“Looking for the Living”
Easter
and looking go together
Kids
will hunt eggs no matter the weather
Send
them out into the field
And
see how many eggs it will yield
They
search up and down with little eyes
Eggs
open and there’s candy—what a surprise!
But
when you’re looking more comes to mind,
It
isn’t always nice things that you will find
It
was just a year ago today, you see
That
the doctor looked inside of me
There
it was that they found
Something
as big as a baseball is round
Death
sneaks into our lives in many ways
All
of us need to number our days
Just
ask any widow where she might find
The
things that bring death to her mind
She
finds reminders in all her crannies and nooks
Missing
her husband even in the way that she cooks
Think
of these women coming with ointments and spice
They
knew they would find something that wasn’t nice:
Jesus
body, bloody, in a tomb it lay
Laid
there after His death on a previous day
The women looked in the tomb,
they were perplexed
They thought Jesus was gone,
their hearts were vexed!
But
then, what should meet their eyes?
It
was two shining angels—what a surprise!
“Why
look for the living among the dead?
Don’t
you remember what He said?
All
of this was to fulfill God’s plan
It
was necessary for the Son of Man
To
be betrayed, mocked, and accused with lies
Be
crucified, and then on the third day rise!”
Then
they remembered this His word
And
stopped their looking, after they heard
What
are you looking for? How are you looking for it? If you find what you’re
looking for is it actually going to do what you need it to do for you? If you
go looking to hard, are you going to like what you find?
That’s quite a bit to
think about when it comes the way we look for things. Let’s compare our looking
to these ladies who came to the tomb that morning. What were they looking for?
Did they find it? How did they walk away?
Mary
Magdalene, Joanna, the other Mary, and the other women had followed Jesus
throughout His ministry. They had faithfully stood at the cross watching Him
die. Even then they had a plan to finish the job that Joseph of Arimathea had
to do quickly. While he was burring Jesus, they were preparing by purchasing
spices to put on Jesus’ body as it decayed.
But
no matter the preparation, no matter how many spices they had, no matter how
deep their sorrow for the dead Master, they were just as helpless as you and I
are as we stand at the open grave of someone we love.
What
had they been looking for in this Jesus anyway? What where they looking for in
a Messiah? They weren’t looking for death and resurrection that’s for sure. Most
people liked His teaching. All but a few liked His miracles—especially the ones
where they got fed.
They
must have wondered as they were going up to Jerusalem if this Jesus would be
the one to rescue them from oppression and set up God’s kingdom here on earth.
Now
He was dead. Now their hopes were gone. Now, they figured they would give their
failed leader the decent burial He deserved.
But
what did they forget? They forgot that three times Jesus had predicted that
this was exactly what had happened to Him. He predicted His suffering. He
predicted His death. He predicted His resurrection!
Isn’t this the typical
human way, God tells us what He’s going to do or what He wants us to do and we
still look for something better.
For example, God tells
us that He’s going to save sinners through faith in Jesus Christ and through
faith in Him alone. He’s going to give us that faith in baptism and strengthen
it through the Lord’s Supper.
Then what do we do? We
invent all sorts of other ways to relate to God. We fool ourselves into
thinking we’re good enough, that we give enough, or maybe that we’re better
than the average person who is definitely way worse than we are.
Or God tells us to love
other people and sets boundaries for us to help us love other people. We enjoy
transgressing those boundaries. We love testing the limits and doing what comes
naturally to us. We are selfish and rude because it’s more convenient.
These are all the
places we look. Where do they get us? They get us nowhere. Sure, it may seem
like we’ve got something now, but all of our idols will fall and crush us in
the process.
We looked for love in all the wrong places.
But Jesus came to find us. We looked for life in places where it just wasn’t
going to be found. But Jesus gave it to us anyway. We tried to take our sins
and justify them ourselves. Jesus came to give us forgiveness. We tried
everything selfish under the sun. Jesus selflessly gave Himself for us on the
cross.
These ladies came
looking for death and they were surprised to find life. Jesus wouldn’t be dead
long enough for them to finish the job of burring Him! Their spices were
completely unnecessary because He wouldn’t be doing anymore decomposing!
What
do you think the women did with those spices? Perhaps, like many prudent women
they took them back to the shop and asked for a refund. You can just imagine
them explaining the shop keeper, “We bought these spices for a funeral, but we
don’t need them anymore. The guy isn’t dead anymore!” Jesus wrecked every
funeral He attended during His ministry and Easter morning He wrecked His own.
Our
looking is futile; we need Jesus to show himself to us. Notice in these first
scene of the resurrection, we don’t actually get to see Jesus. We know that
He’s risen because the angels said it. Without an explanation, the empty tomb
just doesn’t make sense. The women had no clue what to think about it. You need
someone to explain it to you. That’s why you’re here. That’s why we meet here
each week.
Later on that evening,
Jesus would show Himself to the disciples—but until then all they had was the
message brought by the women from the tomb. Even before Jesus shows himself to
the disciples, there’s already His Word.
That’s
the same word you and I have. We’ve heard it again and again. This is where God
wants us to find Him. He takes out all guess work. Jesus reveals Himself to you
by giving you the Holy Spirit and enabling you to see Him in His Word.
God’s
Word doesn’t leave us guessing, we know where to look to find forgiveness. We
know we find it in Christ. When we look in water of Holy Baptism, what do we
see? We see His promise there of new birth in the washing of water with the
word. When we look for in the Lord’s Supper, what do we see? It looks like
simple bread and wine but we see Jesus’ body and blood. We see it because He
promises that we can find him there. You won’t find Jesus in the tomb, but
these are the places where you will find Him.
If Jesus can be found
in these places, then why wouldn’t you come and find Him? Why would you stay
away? If we don’t want to listen, then we need to come face to face with the
risen Lord Jesus and somehow explain Him away. His tomb is empty. If you try
and get rid of Him, you won’t be able to do any better than those who killed
Him—and even that didn’t work.
Since
Jesus can be found it changes everything. For the women who went looking for
Jesus it meant gloom turned into joy. For those who morn, it means the promise
of life everlasting. When we find those memories of those who have past, we can
find Jesus who is alive for us and for them. When the doctor finds scary things
in our bodies, we can look and find hope and comfort in Jesus because all of
that mess lies defeated before Him. Even for the kids who look for Easter eggs,
they can find a great picture of what Jesus does for us. The egg is opened,
just like the tomb.
Dear friends
Remember this, you have been
found
So when your body lies beneath
the ground
Jesus will come looking for you,
He’ll come to your grave and you
know what He’ll do?
He’ll give you new life in a new
creation
He’ll take away all that causes
frustration
He now gives you peace, love,
hope and joy,
The good news we share with every
girl and boy
Look at the tomb, Christ is not
there
The slab where He lay now is bare
Look nowhere else if you want to
find
The peace that will rule your
heart and mind
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