He Lives!

                                       Luke 24: 1-12

 

 

          He had told them. Three times he had told them,

 

according to Luke. The first time, he said: “The Son of Man

 

must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and

 

chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be

 

raised” [9:22].  The second time he said to his disciples: “The

 

Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men”

 

[9:44]. On the way to Jerusalem, he foretold his death a third

 

time, finishing his remarks with a comment that “on the third

 

day he would rise” [18: 33]. But they didn’t understand. The

 

people closest to Jesus, the people who had been with him day

 

and night for three years, didn’t understand who he was or

 

what he was there to do. When Jesus died on that hill on

 

Calvary, his followers hid in fear and cried in despair.

 

          What a difference three days make! It was Sunday, the

 

first day of the week. The Sabbath was over. Mary Magdalene,

 

Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the other women went

 

to the tomb to cover Jesus’ body with spices and to do other

 

final burial rights that had had to wait until after the Sabbath. 

 

          The tomb was a hole carved in the rock and covered

 

with a large stone which was rolled across the opening along a

 

top groove meant to hold it in place. The tomb was hewn

 

to hold a man’s body, which would be placed upon a stone

 

shelf also carved from the rock. The tomb was probably too

 

small for all five women to enter at the same time.

 

Luke talks about what they found and what they did not

 

find. They found the stone, but it had been rolled away. And

 

when they went in, what they found was not the dead body of

 

Jesus, but the living spirit bodies of two men. From Luke’s

 

description, there is no doubt that they are angels. No matter

 

that the Gospel accounts differ on the detail, from one

 

man in a long white robe in Mark to the angel of the Lord in

 

Matthew to two angels in John.  No two eyewitnesses ever give

 

identical accounts of something witnessed.  It is not the

 

messengers that Luke would have us remember. When God

 

has something to say, something for us to remember, it is never

 

about the messenger and always about the message. Here, the

 

message is that flesh has been replaced by Spirit and that

 

the tomb is empty!

 

          “Why do you seek the living among the dead? ask the

 

angels? Why, indeed! Why did the religious rulers see him as a

 

threat instead of the answer to their prayers? Why did the

 

people think he was going to be the king they wanted instead of

 

the Savior they needed? Why was everyone expecting a man-

 

made solution to a God-sized problem? The dead reside in

 

tombs and Jesus’ tomb was empty! The angels heralded the

 

news that changed the world. “He is not here, but has risen.”

 

          The angels told the women to remember…to remember

 

what Jesus himself has told them on several occasions…that he

 

would rise on the third day. They remembered his words and

 

then they realized that they were looking for Jesus in the

 

wrong place. The tomb was empty.

 

          Place yourself in that group. You are one of his followers,

 

perhaps one of the women. You are loyal. You have followed

 

Jesus to the end. You heard of his arrest in Gethsemane and

 

you came to the temple court. You waited through the night

 

and saw him taken to Pilate, then back to the temple and yet

 

again to Pilate. You heard his cries of pain as he was whipped

 

and scourged.  You clamored to get inside the Roman

 

courtyard where Pilate presented Jesus and Barabbas. You

 

watched helplessly as the mob demanded that Jesus be

 

crucified. You followed him as he carried his cross through the

 

city and up that hill to the Place of the Skull. You cried as he

 

suffered and yet forgave his persecutors. You huddled at the

 

foot of the cross as he breathed his last.  Your dreams and

 

hopes disappeared with his death and for the last two days, you

 

have cried until there are no more tears. And now, you come to

 

prepare his broken body and he is gone. The tomb is empty,

 

save for two men so bright that your eyes must turn away from

 

the light. What does it all mean?

 

          Luke does that to us in his Gospel. Early in the book, the

 

angel leaves a young Mary to “ponder” things in her heart.

 

Mary Magdalene and the other women find an empty tomb,

 

and they are “perplexed.” When they tell of these things, all of

 

the apostles except Peter characterize their story as an “idle

 

tale.” Peter has a different take. His heart stirs and he runs to

 

the tomb. Looking in, he sees nothing but the linen cloths that

 

have covered Jesus. He goes home “marveling” at what had

 

happened. Luke has the characters, and us, pondering,

 

perplexed and marveling. They did not know what it all meant.

 

          In one of the most monumental miscalculations of

 

information in all of history, the disciples call the story of the

 

empty tomb an “idle tale.” Peter is the lone exception and

 

even he can only “marvel” at the news. The tomb is empty

 

and he is risen. An idle tale?  Not exactly. Two thousand years

 

later, with two billion converts alive today to retell the story, it

 

is known as the Good News, the Gospel, the greatest story ever

 

told.

 

          But even today, it is difficult to grasp the incredible truth

 

of Easter.  Most Bibles now have captions and headings to

 

explain the text. Look at the captions in your Bible for Luke 9

 

and 18 regarding Jesus’ forecasts. Chances are that they read

 

of Jesus foretelling his death. But Jesus words also foretell of

 

his resurrection on the third day. How do we fail to note that in

 

our headings? Are we more interested in his death than his

 

resurrection? Even today, we strain to grasp the message that

 

lies in the story. It is just too big. When we try to downsize it

 

into bits and morsels that we can digest, we distill it into

 

something foreign, something smaller than it is. Do we know

 

what it means, or are we perplexed or still pondering?

 

The story of Easter is the story of the resurrection. Yes,

 

Jesus’ death had to come. His sacrifice had to be made. His

 

love,  his sacrificial, unbounded love, had to be shown and

 

demonstrated for us to know forgiveness.  But the story of 

 

Easter is resurrection! He lives! He lives today! Easter means

 

Resurrection Sunday, and the very fact of the resurrection is

 

that God conquered death and that in that victory lies our

 

path to redemption. He did it for us!

 

          He foretold his death. He went to the cross. All true. But

 

don’t stop there. He rose! To know that he rose is to know that

 

the resurrection is revelation! The resurrection is under-

 

standing. It is no “idle tale.” The real story of the cross is

 

not tragedy, but triumph…and our salvation!

 

          Many of us still look to make the story bite-sized, but it

 

will not be contained. Many of us still look for Jesus among the

 

dead, but we will not find him there.  He is more than a great

 

man, a hero from the past, a role model for gracious living, a

 

person to be studied. The tomb is empty. The story of Easter is

 

that he lives. He lives! He is here and now. We can meet him

 

every day. We can experience him…not just study him. He

 

lives! And because he lives, we too can live.

 

          And the angels said: “Why do you seek the living among

 

the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember…”