Monday, April 13, 2020
Calamity and hope
Luke 24:5,6
“Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!”
By Sunday morning, the followers of Jesus had started to come to grips with the fact that He was dead. They had had the whole Sabbath to reflect and to let reality sink in. For them, what remained was closure.
For the women, there were some practical matters to take care of. The hurried burial on Friday meant that the body was not properly prepared and that needed to be completed quickly. So, “very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared.” Luke 24:1.
Their focus was on the dead body. Never mind the prophecies, and never mind all that Jesus said, He was dead now and that was that. They were going to the tomb, they would fix up the body, and then they would leave it there. Maybe, on the death anniversary, they might come by the tomb to gather his bones and place them in an ossuary.
Those of us who have experienced the death of someone close to us know the disbelief, or even denial, that we go through, and we keep thinking that the person must be alive and that all the reports must be a mistake. This seemed not to be the experience of those disciples. Maybe it was the gruesome and very public nature of the crucifixion that embedded it in their minds that there was no coming back from this.
They were like so many people who very quickly embrace dead things. Persons who very quickly give up on life and all of its promise. Persons who are among the dead looking for that which has sprung to life and they don’t know it. They are facing God’s power to bring life and yet are focused on the dead things.
The story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, John 11:1-44, provides a very good case study for us. The basic facts are very well known. Lazarus was the brother of Mary and Martha who were all friends of Jesus and for whom Jesus had particular affection. We know that He was a visitor to their home. Lazarus had taken ill and so the sisters, knowing that Jesus was a healer, sent word to Him where he was.
We know that Jesus reacted to the news very differently and even strangely, by not leaving to go quickly to Lazarus’ bedside. This, of course, had two major consequences, one, Lazarus died and, two, the sisters were not only mourning the death of their brother but the burden of the disappointment that Jesus who had the power to heal had not come, they were heartbroken. Even the people around said that “Could not this man who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept [Lazarus] from dying?” John 11:37
So Jesus arrived on the outskirts of Bethany and Martha, who was previously more interested in serving than being in His presence, rushes out to meet him, this time Mary stays at home. And Martha has a profound conversation with Jesus.
We are always very interested in reviewing Jesus’ conversations because sometimes He says the most profound things, not in preaching and teaching, but in conversations one on one. The Apostle John is a master at capturing these. Nicodemus was a good example, he got the most memorable and profound John 3:16, Martha gets an equally profound declaration.
“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”” John 11:25,26.
There are other accounts in the scriptures of Jesus interrupting funerals and bringing the dead back to life – Jarius’ daughter, Matthew 9:18-26; Mark 5:21-43; Luke 8:40-56, and there is the son of the widow at a place called Nain, Luke 7:11-16. On those occasions, Jesus was not in the depth of discourse as he got into with Martha about resurrection and life.
Jesus here makes one of his I AM declarations. He moves from the idea that those around Him had that He could give life, to being life itself and a life that could not be truly extinguished, and that could restore life if it is lost, look at John 6:35-40 where Jesus declares that He is the Bread of Life.
Then in John 14:6 Jesus talks about being the Way the Truth and the Life again, not just that He could give life, but that He Himself is Life. Acts 3:15, Hebrews 7:16. Life springs from the resurrection of Jesus who spoke then as the resurrected Lord of life even though He had not yet been crucified.
And so we are back at the tomb where Jesus was laid on that Friday evening. The women, just like Mary and Marth Lazarus’ sisters, are facing the dead in the midst of life and asking questions. Today, all over our world many women, men, and children are also facing frightening death in the midst of life and asking questions.
There was probably never a time, in our lifetime, when people needed a resurrection story like they need it now. COVID-19 is ravaging families, communities, cities, and whole countries with such a vengeance that in many places people are searching for the dead among the dead. Some people will never find their loved one’s remains as the bodies pile up.
Many are already feeling like there is no life because their dreams, hopes, and aspirations all died with their COVID-19 victim. But as Michael W. Smith said yesterday in Central Park, New York City, ground zero for the coronavirus pandemic, in Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection “calamity and hope collided”.
The calamitous coronavirus is forcing people to keep looking among the dead, but Jesus offers hope. Since Jesus is raised from the dead, then every dead situation can be given new life by Him. He is the resurrection and the life.
With all compassion, we are compelled to ensure that those who have lost loved ones in this calamity, collide with the hope that we offer through Jesus the resurrected one. They need to know that they shouldn’t keep looking for life among the dead, they’re looking in the wrong place.
He is not there, He is risen!”
Think on these things:
- Do you know anyone who has died as a result of COVID-19?
- Do you know someone who has lost a loved one as a result of COVID-19?
- If you do, how has this loss affected how you think about your faith?
- Do you appreciate how the calamity of COVID-19 and the hope that Jesus brings collide in the midst of the pandemic?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that God would help us to look in the right place, and to hope in the resurrection of Jesus even as lives are lost all around us to COVID-19 .
In His Grace
Pastor Alex
Notes:
- This devotional first appeared as “Looking in the wrong place” published on April 3, 2018. It was edited and expanded for publication today in keeping with the effort this weekend to focus our Easter meditations on the risen Christ through the lens of COVID-19. The title was changed after a live Easter service yesterday in New York’s Central Park where Franklin Graham preached in front of a Samaritan Purse field hospital and Michael W. Smith was with him to provide the worship music.
- This is the final in the set of 5 daily devotionals for the 2020 Easter weekend during the COVID-19 pandemic. We will now return to our current schedule of one Living Stones devotional each week.
- Photo credit: Gravediggers open new graves as the number of dead rose amid the coronavirus outbreak, at Vila Formosa cemetery, Brazil’s biggest cemetery, in Sao Paulo, April 2 REUTERS-Amanda Perobelli