Easter: Look for the Living Among the Living
A sermon on Luke 24:1-12 for Easter, 2025, Preached at St Paul's, Ashgrove
In the still of night
Something has stirred
A rumbling of stone
A flash of light
The dawn of hope
Quiet though
Or the whole world would know that everything has changed!
But they don’t know.
They wake, and they gather their spices, and they meet in the appointed place at the appointed time.
Early.
Just after sunrise.
A sunrise, like any other, heralding a new day. But they had no idea just how new this day really was.
How are they going to roll the stone away? Well, they are strong women, who have carried the weight of discipleship for years, both following and supporting their teacher. And there are quite a few of them. They won’t have any trouble with the stone.
But were there lots of women, as Luke and Mark say, or just Mary Magdalene, as John says, or just two Marys, as Matthew says?
A morning like this, so momentous, so mysterious, is bound to be told from multiple perspectives, with various tellings bringing out different facets of an event that can’t fit into one narrative. And this morning, Luke is our guide. Luke, who has shone a spotlight on so many women throughout his narrative, now brings a large group of women together around the empty tomb.
Because that is what they find. And empty tomb. No stone to roll away
No body to anoint
No wounds to clean
No final farewell to their beloved teacher.
Just an empty tomb.
And then two shiny men saying crazy things. “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
He is not here
He has risen.
Remember that he told you this would happen. He told you and you thought he was talking in metaphors and riddles, but no, he really has risen. Literally!
Don’t look for the living among the dead.
And we know, because John tells us, that Jesus met with Mary Magdalene there at the tomb, but this morning Luke is our guide. None of them tell the full story. We need all four. But this this morning we go where Luke leads us.
Because we are also looking for Jesus.
Just like those women.
We are looking for answers. We are looking for healing. We are looking for inspiration. We are looking for hope. We are looking for peace.
We are looking for Jesus. Just like they were.
Don’t look for him among the dead but among the living.
Presumably the women told the disciples exactly what the angels had said: don’t look for the living among the dead. But what does Peter do? Peter, who can be relied on to do the wrong thing every time; Peter, the sort of person about whom people are always saying, “well, his heart is in the right place!” Peter immediately gets up and runs to look for the living among the dead – in the tomb. But he is not there. But then, where else was Peter supposed to look? He is not there, but where is he?
And if these 12 verses were all we had, we would be left with that mystery. If Jesus isn’t in the empty tomb, then where is he? Where are we supposed to look, if not in the last place we saw him?
Well, unlike Mark, Luke doesn’t stop there. And this morning Luke is our guide. Luke goes on to describe situations where the disciples do find Jesus.
Luke says it is not among the dead but among the living that Jesus is to be found.
Among two disciples as they walk and talk about Jesus’ crucifixion.
In a stranger who breaks bread with them and immediately stops being a stranger.
And in the whole gathering of disciples as they puzzle over the stories they are hearing about his resurrection.
Jesus is found among the living as living people gather to remember him, especially as they reflect on the meaning of his death and resurrection.
Jesus is found among living disciples. And,
When Jesus met with them, he opened their eyes to understand the Scriptures. He helped them read the Scriptures as a living word that could course through their veins and set their hearts on fire.
Jesus is found where the living Scriptures are read in a way that enters the very soul and transforms the gathered disciples from the inside out.
And since Luke is our guide this morning, we let him direct us to one more place where Jesus is found.
When was it that the Emmaus disciples recognised Jesus? Wasn’t it as he broke bread?
Breaking bread had a double meaning for these disciples, as it does for us. Breaking bread was an act of hospitality, welcoming people around your table and opening up as much or as little as you have for all to share. There is a lot of hospitality in Luke’s Gospel, and all the Gospels make it clear that when we welcome and feed anyone in Jesus’ name, we are welcoming and feeding Jesus. Jesus is to be found around a shared table when outsiders are welcomed in.
Also, more particularly, just a few days earlier, though it must have felt like a century, Jesus had broken bread and told them to think of it as his body, given for them, and he told them to keep doing that regularly in remembrance of him. Jesus is to be found in the living tradition in which we remember him in his words and his symbols.
Don’t look for the living among the dead, look for him among the living:
1. In the gathering of living disciples
2. In reading and reflecting together on living Scriptures
3. In acts of life-sharing hospitality that welcome outsiders
4. And in the living tradition of remembering that Jesus gave us.
After that Jesus leaves the disciples physically, and they are no longer able to literally touch him and hear his voice and eat food with him. But how does Luke end his Gospel? “The disciples were continually in the temple blessing God.”
They continued to look for the living among the living: in the place where people gathered to pray and hear the scriptures and observe the traditions God had given them.
On Palm Sunday I reminded you that by the time Luke wrote this Gospel, the temple in Jerusalem had already been destroyed. He ends with the disciples in the temple, knowing that would touch the exposed nerve of their trauma. But Luke is a doctor, and his intention is to heal.
It was no longer possible to seek God in the Jerusalem temple. But Luke has gently guided his readers to the living temple where Jesus is to be found:
1. In the gathering of living disciples
2. In reading and reflecting together on living Scriptures
3. In acts of life-sharing hospitality that welcome outsiders
4. And in maintaining the living tradition that Jesus gave us.
And that is great news because it means that we can look for Jesus and find him anywhere, any time. Even here in Ashgrove in 2025.
Through Holy Week this year we have been reflecting on the question Jesus raised as he entered Jerusalem. He wept for them because they did not know the things that make for peace. And we have admitted that we also have trouble finding those things and making that peace.
And so we notice that if we follow Jesus to those places where he can be found: if we gather with other disciples, read the Scriptures together – not to criticise each other’s interpretations but to really listen to Jesus by listening to each other – as we offer hospitality to outsiders and welcome them with us to the Lord’s table, then surely that is the beginning of peace in this world of conflict.
And we can experience this peace that he brings because He is Risen,
He is risen indeed!
With Love from Rev Margaret
If you are in Brisbane in May-June 2025 we’d love you to join us for a festival of hope:
