Sermon on Luke 24:1-12

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

These women followers of Jesus woke early on the first day of the week to finish the previous week’s grisly business. They were taking spices and ointments to care for and honor Jesus’ body. It was what you did when someone you love died, just as we call funeral parlors, florists, and pastors. It was what was expected.

But many expectations were shattered that day.

They expected to go to the tomb with their spices and prepare Jesus’ body for its final resting place.

I’m not sure how they had planned to move the stone, but they didn’t expect it to already be rolled away from the tomb.

They didn’t expect that Jesus’ body would be gone.

They didn’t expect divine messengers to suddenly appear.

Then, the divine messengers tell them that their expectations are all wrong:

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

The women (understandably) expected to find Jesus where the dead are buried.

Where do you expect to find Jesus?

Up in the sky?

I caught myself the other day when we were working on learning the song “Jesus Loves Me” with hand motions in Messy Church. We got to the line “Little ones to him belong,” and I found myself pointing up on the word “him.”

There is a common understanding of Jesus and God being up—up in the sky, up in heaven, looking down on the Earth. There are plenty of places in the Bible that talk about God being in the heavens or Jesus ascending to heaven.

But is that the only or even the primary place to find Jesus?

If we only think of God and Jesus being “up,” then it’s harder to remember that Jesus is all around us and that God isn’t far away, looking on in judgment and unconcerned with our individual joys and challenges.

Jesus defies our expectations that we can primarily find him “up there.”

Or do we expect to find Jesus primarily in history?

We spend a lot of our time together reading from the Gospels—the biblical stories of Jesus’ life on Earth in the first century. That’s a good thing—so much of what we know about Jesus is because of those stories about what he did, who he spent time with, what he said “back then.” That’s why the Incarnation—when God became human in Jesus—is important. So much of what we know about God is because of what we know about Jesus during those thirty-something years he spent as a human walking around among us.

But sometimes our expectations are that we can primarily find Jesus “back then.” That doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for Jesus to be part of our lives now, except perhaps as a good example for us to follow.

Some of us may say explicitly that we believe Jesus was a good teacher, a good moral example, who lived in the first century and died and is no longer part of our lives except through memory and story.

Others of us may not say that explicitly, but we sometimes say it with our lives. We sometimes act like following Jesus is a to-do list. There’s nothing wrong with asking “what would Jesus do?,” unless it causes us to forget God’s grace. Jesus’s life and death and resurrection mean that we don’t earn a relationship with God—we are embraced into God’s family as we are. It’s that knowledge, not our own strivings to be carbon-copy Jesuses, that will make our lives shine with God’s love.

Maybe we expect to find Jesus particularly in “holy” places?

It can be easy sometimes to feel Jesus’ presence in a sanctuary like this or a grand cathedral or a peaceful chapel.

It can be easy also to feel Jesus’ presence when looking over the ocean or a mountain view or when listening to worshipful music.

Moments like those are beautiful and to be treasured.

But we can sometimes forget that Jesus is present in the person sleeping on our church steps and in the difficult coworker andin the tiny apartment where a mother is trying to stretch one packet of ramen to feed her family.

Jesus is present in the stubborn dandelion pushing itself out of a crack in the sidewalk, and Jesus is there when your neighbor blasts that music you just can’t stand, and Jesus is with every suffering person in Ukraine.

Jesus is present in spaces that are easily labeled “holy,” and also, Jesus’ presence makes every space holy.

Perhaps our expectations that Jesus is “up there” or “back then” or only in “holy” spaces are ready to be shattered.

The messengers from God asked the women why they were looking for the living among the dead.

They turned the women’s expectations upside down by letting them know that Jesus was among the living.

We, too, can find Jesus where we don’t expect him.

We can find him here on earth—not just far away in the clouds. We can find him in our daily lives, concerned with our own particular selves.

We can find him in the present—not just two thousand years ago. We can accept his embrace and know that we are loved just as we are, without having to strive to measure up to his example.

We can find him everywhere—not just in certain set apart, clean enough, fitting enough places. We can find him present in our messiness, pettiness, and pain.

Let’s stop looking for the living among the dead.

Let’s stop looking for Jesus only in heaven and in the past and in “holy-enough” places.

He’s all around us. Where will you see Jesus this week?

After all, Christ is risen!