Make sure you seek the right person

April 8, 2007 -- Easter Sunday, The Resurrection of the Lord

By Fr. Michael Stubbs

	Fr. Mike Stubbs

When researching a topic, I sometimes will go on line to check out the Internet. For example, I may consult Google. But punching in the right phrase or word requires a certain amount of judgment on my part. If I focus my search too narrowly, I may not get any results at all. On the other hand, if I expand the search too wide, the number of results, thousands of thousands, may end up way too unwieldy to deal with.

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In the Easter Vigil gospel story, which may also be used on Easter Sunday morning, Luke 24:1-12, a group of women are involved in a search. In their case, though, they are not using a computer to conduct the search. They have gone to visit the tomb of Jesus, to look for his body.

They are some of his disciples, originating from Galilee, like Jesus himself. It is two days after his death and burial, and they wish to pay their respects.

The theme of searching pervades this gospel passage, as well as the corresponding theme of finding. When the women arrive at the tomb, "they found the stone rolled away from the tomb." but "they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus." So far, their search is not successful.

Then, they find two strange men, later identified as angels, who ask them, "Why do you seek the living one among the dead?" Once again, the women find the unexpected.

The two men are asking a rhetorical question. They are not expecting an answer, but are trying to make a point. In a certain way, this is also a trick question. Their question is based upon an untruth, in order to present a truth. The women are not actually seeking the living Jesus, but rather, his dead body. In effect, the angels are telling the women that they need to change the object of their search. Instead of looking for a dead body, they need to search for the living Christ. And in that case, they are searching in the wrong place, among the dead.

The contrast of the living one with the dead echoes the earlier words of the gospel: "He is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive." (Luke 20:38) In this instance, Jesus is engaged in a dispute about the resurrection of the dead with the Sadducees, who deny it. Jesus draws upon the Scriptures to make his argument, but his Scriptural interpretation may not interest us as much as his conclusion. Jesus affirms that God is a God of the living. Life flows into all those touched by God. That provides the basis for Jesus' belief in the resurrection.

Our belief in the God of life also underlies our belief in the resurrection. And we arrive at that belief through our experience of the risen Christ. He is a living person, not a dead, historical figure. That is the point of the question that the angels ask the women. "Why do you seek the living one among the dead?" The women's search is also our own. They challenge us to make sure that we are searching in the right place, that we are seeking the right person, the living Christ.

(Fr. Stubbs, a priest of the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, has a master's degree in theology from Harvard.)