Looking for Signs of Life

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, April 20, 2025
Luke 24:1-12

    When Rich and I lived in rural Nebraska, we didn’t have kids yet, and there wasn’t a whole lot to do, as you might imagine, so we decided to join the volunteer emergency department.  It was a very rewarding experience, and a great way to get to know our community.  For nine months, we went to Saturday morning classes where we trained to be volunteer EMTs with about ten other community members.  If you have ever been trained to do CPR or use an AED, you know they drill it into you what to do so that you can react almost without thinking when a medical emergency does occur:  1) scene safety (is it safe for me to provide medical care? 2) call 9-11 (or make sure you have help if you ARE the 9-11 3) check for signs of life (open airway, breathing, pulse). If not, begin CPR and get an AED immediately, if available.  No matter what, transport as quickly as possible, taking other vital signs like temperature and blood pressure on the way to the hospital if signs of life.  It would not make sense to take a blood pressure if there were no signs of life – the order is scene safety, transport quickly for professional medical care, airway, breathing, circulation, and only after these signs of life are confirmed do you go into secondary vital signs.  We were trained to look for signs of living – to sustain life.
    The women who come to Jesus’ tomb that first Easter morning are not trained emergency medical responders.  They are not looking for signs of living.  They are not even thinking about vital signs – they are thinking about spices to anoint Jesus’ entombed corpse.  They saw him take his last breath on the cross.  A soldier pierced his side and blood and water came out.  They did not break his legs because they saw that he was already dead.  Jesus is dead, no question about it – no pulse, no breathing, no brain activity.  They saw all the signs of death, not life.  But the first words the two men in dazzling clothes say to the women that first Easter morning is a question – “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  They thought there was only death, no life, no vital signs left – they’re at a tomb, after all, isn’t that where you visit the dead?  Instead, they hear this strange good news, that he is risen, He is risen indeed, Alleluia!  The women come looking for death and are surprised by the good news of life instead! This is what Easter is all about.
    Let’s hear these two men ask the same question of us today, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  Yeah, I’m talking to those of you, you know who you are, who spend too much time doomscrolling the news on your favorite phone app, or watching 24-hour cable news.  How many signs of life are you seeing on those channels?  How much good news is feeding you about the world as it is these days?  We have signs of death all around us constantly – war and rumors of war, famine, the increasing gap between rich and poor, increasing mortality rates, broken family relationships -  we look for the dead, not for the living.  When we look back again at our first reading from Isaiah 65, we may be tempted to only hear the negative – there are still here infants that only live for a few days, most people who die well before one hundred, tragically, too young.  We know the sounds of weeping, cries of distress, and as far as I’m aware wolves and lions have not miraculously become vegetarians.  It can be difficult to trust, just as the first witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection struggled to trust, that life is possible after death, and one day we will enjoy a new heaven and earth without hurt or destruction.
    We may not like to talk about it – we might say that Jesus “passed away” instead of DIED on that cross, but we are familiar with looking for death.  We know where to go and what to do when someone dies.  By all scientific measures, Jesus was dead and should have stayed dead.  His resurrection does not make sense, in the way of the world that is more comfortable with telling the bad news of death rather than the good news of living.  The good news that he is not here, he is risen, ought to be as surprising good news as it was to those first women.  The men who hear it think it’s an “idle tale,” (what do women know about these things anyway, she said, sarcastically).  However, the women persist, and Peter confirms and they run to tell others this good news, that he is risen, he is risen indeed, Alleluia!  
    When we are at the end of our rope, wondering if “this” is all there is, when the news and life as we know it is getting us down, we hear the angels ask us once more, God’s Easter people, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  Jesus is not there in the doom of the tomb, but rather out there in our daily living, living among us!  So we practice listening and looking for the good news in the midst of the bad.  We look for signs of life.  We look for Jesus, living among us, the risen Christ who lives in us and through us to offer hope, peace, and love for a world in need.  Because of Jesus’ resurrection, we can’t look at death and only see death anymore.  The good news of Easter is the in the midst of our grieving, healing, suffering, anxiety, and struggle the living Christ is there, and a new heaven and earth is possible.  Look for the living among the living!  Christ is risen, he is risen indeed, Alleluia!  Amen.