among the dead because that is the stark reality of the world.

THE HOPE

It was not, however, the way that the people hoped it would always be. In the Judaism of Jesus' day there was a recognition that God's goodness would not allow this forever. If God was good, and powerful, and just, then God cannot allow injustice and brokenness to reign forever. There would have to be a time when God would set things right. A hope that there would be the day of Yahweh, when God would set everything right. Free the oppressed, give sight to the blind, bring justice to those who had none, bring peace upon earth, and give life to the dead.

The Resurrection of the Dead

As the people of faith would grow in their understanding of this idea, it would take on different names. Some would call it the Day of the Lord, Judgment Day, or the Last Day. Others would refer to it as the Peaceable Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God. Some people known to us here might just call it "Kansas."

But there was an understanding that an important part of this Day of the Lord or this arrival of the Kingdom of God would be a resurrection of the dead. That is, God would give life to the dead not as a ghostlike apparition or as a disembodied spirit on another plane of existence, but would give new life to the whole person, body and soul. And they would live forever with God here in the renewed and restored Creation.

This was the hope of so many. This was the hope off Martha, sister of Lazarus, who said to Jesus, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus responds to her by saying, "I am the resurrection and the life."

Jesus' Resurrection

And this is essentially the point the angels are making that Easter morning. Jesus is risen. Jesus is living, not dead.

It is a surprise. It is unexpected. There was nothing about the resurrection that was predictable. Dietrich Bonhöffer, German Christian theologian and martyr during the Nazi regime, wrote that the resurrection was a surprise the way that the Creation itself was. The first Creation was a creatio ex nihilo, a creation out of nothingness. Likewise, the New Creation, the Resurrection of Christ, was a creation out of nothing, a return from death itself.

It is a surprise. We shouldn't be so hard on the women. Resurrection was meant to be a surprise! An action of God's complete freedom and creative grace.

THE RESURRECTION

But the power of the Resurrection is not in its surprising nature alone. It is in its significance.

Rev. Mary Kraus, pastor at Dumbarton United Methodist Church here in DC is reported to have given an Easter sermon in which she said, "Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and returned from the grave. Well good for him! At least one of us made it." Her comedic point laced with irony is simple: the Resurrection is not about Jesus alone--though sometimes we talk about it in the Church like it is. I myself have heard a number of Easter sermons that talk about Jesus' resurrection and never point out that it might have to do with more than just Jesus. The Resurrection is not a divine parlor trick, God showing off what she's capable of doing. It is about every one of us. It is about all the living and all the dead.

My friends, Jesus' resurrection has everything to do with you and me. Jesus' resurrection is the vindication of the hope of Israel: God will not abandon the creation to death and decay. Violence and war and injustice will not forever reign. Injustice and inequity and disease all will be cast aside. Our hope is secured. Our lives are not lives of hopelessness, our deaths are not even the final word for us. An idea captured so well in our Easter hymns:

An old Dutch Easter carol entitled This Joyful Eastertide speaks to this connection between Christ's resurrection and our own:

My flesh in hope shall rest
and for a season slumber
Till trump from east to west
shall wake the dead in number
Had Christ that once was slain,
Ne'er burst his three day prison,
Our faith had been in vain:
But now is Christ arisen: Alleluia!

And, of course, this wouldn't be a United Methodist service if we didn't mention a Wesley. Charles Wesley's famous Easter hymn Christ the Lord is Risen Today speaks of this beautifully:

Soar we now where Christ has led
Following our exalted Head,
Made like him, like him we rise,
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies. Alleluia.

END--THE DEAD AMONG THE LIVING

Our lives are often spent between the palms of Palm Sunday and the Lilies of Easter--in that great in-between. That wilderness. But our lives are shaped not by the wilderness but by the Promised Land. The light of Easter shines into our lives and changes our hearts.

Easter is about hope. There's a lot of fear and doubt and despair in the world. Fear dominates our current world. Fear is used by people to score political points, it is used to get you to buy things, to do things you wouldn't otherwise do. There is injustice and suffering, violence and death. Easter casts out our fear and promises to us that these are not the ways of the world forever. God has vindicated our hope and as an Easter people we go into the world to live out lives that testify to this reality. Where the world shows injustice, we respond with justice. Where the world shows indifference, we respond with compassion. Where the world shows violence, we respond with peace. Where the world shows death, we respond with life. Because we are disciples of One whose Resurrection from the Dead transforms the very way we see the world.

