Their hearts were heavy, these friends of Jesus. They needed time to grieve by his tomb, but arriving early in the morning, they found it emptied. It was too much to bear—their dear friend tortured to death before their eyes, his abrupt burial, and now his tomb looted. They were at the breaking point.
They did not yet know that this was the flash point of history, that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead. But the angels told them, relaying the tidings with these simple words: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”
That same question came abruptly to Pastor Stephen Brown after his brother and best friend, Ron, died suddenly of a heart attack. Ron was young—in his forties—and a popular public servant, a superb district attorney, a good father. His death devastated Stephen, who didn’t even have a chance to say good-bye.
Several weeks after Ron’s death, Stephen decided to visit his brother’s grave. It was a cold, overcast afternoon in late winter, and Stephen stepped from his car into the drizzle. Ron’s grave was not yet marked, and Stephen couldn’t find it. As he groped through the mud, his grief overwhelmed him. Standing in the rain, Stephen began sobbing. “God, this has been the worst month of my life, and now I can’t even find my brother’s grave.”
Suddenly Stephen sensed a presence near him, as though Jesus Christ had drawn alongside to help. These words came to mind like a burst of light, as though Jesus himself were speaking to them: “Why are you seeking the living among the dead?”
“Those words comforted me,” Stephen later wrote, “and I haven’t been back to the cemetery since. I don’t need to go back. The One who loved Ron and knew him came to me in my grief. He promised never to leave, and that has made all the difference in the world.”
Today’s Suggested Reading
Luke 24:1–12
Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” Luke 24:5
Robert J. Morgan