Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2004 : April 11, 2004
Why Do You Look for the Living among the Dead?
Easter Sunday
Bewildered. Moses before the burning bush. Saul on the way to Tarsus. The women at the open and empty tomb. Bewildered. I think that's a pretty good word to describe what the women were feeling that morning. They were dealing with the events of Good Friday. They brought spices to anoint Jesus' body because they thought he was dead. But what about the stone that Joseph of Arimathea had rolled in front of the entrance? Who would take it away? They arrived to find a bewildering sight -- the stone had been rolled away. How? They didn't know, but some of them guessed. John's gospel tells us that Mary Magdalene ran back to tell the disciples before she even went into the tomb. She thought someone had come and stolen Jesus' body. Meanwhile, the other women looked into the tomb. Then, to their great surprise, an angel greeted them and asked them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" The angel, of course, knew what was going on. The women didn't. They were frightened. They were bewildered. They had been acting as though Jesus were still dead. That's why they still didn't get it.
The women should have been overjoyed, rejoicing in the resurrected Lord. But that's looking back on that first Easter morning with 20/20 hindsight. It's like being a Monday, armchair quarterback: How can you let the other team convert on a 4th and 26? That's like trying to blame someone today for not being able to anticipate the 9/11 disaster. The fact is, we live in a sinful world and bad things are going to happen. And we can't do anything about many of those things. The question is: how are we going to deal with the bad things in life that we have no control over? Are we going to try to take care of them and figure everything out and get frightened and worry and despair in the process? Or will we remember that Jesus is alive?
Jesus battled our greatest enemies, the devil and death and hell, and he defeated them. He paid for every sin. His resurrection proves it. Your sins are forgiven! Your faith in Jesus assures you of heaven. One day you'll get there, with every other believer.
It took a while for the women to get it on that first Easter Sunday also. Should they have known better? I suppose you could say that they should have. But they had no inkling what was happening. The were thinking he was still dead.
Did the women deserve to wear dunce caps because they didn't think Jesus was alive? Perhaps. But if they deserve to wear one, we should be wearing more than one. Jesus is alive. We have the entire New Testament that proclaims that fact. He is the only one to come back from the dead by his own power. Every other religion follows the inventor of that religion who has a grave. They died. And they stayed dead. Jesus died, but he now lives. He has shown himself to be the ruler of death and life, the Lord of heaven and earth. He right now is reigning in heaven for the good of every believer. The problem with us today is that we often act as if Jesus were still dead, just like the women at the empty tomb, even though we know better.
Like those women, we carry around needless burdens. What is the burden that you are carrying around? I don't know. But God knows. And yet how often don't we act as if God didn't know! We might feel sometimes that our sins are too great for Jesus to forgive. If we think that, we act as though Jesus were still dead and, therefore, we are still in our sins. Like the women, we worry and fret about things when we really have nothing to worry about. The women fretted about the stone and who would roll it away. Are you worried about your job? Maybe you just lost yours or maybe it looks like layoffs are on the horizon where you work. That's a big stone. If you are having marital problems or parenting problems or problems being single and wondering if you're ever going to find a spouse -- those are big stones. How many of us have loved ones in harm's way in Iraq? How many of us are dealing with serious health issues? How many of us are dealing with a close friend or family member dying? Those are huge stones! It's easy to worry about those things. We can feel despair welling up within us. We might not know where to turn. We feel abandoned. Bewildered. But if we leave it there, we're living our lives as if Jesus were still dead.
Maybe our burden isn't thinking our sins are too great to be forgiven. Maybe our burden isn't worrying about what will happen next in our lives. Maybe our burden that we're carrying around is sin itself. We might be living our lives going down paths we know we shouldn't be going down because they are not God-pleasing. Have we become the lord of our lives, instead of bowing down in reverence and holy fear and awe at who God is what he's done for us? Have we looked at the great commission of Christ and thought that maybe it's not something I want to do? It's too hard. It's too confrontational. There's a whole host of sins we could come up with. Whatever that sin is, if it is starting to rule our lives instead of God and his Word ruling us, then we are living as if Jesus is still dead, as if his resurrection means nothing.
Should the women at the tomb have known better? Yes, the disciples should have as well. But then we should know better even more. We know that we have a risen Lord! Let's not live as though Jesus were dead.
How can we do that? By not only knowing that we have a risen Lord, but that we have his reliable Word. As huge as the stones are in our lives, we don't have to despair. We don't have to worry about them at all. Because Jesus is alive. Why did the angel roll away the stone from the entrance to Jesus' tomb? Was it to let Jesus out? No! It was to show the world that Jesus had already come out of the grave, that Jesus had defeated Satan and death and hell and all our enemies when he died on the cross. We don't have to wander around in our lives with no hope and with no direction and with no idea of what's going to happen next. We might not know what will happen tomorrow, but that doesn't matter -- Jesus is alive! We might not know where our illness will end up or how we will be able to support our family if we lose our job, but that doesn't matter -- Jesus is still alive! He promised he would rise, and he did. That's means that he kept the most difficult to keep promise ever. He was dead, but he rose from the dead. If Jesus could keep that promise, we know he isn't lying when he says, "I will be with you to the end of the age," or when he says, "Don't worry, I will take care of you," or when he says, "This, too, will work out for your good, even though you can't understand it now," and especially when he says, "Whoever believes in Jesus will not perish but have eternal life." Jesus was delivered over to death because of our sins and was raised again because of our justification. We have a risen Lord who gives us the power to say "no" to sin. The women couldn't understand that Jesus was alive, but he was just the same. We need to live our lives not as if Jesus were still dead, but as if he is alive, because he is alive.
The angel pointed the women to the one place we should always go to find the answer to any difficulty in life -- they pointed the women to God's reliable Word. "He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.' " (Luke 24:6-7) The women expected Jesus to still be dead because they had not relied on his Word -- they had forgotten it. Jesus had told them all that was to happen to him in Jerusalem. He had predicted his betrayal and suffering and death. They had witnessed all these things, but they forgot that Jesus had predicted still one more thing: on the third day he must be raised again. The women forgot. Even Jesus' enemies remembered Jesus' words. But Jesus' own friends and followers had forgotten.
That's what we need to remember. We need to remember that Jesus is alive and stop living as though he were still dead. We need to rely on his word.
About nine hundred years before Jesus died and rose again, a prophet named Elijah became discouraged with his work for the Lord and ran off to the desert and waited to die. The Lord took him to a mountain and then asked him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" (1 Kings 19:9) The question contained a reminder for the prophet. It said, "You are a prophet of God; what are you doing here in a cave in the middle of the wilderness?" The angel's question to the women contained the same reminder. "Why are you looking for the living among the dead?" The question was a reminder to the women that they had good news to tell others. They had a living Savior, and they needed to stop poking around like Jesus was still dead and, instead, go and tell the good news. The women got the message. We are told that they remembered Jesus' words and then left the tomb and eventually told Jesus' disciples everything that they had seen.
Why do you look for the living among the dead? The question is still asked of us when we are tempted to poke around in our lives as if we really have no purpose here and no reason for living. Jesus has risen; we have a reason for living: to glorify him in all that we do. And one way that we glorify the Savior is by going and telling others about our Savior. Our Savior is alive; he lives to comfort us in life's troubles, to give us peace in life's turmoil, to walk with us, to help us carry our burdens, to assure us that our sins are forgiven and heaven is ours through faith in him. Others need to know. No, it won't always produce immediate results. The prophet Elijah was frustrated by the lack of expected results. On Easter morning, when the women went and told the disciples, we are told that at first the disciples did not believe the women because their words seemed like nonsense. But eventually they did believe. That's the way it goes with us too. Perhaps our invitations seem to fall on deaf ears because the folks we're talking to are still bewildered with life and what to do about it. You can tell them Jesus took care of everything, especially opening the gate of heaven to all who believe in him. Why do you look for the living among the dead? Jesus is alive!
Bewildered? Afraid? Despairing? Jesus is alive! You have a risen Lord! It shows he is God and his Word is reliable. Tell others about it. Our sins and their sins are forgiven. Through faith, heaven is ours and theirs. Jesus has taken care of everything. Amen.
