Easter — Page 2 — Andy James

a sermon on Luke 24:1-12 for Easter Sunday
preached on March 31, 2013, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Why do you look for the living among the dead?

The women who had made their way to Jesus’ tomb were startled enough by the two men in dazzling clothes who met them there, so I can’t imagine all the other emotions that came as they were confronted by these strange words. They had come to the tomb expecting to finish the work of burying Jesus that they had started so hurriedly on Friday evening and abandoned for the sabbath, so they figured that the dead Jesus would be exactly where they had laid him. But things were not as they expected. Not only was the tomb unsealed and the large stone rolled away, Jesus’ body was not there. Then to be greeted by these two strange men—it was quite a way to start the morning!

Why do you look for the living among the dead?

Our own search for Jesus can certainly take us to some places where that question might be in order. It’s easy to think that we’ll keep encountering God in our lives in the way we always have even when our world is changing quickly and dramatically right before our very eyes. It’s easy to walk away from God when things are going right and then come back when life takes an unexpected turn. But when we do this, are we not also looking for the living among the dead? Do we show up as the women did, at the tombs of our world, expecting that we can encounter God again just like we did before? Do we put God in the same box that they did, leaving no room for resurrection and new life?

Why are you looking for the living among the dead?

If these words weren’t strange enough, the two men in dazzling clothes continued on: “He is not here, but has risen.” All the assumptions that the women had made about this morning were turned on end, all because they had forgotten what Jesus had told them. In the midst of the chaos of his arrest and trial, they did not remember that he had told them that this kind of end was ahead for him. In the midst of his execution at the hands of the religious and civil authorities of the day, they had forgotten his promise that this was not the end of his story. In the midst of their grief, they could not imagine that anything more than death was ahead for him.

And so since they had forgotten, they went to the tomb to look for Jesus. They thought that he belonged there among the dead. They expected him to be there, right where they had laid him. But they were wrong. The stone was rolled away, the tomb was empty, and Jesus was alive and present in the world even though they had not seen him yet. They couldn’t look for him as they had done before—they had to see him in different places, in new ways, and maybe even right where they were.

Why do you look for the living among the dead?

It’s a fair question for us, too: where do we look for Jesus? Do we come to church, thinking that he has set up shop permanently and exclusively within these walls? Do we look for people who have a grand outward appearance of faithfulness, expecting that their holiness and virtue will show us the face of Christ? Do we seek out people who think like us, look like us, pray like us, speak like us, and believe like us? When we do these things—when we look for Jesus in all places where we expect to find him, in the halls that seem to hold religious power, in outward expressions of faithfulness, in people who are just like us—are we not looking for the living among the dead?

Why do you look for the living among the dead?

The women were not alone in this in their time. Even after they believed the news from the two men in dazzling clothes who met them at the tomb, the other disciples just didn’t understand it when the women told them. They called it nothing more than an idle tale—leiros in the Greek, literally meaning “nonsense”—except for Peter, who ran to the tomb himself to see it with his own eyes and then returned home, amazed and confused by what he had seen. The disciples were not yet ready to go looking for Jesus in new places.

Why do you look for the living among the dead?

It’s easy to get sucked in to this way of thinking, to join with the disciples and question how we might ever expect to see Jesus in our world. There is enough brokenness in our world to bring even the most confident and faithful among us to question how God is at work around us. There is enough war and violence in our world for us to reasonably wonder how the peace of Christ is actually taking root around us. And there is enough death in our midst to make us even wonder if the resurrection is real at all. And so we too often stand with the women, the disciples, and countless others who look for Jesus in the wrong places, who don’t understand how Jesus could be resurrected in the first place.

Yet those two men in dazzling clothes at the tomb call us to seek something different, to look for the living Christ in the real world, in the places where there is real and great need, in the places where something is deeply missing, in those places where we would least expect to encounter him, for he is present and alive and at work here and now, and we are called to join him as he works to make all things new. Maybe it is time to look for Jesus alive and at work in our world in new places, among the prisoners and the poor, among the homeless and harmed, among the sick and sad, among the destitute and depressed, among people who don’t look like us, act like us, love like us, believe like us, think like us, or dream like us.

