“Seeking the Living among the Dead!”

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​First Presbyterian Church of Blackwood
21 E. Church Street
Blackwood, NJ 08012
Meditation Notes (09:00 a.m. Easter Service ~ April 17 th , 2022)
Rev. Dr. Mouris A. Yousef, Pastor

“Seeking the Living among the Dead!”

Luke 24:1-12

Heavy and broken hearted as you can imagine, the women showed up at the tomb of
Jesus very early in the morning. It was still dark, yet it was not hard to find the tomb of Jesus.
After Jesus died that Friday, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent Jewish council member and a
hidden disciple of Jesus, received permission to bury Christ’s body in his own tomb. The
women who had attended Jesus in Galilee followed Joseph to the Garden Tomb. They had seen
the tomb and knew exactly where the body of Jesus was laid.
The Sabbath is over, so the women are back to the tomb to embalm the body of Jesus
according to the Jewish rituals. When they arrive, I’m sure they hearts sank as they saw that the
stone that had been placed in front of the tomb had been moved. The One that they had loved,
and saw die, was now nowhere to be found.
The Bible tells us that after they had discovered that the Lord was not in the tomb, they
were met by two men in shining garments who ask them a very important question in Luke 24:5,
“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” As we briefly consider this question on this
Easter Sunday morning, I want to offer a couple observations:
First: Looking for Jesus in the Wrong Place
“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” Why are
you looking for Jesus here? Well, there are very good reasons why the women were looking for
Jesus in the tomb. They saw Him die on the cross. The saw the tomb where He had been taken.
That is the right place to find Jesus. After all, the women had good reasons to look for Jesus
where He was supposed to be.
But for us, the resurrection of Christ has been validated and verified. Where do we look
for Jesus, then? Where do we look for life? Unfortunately, many make the same mistake today.
We look for life in all the wrong places. We expect to find life in things that are dead. We
desire things that decay in our hands. We feed on ashes. We follow a deluded heart. We expect
to find purpose and meaning in the fleeting things of this world. We ignore our spiritual reality
as if we have no spirit. We look for life in the rubble, in the ashes, in the garbage dump of life.
Life can only be found in the giver of life. Life can only be found in that who said of
Himself that “He is the resurrection and the life.” Why look for the living among the dead?
Why go looking for life in a world that is dying in sin? Why look for answers in a world whose
values are upside down, where good is called evil and evil is called good. We can’t find life in a
culture that celebrates death. We can’t trust a culture where lies are honored as truth.