Psalm 118: 14-16a Abba God is my strength and my song and has become my salvation. There is a sound of exultation and victory in the tents of the righteous: “The right hand of Abba God has triumphed!

Introduction

Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!!

This morning, our calcified hearts prone to wander from God find rest in divine sealing made known in the unsealed, empty tomb. We who are enticed and attracted to the shiny bobbles and fluffy lures of the kingdom of humanity are now ushered into something truly new, truly beaming, truly spectacular, truly built of the divine, eternal, never tarnishing substance that is the love of God for you, the Beloved. This morning, despite our wandering, we come face to face with God in Christ, the one who lives and doesn’t die.

Even when we decided to wander from God, to turn our backs, to forget the ancient and good story, to tread and tromp on everyone and everything, to estrange ourselves, to misjudge and prejudge others unto their condemnation, and even when we preferred acts of violence and death, God sought us and found us as we were wandering “from the fold of God”[1] and set us right. This morning, the exposure we felt on Friday becomes the warm light of the risen Son, bringing us into himself, into the lap of Abba God, and wrapping us up like newborn babes in the warm blanket of the Holy Spirit. Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING stands between God and God’s beloved, not even death.

Today we’re a people set back on course, eyes lifted, faces turned, fleshy hearts thumping with divine love, hands and feet eager to spread the liberation we have received, and voices ready to call forth life even when all that surrounds us in the world is death. Today we become a people who dares to believe this crazy, far-out story because today become a people brought to life by this good and ancient word of God.

Luke 24:1-12

Now after the women were made full of fear they bowed their faces to the earth; [the two men in clothing shining like lightening] said to the women, “Why are you seeking the one who lives among the dead?” (Luke 24:5)

At the end of chapter 23, Luke mentions that the women—Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary mother of James, and some other women (24:10a)—saw, from a distance, where Joseph of Arimathea placed Jesus’s body (v.55).[2] It’s these women who now take center stage in the reception of the good news that Jesus is raised. As the men fled, the women held their ground initially in the distance and now the first ones on the scene in Luke’s resurrection story.[3]

Having seen where Joseph placed Jesus’s body (23:55), and it being the first day of the week and still in the depths of early morning, these women went to the tomb bearing the spices they prepared on Friday night (v.1 and 23:56). Keeping in mind that they prepared spices on Friday night, these women are not examples of blind faith despite the facts; for them, as well as for the men, Jesus was dead—very dead. They planned to anoint his body,[4] which wasn’t done in the rush getting his body down from the cross and into a tomb before the sunset and curses arrived (cf. Dt 21:23).

Now, when they arrived at the tomb, they found the stone having been [mysteriously[5]] rolled away from the tomb (v.2). Curious to see what happened, the women entered the tomb. And after entering the tomb they did not find the body of Jesus (v. 3). Luke then writes, while the women were perplexed/in doubt about what had happened, behold! two men approached the women [dressed] in clothing shining like lightening (v.4). The women were confused, and now they became full of fear; upon being approached by two men in dazzling clothing, Luke tells us, they bowed their faces to the earth (5a). In other words, they suddenly dropped to the ground because they were full of terror. While this is a natural and biblical response to angelic visitors, it’s also a human reaction. These women came to anoint Jesus’s body, and not only is it missing (stolen, maybe?) but now two men show up and approach them (Are we in trouble? Are they going to harm us?). Luke does a marvelous job wedding together the spiritual and temporal realities of this story growing in dramatic tension.

Luke then writes that the two gleaming men said to the women, “why are you seeking the one who lives with the dead? He is not here but was raised” (v.5b-6a).For one moment, suspend your judgment and how well you know this story. Stay here with the women hearing, for the first time, that Jesus—whom they saw crucified on Friday and sealed up in a tomb—is not dead but alive because he is risen! Instantaneously, your world is turned upside down…again! As they looked at each other (now more in astonishment and less in fear) they begin the journey of faith as it dawns on them (in their hearts and minds) that death itself has a mortal weakness: God…Is it possible? Is  Jesus alive? Imagine the grief they carried giving birth to hope…hope daring to rise to life in the depths of a tomb meant for the hopelessness of death…

Then Luke tells us that the two men exhort them, remember what he spoke to you while he was still in galilee, saying it is necessary that the son of humanity be betrayed into the hands of sinful humanity and to be crucified and on the third day to be raised up.” And as the men remind them, these women remembered [Jesus’s] words and after returning from the tomb they announced[6] all these things to the twelve and to the all the remaining people (vv. 8-9). That which they hadn’t fully grasped they did as the celestial men spoke to them;[7] they heard,[8] they believed, and they went.[9] If there were ever three phrases that sum up good discipleship, these are they.[10] The women didn’t linger, tarry, hesitate, debate, and didn’t dismiss because this message didn’t align with their social, political, or religious status-quo. They ran home and immediately told the disciples what they heard. Good news arrives!