For now we look upon a world in the midst of its redemption--the Kingdom of God breaking into the world. A world governed by love and not hate, by justice and not injustice, by peace and not violence. A world in which we do not seek the living among the dead, but in full confidence of the Resurrection unto eternal life, we shall one day seek the dead among the living.

Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!

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*Looking for the Living among the Dead* Rev. Mark Schaefer Kay Spiritual Life Center April 8, 2007--Easter Sunday Luke 24:1-12 1 Corinthians 15:19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. 20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. 21 For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; 22 for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. Luke 24:1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened. • BEGINNING BEGINNING Angels really get all the best lines. We encounter one such statement today in reading Luke's telling of the Easter story. Mary Madgalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women go to the tomb early on Sunday morning to anoint the body--they had not had time before the Sabbath came. They arrive at the tomb and find it empty. They are perplexed when suddenly two men are before them in dazzling clothes. The women bow down to the ground in fear and the angels say, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here but is risen." "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" It's a great line. Full of power and poetry and typical Hebraic simplicity. THE DEAD To be fair, it should be noted that the women were not seeking the living among the dead. There were seeking the dead among the dead. They had just seen Jesus crucified at the hands of the state. They had seen him taken off the cross, dead and laid in a tomb. Why on earth wouldn't they expect him to be dead? Why wouldn't they account their teacher, their master, their friend among the dead? Death is a sure thing. As Benjamin Franklin once quipped the only guaranteed things are "death and taxes." Death is not an unusual occurrence. Since time immemorial, the death rate has been exactly the same: one per person. Death was the expected thing. They certainly expected Jesus to be dead. More to the point, the world is a very broken place. There is a lot of pain and injustice in it. A review of the headlines in the daily paper will bear witness to this. They sought the dead among the dead because the poor stay poor, the oppressed stay oppressed, the persecuted stay persecuted, the brokenhearted stay brokenhearted, and the dead stay dead. It is, sadly, the way of the world. The Reality of Death This is not something that we can easily dismiss. After all, death is not merely a perception of the world that we have--it is a stark reality. As we mentioned last week, we live in a culture not all that comfortable with the idea of death. We like to downplay it, in our thoughts and words and actions. Even in the Church, we diminish the power of death. A few years ago, my friend Allison was murdered while she was in graduate school at UVA. Her neighbor came to her apartment and wanted to borrow her car to go to a party. When she said no, he stabbed her repeatedly, killing her. It was a brutal, senseless crime that snuffed out the life of a talented and well-liked individual. On the drive to the funeral, one of the people in the car remarked, "It's good that they're calling it a memorial service, not a funeral. That way we can celebrate, because it's only the body that is dead--the important part still lives on." I was apoplectic. If the 'important part' still lived on, why be sad? More importantly, why be outraged at our friend's murder? All the murderer did, after all, was kill her body, he didn't really harm her. No, our deep commitment to justice does not allow us to downplay death. The millions who sleep in the dust of the earth who suffered injustices and oppression, whose lives were bitter toil and exploitation, have not had those injustices rectified by their deaths. When Christ died and entered the realm of the dead, he declared God's solidarity with the dead and the living. A unity of love that binds us all--the living and the dead--together in the power of the Spirit. A healthy spirituality acknowledges that death is real. We cannot write off suffered injustices by saying that everything is fine, the dead are in a better place. No, my friends death is real. The women at the tomb that first Easter, if anything, understood that reality better than we do. It is important to affirm that Jesus' death was a real death. It was not God playacting, or a deep sleep. It was death. Often times Boards of Ordained Ministry or District Committees on Ordained Ministry like to ask ministerial candidates: "Where was Jesus on Saturday between Good Friday and Easter?" My answer has always been: "Dead." The women sought the dead among the dead because that is the stark reality of the world. THE HOPE It was not, however, the way that the people hoped it would always be. In the Judaism of Jesus' day there was a recognition that God's goodness would not allow this forever. If God was good, and powerful, and just, then God cannot allow injustice and brokenness to reign forever. There would have to be a time when God would set things right. A hope that there would be the day of Yahweh, when God would set everything right. Free the oppressed, give sight to the blind, bring justice to those who had none, bring peace upon earth, and give life to the dead. The Resurrection of the Dead As the people of faith would grow in their understanding of this idea, it would take on different names. Some would call it the Day of the Lord, Judgment Day, or the Last Day. Others would refer to it as the Peaceable Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God. Some people known to us here might just call it "Kansas." But there was an understanding that an important part of this Day of the Lord or this arrival of the Kingdom of God would be a resurrection of the dead. That is, God would give life to the dead not as a ghostlike apparition or as a disembodied spirit on another plane of existence, but would give new life to the whole person, body and soul. And they would live forever with God here in the renewed and restored Creation. This was the hope of so many. This was the hope off Martha, sister of Lazarus, who said to Jesus, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus responds to her by saying, "I am the resurrection and the life." Jesus' Resurrection And this is essentially the point the angels are making that Easter morning. Jesus is risen. Jesus is living, not dead. It is a surprise. It is unexpected. There was nothing about the resurrection that was predictable. Dietrich Bonhöffer, German Christian theologian and martyr during the Nazi regime, wrote that the resurrection was a surprise the way that the Creation itself was. The first Creation was a creatio ex nihilo, a creation out of nothingness. Likewise, the New Creation, the Resurrection of Christ, was a creation out of nothing, a return from death itself. It is a surprise. We shouldn't be so hard on the women. Resurrection was meant to be a surprise! An action of God's complete freedom and creative grace. THE RESURRECTION But the power of the Resurrection is not in its surprising nature alone. It is in its significance. Rev. Mary Kraus, pastor at Dumbarton United Methodist Church here in DC is reported to have given an Easter sermon in which she said, "Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and returned from the grave. Well good for him! At least one of us made it." Her comedic point laced with irony is simple: the Resurrection is not about Jesus alone--though sometimes we talk about it in the Church like it is. I myself have heard a number of Easter sermons that talk about Jesus' resurrection and never point out that it might have to do with more than just Jesus. The Resurrection is not a divine parlor trick, God showing off what she's capable of doing. It is about every one of us. It is about all the living and all the dead. My friends, Jesus' resurrection has everything to do with you and me. Jesus' resurrection is the vindication of the hope of Israel: God will not abandon the creation to death and decay. Violence and war and injustice will not forever reign. Injustice and inequity and disease all will be cast aside. Our hope is secured. Our lives are not lives of hopelessness, our deaths are not even the final word for us. An idea captured so well in our Easter hymns: An old Dutch Easter carol entitled This Joyful Eastertide speaks to this connection between Christ's resurrection and our own: My flesh in hope shall rest and for a season slumber Till trump from east to west shall wake the dead in number Had Christ that once was slain, Ne'er burst his three day prison, Our faith had been in vain: But now is Christ arisen: Alleluia! And, of course, this wouldn't be a United Methodist service if we didn't mention a Wesley. Charles Wesley's famous Easter hymn Christ the Lord is Risen Today speaks of this beautifully: Soar we now where Christ has led Following our exalted Head, Made like him, like him we rise, Ours the cross, the grave, the skies. Alleluia. END--THE DEAD AMONG THE LIVING Our lives are often spent between the palms of Palm Sunday and the Lilies of Easter--in that great in-between. That wilderness. But our lives are shaped not by the wilderness but by the Promised Land. The light of Easter shines into our lives and changes our hearts. Easter is about hope. There's a lot of fear and doubt and despair in the world. Fear dominates our current world. Fear is used by people to score political points, it is used to get you to buy things, to do things you wouldn't otherwise do. There is injustice and suffering, violence and death. Easter casts out our fear and promises to us that these are not the ways of the world forever. God has vindicated our hope and as an Easter people we go into the world to live out lives that testify to this reality. Where the world shows injustice, we respond with justice. Where the world shows indifference, we respond with compassion. Where the world shows violence, we respond with peace. Where the world shows death, we respond with life. Because we are disciples of One whose Resurrection from the Dead transforms the very way we see the world. For now we look upon a world in the midst of its redemption--the Kingdom of God breaking into the world. A world governed by love and not hate, by justice and not injustice, by peace and not violence. A world in which we do not seek the living among the dead, but in full confidence of the Resurrection unto eternal life, we shall one day seek the dead among the living. Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Back to Sermons page Back to AU UMC Home Copyright © 2007. Mark A. Schaefer. No part of this text may be reproduced or otherwise disseminated without the express written consent of the author.

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