Why Do You Seek the Living Among the Dead

In one paragraph

Easter Sunday this year began with a baptism and ended with a commission. Pastor Carl walked through the final chapter of Luke and the opening of Acts to show that the resurrection was not a surprise ending but a necessary fulfillment, and that the first response to it was simply to tell what you witnessed. The women who went to the tomb on Sunday morning had come to Jerusalem expecting a Passover...

Read together

1. Luke 23 women who came from Galilee followed to the tomb after the crucifixion
2. Luke 24:1-12 women find the stone rolled away and the empty tomb on the first day of the week
3. Luke 24:13-35 two disciples on the road to Emmaus encounter the risen Jesus
4. Luke 24:36-49 Jesus appears to the assembled disciples, shows his hands and feet, eats fish, opens their minds to scripture
5. Luke 24:50-53 Jesus leads disciples to Bethany, blesses them, and is carried up into heaven
6. Luke 1:1-4 Luke's stated purpose to write an orderly account for Theophilus
7. Acts 1:1-11 Luke's second volume, the ascension and the command to be witnesses to the ends of the earth
8. Matthew 16:21 Jesus tells disciples it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, suffer, be killed, and rise on the third day
9. John 3:16 Fox's favorite verse, cited as a given when asked
10. Matthew 28:20 Fox's other favorite verse: surely I am with you always even to the very end of the age
11. 1 Corinthians 15 mentioned as the passage on the importance of the resurrection he would have preached instead

Talk about it

1. Pastor Carl described the women going to the tomb as people who had come expecting a Passover celebration and then had their world turned upside down. When has something you trusted in fallen apart in a way that left you grieving and confused, and how did you process that?
2. The angels asked the women, 'Why do you seek the living among the dead?' What are some ways we might still look for Jesus in places or ideas that cannot actually hold him?
3. On the road to Emmaus, the two disciples said 'we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel,' and their hearts were broken. Pastor Carl pointed out that Jesus walked alongside them in their grief and let them explain things in their own words before he responded. What does that tell us about how Jesus meets people where they are?
4. Pastor Carl quoted J. I. Packer's definition of repentance as 'turning from as much as you know of your sin to give as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of your God.' How does that definition sit with you, and how does it connect to the resurrection?
5. Jesus told his disciples they would be witnesses, not judges and not lawyers, just people telling what they know from their own experience. What would it look like practically for you to be that kind of witness in your own relationships this week?