And then it’s dismissed. Luke informs us, [the women and their words] appeared before [the men] as if silly, idle nonsense; they were disbelieving the women (v.11). The good news the women brought falls flat at the feet of the men they told; [11] save one. Peter is the only who listened and is intrigued enough to run to the tomb, and after stooping to look he saw only the piece of fine linen and then he departed toward home marveling at what had happened (v.12). According to Luke, Peter not only denied Jesus but then didn’t tell the others that the women were correct; he just remained silent and amazed. [12]  Here, Luke draws purposeful attention to the faithfulness of the women who proclaimed the good news even when it sounded ludicrous.[13] They didn’t linger among the dead; inspired by faith,[14] they ran straight into (new) life, spreading the good news of the one who is living, the risen Jesus the Christ. In this moment filled with swelling divine life, the women were resistant to wandering. They ran toward the risen Christ boldly entering a new reality and order where death succumbs to life.[15]

Conclusion

For us who are prone to wander because we forsake and forget the way of the reign of God, this morning we are given Christ himself—all of him—so that we never forget or forsake the way. For us who are addicted to treading on and tromping about the land and on others, we have received a new way to walk in the world demonstrated by the running feet of the women: swift and sensitive, eager to bring good news rather than pain! For us who find ourselves estranged by our own doing and having become strangers to God, to our neighbor, to creation, and to ourselves we are beckoned out of the oppressive col of self-imposed tombs of isolation and are given a community with God, with others, with creation, and with ourselves built on and by the love of Christ. For us who know the pain of being caught in the captivity of misjudging and prejudging others according to our own human standards, we are refused that plumbline and, instead, we are given divine love, life, and liberation as our new metrics of good and right. For us who are drunk with violence and death, we receive what we do not deserve this morning: peace and life eternal.

This morning we’re given something completely new, completely different, completely strange to the kingdom of humanity. We are given life, love, and liberation. And while we benefit from this, we are given these things specifically so we can participate in God’s divine mission of the revolution of love, life and liberation in the world for the God’s beloved. We are refused the option of living as if we’ve not heard, seen, felt, tasted, smelled the good news. We are charged to take up the way of Christ and live as if the Cross isn’t the end of the story but the beginning. The women who were encountered in the empty tomb were charged to stop looking for the living among the dead; their lives were never ever the same.[16] So it is with us: our call to be disciples taking up their cross and follow Jesus isn’t gone, it’s the only way we have because the path we learned from the kingdom of humanity is forever blocked off.[17] This morning, we’re not the same as we were yesterday morning; this morning, we’ve encountered an empty tomb and heard the announcement from the celestial realm: he is not here he is risen! How could we ever live in the old way? Everything is now new.

Today, our willful and chaotic wandering collides with the steady path of Christ that is dangerous and not careful, that is risky and not safe, that is radical and not status quo, that will afflict and not always comfort.[18] Today we live under the weight of the question, Why are you seeking the one who lives among the dead? (v. 5). Go, Beloved, and live radically and wildly in the name of God and for the well-being of your neighbor and do so in a way that brings God glory and might get you in a little bit of good trouble. You’ve been summoned into life not death, into love and not indifference, into liberation and not captivity.

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[1] Fom the hymn “Come Thou Fount”

[2] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 272. “In 23:55 Luke directed our attention to the women who were present at the burial, and now he continues telling us about the activities of these women once the Sabbath rest had passed.”

[3] Gonzalez, Luke, 272. “It is interesting to note that here again Luke will tell parallel but different stories about the women disciples and the men…These women have been present, but have remained mostly in the background of the story, even since Luke introduced them in 8:2-3. In the narrative of the passion and burial, even while others deny Jesus or flee, these women stand firm, although at a distance. Now they come to the foreground as the first witnesses to the resurrection.”

[4] Gonzalez, Luke, 272-273. “They, no less than the rest, believe that in the cross all has come to an end. It is time to return home to their more traditional lives. But before they do that, they must perform one least act of love for their dead Master: they must anoint his body.”

[5] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 837. “How was the stone removed? Luke’s account neglects such detail, for he wants to move quickly to the pivotal discovery of an empty tomb.”