It is there in those places, in the places we least expect it, in the places furthest from the tomb, in the places of greatest need, where we might just find Jesus. And so whether we have seen him yet or not, whether we have sought him in a graveyard or out on the streets, whether we believe or whether we doubt, may we go forth on this Easter day with our eyes and hearts open to meeting the risen Jesus in our world, wherever that search may lead us, ready to serve others and embody the fullness of his love to everyone we meet until he comes again in final victory to destroy death once and for all. Lord, come quickly! Alleluia! Amen.

a sermon on Luke 24:13-36 for the Second Sunday of Easter
preached on April 15, 2012, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Last Sunday, as you may remember, we heard a very tentative Easter proclamation from the gospel according to Mark. The faithful women who had gone to anoint Jesus’ body fled from the tomb in fear and amazement after finding it empty and hearing that Jesus had been raised. Last Sunday, I suggested that this Easter story at least is something of a divine game of “Where’s Waldo?” where we have to keep our eyes open for Jesus in the world – so I want to start out this week by checking in. Did anyone see Jesus this week? Does anyone have a story of encountering Jesus that they would like to share this morning? I hope you’ll share your observations in the comments.

I suspect that as many of us as saw Jesus right away had a really hard time finding him in our lives, and if we have struggled to see Jesus this week, we are not alone. In our reading this morning from the gospel according to Luke, we hear about two disciples who were struggling to see Jesus – until he actually showed up with them! After learning that Jesus was not in the tomb, the disciples weren’t quite sure what to do, so they kept on with their normal tasks for the first day of the week. Two of them began a brief journey to Emmaus, a village about seven miles from Jerusalem.

As they walked and talked about the events of that very saddening week, a stranger along the road joined in the conversation. He acted as if he knew nothing about the distressing things that they were discussing, but soon this seeming stranger jumped in with his own take on everything that had happened. He suggested that there was a lot more to Jesus’ death than they had originally understood. He told them that the Messiah would have to suffer as Jesus did if he was to receive the glory they wished for him, and he helped them to see how Jesus was connected to all the things that they had learned before from scripture.

As the two disciples reached Emmaus, the stranger who had joined them along the way said that he would keep going on the road, but they urged him to stop with them:

Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is nearly over.

When he joined them inside, they sat at table together and began to share a meal. He took the bread at dinner, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them, and then they realized that it was none other than the risen Jesus who had been with them all day long! Even though he disappeared right away, they knew who it was, and so they hurried back to Jerusalem – seven miles in the dark, along a dangerous road! – to tell the other disciples.

The stories of encountering Jesus continue all around us. We see Jesus in so many different ways, when we look in the eyes of a stranger, when we offer the gift of presence in the midst of despair, when we share time with beloved friends, when we seek to serve those who are in great need. All the stories of encountering Jesus we have heard this morning and experienced in our lives remind us that Christ is risen, that Jesus is still on the loose in our world, that death does not and will not have the last word, that God is not done with us yet. And every time we gather at this table to share even the simplest of meals, we trust that we will see Jesus again, that he will be made known to us too in the breaking of bread.

My friend Ben, a pastor in North Carolina, told me his own story this week about seeing Jesus. The church where he serves has supplied food to feed hungry students and their families at a local elementary school where his wife teaches. Over the years, they have realized that many children get their only good meals of the day at school, and the weekend for them means less a break from their studies and more the loss of healthy meals for two days. Before Easter, Ben’s wife told him about how Jesus had shown up along the way. The mother of a first grader who gets a bag of food each week came to the office one day to ask why her child was bringing a bag home each week. When the office explained the food was for the family for the whole weekend, the mother had a curious look on her face – the bag had been coming home nearly empty, just a bag of rice and one caned good. They discovered that her daughter had been giving the food away to her classmates on the bus ride home, because she thought they needed food, too, and that the gift she had been given was worth sharing.

The gift of the risen Jesus among us is like that. He shows up in unexpected places – in strange walks and talks with the disciples along that Emmaus road, in the experiences we have shared, at the table where we will soon gather, and in the wonderful simplicity and giving of a child who is as concerned about others as she is about herself.

May we keep seeing Jesus all around us in this Easter season and beyond. Alleluia! Amen.

Looking for the Living

Did You See Him?