Reflection on Luke 24:1-12

 

Today is what it is all about!  Today is the great celebration of Jesus Christ rising from the dead!  All of our hope and trust clings to the events that we celebrate today. 

Today we shout out, “Alleluia, Christ is risen! “ and we respond, “He is risen indeed, Alleluia” because we are a resurrection people.  We are not a people who get trapped in death.  We are not a people who remain pushed down when the world’s feet stomp on our lives and on our souls. 

No, we have a Lord who lifts us up, especially when we are unable to get up ourselves.  We have a Lord who lifts us out of sin and death and brings us into the light of a new day, a new way, and a new life that is here to stay.  We are a resurrection people.

So with the whole people of God we shout, “Alleluia.”  With the Psalmist we shout, “This is the day that the Lord has made!  We will rejoice and be glad in it!”  With Peter we shout, “He is Lord of all!” 

We shout together because even when we are at our worst, Christ is at his best; reviving us, renewing us, and raising us up to be the people of God who are alive!  We are alive because of the resurrection power of Jesus Christ our Lord!

With all that praise to our resurrected Lord, hopefully my voice will not falter.  With all that praise to our resurrected Lord, hopefully my hope will not fail.  With all that praise to our resurrected Lord, hopefully my trust will not vanish.  Hopefully, I will never lose sight of the one who rescues me.  Hopefully, I will never lose track of my Lord.

“Losing track of the Lord;” I only mention this on this otherwise glorious day, because the Bible does.  The Bible mentions how the followers of Jesus lose track of Jesus.  It is only a few words of scripture here, but they are words that can stop you in your tracks if you let them.  The Bible says, “On the first day of the week, at early dawn, [the women] came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared.  They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body.”  And, all of this left the women, “perplexed.”

They lost track of Jesus!  He was supposed to be in the tomb, and they find that he is not.  These faithful women (Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them)…these faithful disciples of Jesus Christ lost track of Jesus! 

Just to be clear, it is not like it was their job to guard his body.  At least they showed up to do the embalming work that needed to be done.  The men are nowhere to be found.  I want to be clear about that.  The men not only lost Jesus, they seemingly chose to forget about him entirely.  At least these women showed up! 

Yet, they still lost track of Jesus.  They went into the tomb and the body of Jesus was not there.  And, this “perplexed” them a great deal.

Let us stop right there for a second.  My English Bible says that they were “perplexed,” as if Jesus was a mug of coffee that one of the women just sat down somewhere while getting the newspaper off of the porch.  “Hmmm, where did I set my coffee?”  That is “perplexing.”  Being given a riddle like, “What do you have to break before you can use it?” is something that can be described as “perplexing.”  But, losing the body of the one you love…hold on.  “An egg.”  The answer to what you have to break before using it is “an egg.”  I just did not want to leave any of you behind while you were perplexed.  Now that we have that settled, we return back to my point. 

Losing the body of the one you love, losing the one in whom you put your hope and trust, is quite a bit more than “perplexing.”  The Greek word here has a strong sense of great anxiety and confusion.  When they lost sight of the one they loved, followed, and trusted, they were filled with a heart pounding, breath gasping sense of anxiety, confusion, and fear. 

You know what this is about.  This is what happens when your loved one says, “We need to talk, it is important.”  In that instant, your heart starts racing.  This is what happens when you hear that that a tornado ripped through your child’s town or that a shooter went on a rampage through your parent’s church.  This is what happens when you are in the store and you lose sight of your child, or you are a child and you completely lose sight of you parent…the one you love and rely upon for the most basic things in life.  These women have lost sight of Jesus, and it fills them with this great anxiety.  And, it is all because they cannot see the truth.

Something great has happened, but they just cannot see it.  Jesus has been raised from the dead, and they see it, but they do not truly see it.  They only see that he is gone.  They cannot yet see that he has arisen from the dead.  They have lost track of Jesus.

This happens all the time: when something great and good has happened, but those involved just cannot see it.  I just read about a little orphan girl who dreamed of finally having a family.  And then, she got one.  Some, wonderful, beautiful people of God saw the girl at her lowest, had compassion on her, loved her, and adopted her.  But, the parents were so perplexed…and I mean in the biblical sense…filled with anxiety and panic…because every night rather than sleeping in her bed, they would find her sleeping under her bed.  You see, under the bed was where she was safe from her formerly abusive, drunk father.  He was long gone, done in by his own vices and she was now safe with a family full of love, but she just could not see it.  Her trauma was too great.  Something great had happened, but she just could not see it.

All kinds of people encounter some sort of hardship that actually brings them to a much better place in the end, but when you are in the middle of the struggle, you just cannot see the great thing that God is making to taking place.  

That is where these women were.  Something great had happened, but they just could not see it.

How many times has God been doing something great in your life, but you just could not see it?  It is so hard to trust that God is working resurrected opportunities in our lives when life is a struggle.  It is so easy to be stuck, staring at an empty, cold tomb.  It is so easy to get stuck while the Holy Spirit is up to something great around you.  If only you could open your eyes.  If only you could see.  If only someone were there to show you.

Guess what?  The Lord provides.  In the tomb, two men appeared to the women and asked, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.  Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”

And, there they were: the ones that God provided to help the women see. 

It is absolutely true that you cannot see what you do not know to look for in the first place.  That is why God created “us” instead of “me.”  We need all of “us” in order to see what God is up to.  We need all of “us” so that we will see and recognize when our lives are being resurrected right under our own noses.  We need all of “us” so that we can live resurrected lives that shout out, “Alleluia, Christ is risen.  He is risen, indeed, Alleluia!”

After the women have been given the gift of sight…the gift of understanding what God is up to, the women go and tell the missing men (the apostles) the truth.  Hopefully, they too will be able to see and live.  Hopefully, they will return from hiding under their beds and live resurrected lives. 

If you read the story you will notice that most of them actually did not “see” what God was up to when the women first shared the good news.  That is typical I supposed.  Good news is hard to take, until you can finally see.  But, Peter hears, and Peter sees.  And, that prepares Peter to become one of the greatest messengers that Jesus Christ ever provided.  But, that is a tale for another day. 

Just know the truth of Jesus Christ: that Jesus Christ is making something great happen for you too.  The resurrected life is yours also.  New life from the old is emerging for you too.  If you need, lean on one of us, the other followers of Jesus Christ, so that we can help you see.  And, I pray that you would do the same for me.  After-all, we are not a people who dwell in the shadow of death.  We are a resurrection people, who live lives of shouting “Alleluia” and trusting always that Christ has arisen.  We are a people made alive again by Jesus Christ.  We are a resurrection people.