[6] Gren, Luke, 838-839. “‘Luke underscores the faithfulness of their testimony by noting that they announced ‘all these things’—that is, what they had observed, what they had been told, and the new significance they attributed to Jesus’ passion and the absence of his corpse.”

[7] Green, Luke, 837-838. “These women come looking for Jesus, but they want to minister to him, and as they quickly discover, because they lack understanding, they are looking in the wrong place. The angels first admonish them, employing language that is reminiscent of Jesus’ rejoinder to the Sadducees in 20:38: God is not the God of the dead but of the living! That is, in spite of their devout intentions in coming to anoint Jesus’ body, these women have failed to grasp Jesus’ message about the resurrection and, thus, have not taken with appropriate gravity the power of God.”

[8] Gren, Luke, 838. “The antidote for this miscalculation is remembrance. The women are addressed as person who had themselves received Jesus’ teaching in Galilee, and the angel’s message fuses Jesus’ predictions during the Galilean phase of his ministry…Thus they are reminded that the career of the Son of Man blends the two motifs of suffering and vindication, and that in doing so he fulfills the divine will.”

[9] Gonzalez, Luke, 273. “The women do not see the resurrected Jesus. The two figures at the tomb (presumably angels) simply tell them that he has risen just as he had foretold, and they believe. Luke does not even say, as do Matthew and Mark (Matt. 28:7; Mrk 16:7), that they are instructed to tell the rest of the disciples (an injunction they follow in Matthew, but not in Mark). They simply hear the witness of the two men at the tomb, and apparently on their own initiative go and tell the others.”

[10] Gren, Luke, 838. Seim qtd in. “Their reception of the resurrection message ‘confirms their discipleship and the instruction they have received as disciples.’”

[11] Green, Luke, 839-840. “The gap between male and female disciples widens, as the faithful account of the women falls on the cynical and unbelieving ears of the men. Nothing more than useless chatter—this is how their announcement is evaluated and discarded. This can be explained in at least to aways. First, the earlier situation of the women disciples is being repeated int eh case of their male counterpart; failing to grasp Jesus’ teaching regarding his suffering and resurrection, they cannot make sense of the news share d with them. At the same time, however, Luke’s ‘all this’ (v 8) cannot but include the message they had received form the angels, so that the men were given access to the significance of recent events. The dismissive response of the men is therefore better explained with reference to the fact that those doing the reporting are women in a world biased against the admissibility of women as witnesses.” Peter’s response is all the more positive.

[12] Green, Luke, 840. Amazement is not faith nor does it hint at the eventual genuine faith. “Unlike the women, [Peter] returns home with no new message to share.”

[13] Gonzalez, Luke, 273. “The contrast is such that one cannot avoid the conclusion that it is purposeful, and that Luke is stressing the faith of these women who have traveled with Jesus from Galilee, and who were the only ones who remained true throughout the entire story of the betrayal. Even though the later course of church history, with its expectation of entirely male leadership, would lead us to think otherwise, it is they who bring the message of the resurrection to the eleven, and not vice versa.”

[14] Green, Luke, 836. “The Evangelist has repeatedly noted the incapacity of the disciples to grasp this truth…but now he signals a breakthrough on the part of the women. If the male disciples continue in their obtuseness, and thus lack of faith, at least Peter response to the witness of the women by going to the tomb. His behavior portends at last the possibility of a more full understanding of Jesus’ message on their part.”

[15] Gonzalez, Luke, 274. “The resurrection is not the continuation of the story. Nor is it just its happy ending. It is the beginning of a new story, of a new age in history.”

[16] Gonzalez, Luke, 276. “But the truth is that the resurrection of Jesus, and the dawning of the new with him, poses a threat to any who would rather continue living as if the cross were the end of the story. The women on their way to the tomb were planning to perform one last act of love for Jesus, and then would probably just return home to their former lives. Peter and the rest would eventually return to their boats, their nets, and the various occupations. But now the empty tomb opens new possibilities. Now there is no way back to the former life in Galilee. Even though Luke tells us that Peter simply went home after seeing the empty tomb, we will soon learn that this was not the end of it: Peter himself would eventually die on his own cross.”

[17] Gonzalez, Luke, 276. “The resurrection is a joyous event; but it also means that Jesus’ call for his disciples to take up their cross and follow him is still valid. The road to the old ways in Galilee is now barred. The resurrection of Jesus impels them forward to their own crosses, and indeed, we know that several of the disciples suffered violent death as the result of their following and proclaiming the Risen One.”

[18] Gonzalez, Luke, 276. “The full message of Easter is both of joy and of challenge. It is. The announcement of unequaled and final victory, and the call to radical, dangerous, and even painful discipleship.”