It’s Easter Sunday! Today’s sermon asks who it is we are looking for as we come to worship at the empty tomb. Our Scripture reading for the day is John 20:1-18, and of course, this sermon draws from the Seeking theme from Sanctified Art.
Here’s the worship livestream from Living Hope and sermon audio from Christ the King.
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our risen Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen
For the last six weeks of Lent, we’ve been looking at questions brought up by each week’s Scripture readings. Today’s question is “Who are you looking for?”
It comes, of course, from the question Jesus asks Mary Magdalene outside the empty tomb, but it’s a question for us as well. Why are you here? What brought you to church this Easter morning?
Maybe you’re here because a family member said, “Get up! It’s Easter, and like it or not, we’re going to church today!” Maybe you’re here because you got an email a few days ago saying, “Congratulations! It’s your week to usher or serve communion or read” and it’s a lot of work to find someone to swap with someone on Easter.
Maybe you’re here because you haven’t missed an Easter Sunday yet and church is what you do on Easter. Or perhaps this is your first time here, or your first time back in a while. Thanks for coming!
I wonder, what are you seeking from today’s service? Who are you looking for?
Like I said, we’ve been thinking for weeks now about the idea of seeking, longing for God, wondering what God is up to, and today, our wondering has brought us here to Easter. Who are you looking for?
There’s an old joke about a little girl at church who came up for the children’s message. The pastor asked, “What is small and brown, has a bushy tale, climbs trees, and eats nuts?”
The little girl looked confused, and said to the pastor, “Well, everything you just said sure sounds like you’re talking about a squirrel, but I know the answer is Jesus.” The answer in children’s sermons and Sunday School always seems to be Jesus, right?
Of course Jesus is who we’re looking for, but on that first Easter, it’s not very clear what Mary Magdalene was seeking when she came so early to Jesus’ tomb. According to the other gospel writers, she had a job to do: She wanted to finish the job of anointing Jesus’ body, a task begun before he was buried, but with the Sabbath beginning, left unfinished on Friday afternoon.
But surely Mary sought something more than to check off a task on her to-do list, right? Perhaps a sense of closure? Some sort of hope that she hadn’t wasted all the time she’d spent following Jesus?
Maybe some time to process her grief, to be alone and wonder what happened, where it all went wrong?
What she finds at the tomb is not solitude and peace, but rather…emptiness. And there wasn’t supposed to be emptiness.
There was supposed to be a body, not just empty grave clothes. Her first thought is not, “Hallelujah! Jesus is risen, death is defeated, he’s alive!” No, her first thought, what she runs back to tell the male disciples, is “They’ve taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him.” More questions!
Peter and the other disciple go and discover the empty tomb for themselves, but they too don’t understand what has happened. They give up and return home. But Mary stays by the empty tomb, weeping.
Two angels ask her why she’s weeping, and all she can say is, “They’ve taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” And then Jesus himself appears, asking her who she’s looking for. Still, she does not recognize him, until he addresses her by name. Then she gets it. She understands. She has her answer.
The tomb is empty not because the body has been stolen, but because Jesus is alive. Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed, alleluia!)
This is not theft, but resurrection! And resurrection changes everything. Easter is the proof Jesus is who he says he is. He is God with us. Hope is restored!
Now, Easter does not eliminate our questions, or just make everything all better. I’m not going to stand here today and say death isn’t real. In fact, we began this journey on Ash Wednesday, with the words, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
It would be what…naive? foolish? inauthentic? to look at the world around us and not acknowledge death is real. The world is broken. Innocent people are shot to death.
There are heart attacks, and car crashes, and chemo treatments that no longer work, and brain infections; there are people without enough food to eat, girls who aren’t allowed to go to school, dictators invading their neighbors. We have plenty of evidence for death and evil. This does not always look like God’s good creation. We have questions.
But in spite of so much brokenness, in the face of all the reasons to weep, despite the grief we feel at the loss of loved ones, Easter promises death does not get the last word.
There is an ultimate answer to all our questioning, and his name is Jesus.
A predictable answer to hear at church? Of course! Because it’s true. This is the message we have to proclaim. Death cannot defeat our God. The tomb is empty.
Because Christ has been raised, we too shall be raised. We don’t get all the details, but we do get the final answer, and the final answer is life, not death; hope rather than despair; joy over sorrow.
Easter testifies that the very worst this world can do, the worst results of our sin, the cruelest death we can come up with, is not enough to defeat God. Instead, God transforms the cross into a symbol of life, the evidence of God’s love for even the most broken parts of this world. Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed, alleluia!)
Faced with this good news, faced with this eternal hope, may we today join with Mary Magdalene and Peter in announcing the resurrection, sharing the answer, testifying that there is meaning and purpose in life, there is hope beyond the brokenness of this world, God is at work redeeming this good creation.
Who are you looking for? If you’re looking for Jesus, you’re in the right place.
If you’re looking for hope, for the promise of life, know that the tomb is empty, and death is defeated.
When you are overwhelmed by the tragedies, and the loss, and the sorrows of this life, may you recognize Jesus calling to you, offering hope.
New life has begun. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia!