He’s Not Here…

He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” Then they remembered his words. Luke 24:6-8

“He’s not here.” Ominous words! I don’t like the sound of them.

He was here. The last time they saw him he was there. How is it that he’s not there now?

Jesus is not always where we would expect him to be. He’s not as static as we’d like him to be. He’s not always where we think he should be. He should be in our church on Sunday mornings or in our rigidly devised daily devotions the way he used to be. We can’t even find him sometimes in the theological certainties that we once held in such high esteem. We’ve held them so high that now they actually obscure enhance our view of him. If he’s not in our statement of faith, where can he be found?

If we’re going to encounter him we’ll have to look, not only where he was, but beyond.

“Remember…?”

“Then they remembered…”

They didn’t remember what he’d said about his resurrection because they refused to hear about his impending death in the first place. So they looked for him where they expected he’d be, not where he told them he’d be.

They looked for him among the dead when he said he’d be among the living. They came to embalm their memory of him, but he wasn’t embalm-able! He wasn’t even available to be embalmed. Something was going on for which they had no categories.

Embalmed memories are not nearly the sort of faith the Jesus died and rose again to bequeath to his heirs.

Then finally, thank God, “they remembered.”

It’s hard to remember something we didn’t know or want to know to begin with. If we don’t understand, we must ask, even if we’re afraid of what it might cost us to know. Once they overcame their fears, these same reluctant followers of Jesus became a force to be reckoned with. They let go of their preconceived ideas about what it meant to be disciples of an unpredictable resurrected Leader and dived into the deep end!

Let’s go and do likewise.

HAPPY EASTER!