Looking for the Living among the Dead - Resurrection of Our Lord C

Looking for the Living among the Dead

Resurrection of Our Lord C

April 17, 2022

Good Shepherd, Wells, MN

Luke 24.1-12

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” the two men say to the women at the tomb that first Easter morning. The sabbath is over, this is the third day Jesus has been in the tomb, and they come to anoint his body, a ministry they couldn’t fulfill because of the sabbath. “He is not here,” the men insist, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” It sounds like a rebuke to the women, that they are being chastised for being slow and forgetful, not remembering all that Jesus had told them. Perhaps it is. But what if it is a rhetorical question, a question that already contains the answer tucked inside? What if it is a legitimate enterprise for a people of faith to look for the living among the dead ?

Five years ago, to the day yesterday, April 16, 2017, a young woman lay in an ICU bed on life support due to an attempted suicide. Deeply distraught and severely depressed over the premature death of her mother, she saw no hope for herself. She was all but dead. Two days later, in the ICU the young woman’s older sister asked if she could say a prayer. The older sister had been battling her own demons over their mother’s death and she was coming out on the other side of rehab. She had learned this prayer and wanted to pray it before her younger sister's organs were harvested for donation. Two days later, five people received the young woman’s organs and lived because of them.

That’s a good resurrection story in and of itself, but there is more. With God, there is always more. Earlier this year the older sister gave birth to a baby girl on her younger sister’s birthday. That baby was the baby we baptized this morning, Serenity Jane. The young woman who died by suicide was Taylor Jane and her older sister is Serenity’s mom, McKayla. You may have guessed that Serenity is named for the well-known prayer McKayla learned in rehab and prayed in the ICU. When McKayla contacted me about doing Serenity Jane’s baptism today, I was reluctant to do it because this is a big day with a lot going on. But once she explained this story, I knew we had to do it.

When I met with McKayla and her fiancé, Domonic, they made it clear they are not the heroes of this story, though they have done some heroic things. And we also need to be clear that Taylor’s death was not a good thing; it is extremely tragic. As it is in any story, God is the hero. It is God who was with Taylor every step of the way, who shows up in our lives in our darkest places, and who brings life out of death so that others may live. Why do we seek the living among the dead? Because that’s where God shows up. We seek the living among the dead because death never has the last word, nor is it the most important word. McKayla has new life, together with Domonic they have new life, and Taylor Jane lives through others, including her niece.

Whether we can articulate it or not, we all have come here today looking for the living among the dead. We come with our own personal stories of loss and grief, hoping to experience a good word from God. The news that God has raised Jesus to new life sounds too good to be true, but it’s too good not to be true. We look for the living among the dead because if those early followers could receive a transformed life, then so can we. Whatever you are looking for this day, my brothers and sisters in Christ, may you find new life in the risen Christ. For Christ is risen, Christ is risen, indeed, alleluia! Amen.

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