why do you look for the living among the dead?

This was a very interesting question when it was asked by the angels of the Lord to the women. It continues to be an interesting question for me today. Just as the women came to the tomb expecting to find Jesus, I often find myself searching for Jesus in old, dead places. The folks over at emergent have a wonderful way of talking about the gospel as coming to life in a community of believers. While for so many the ancient words of the scriptures are the land of the dead; old idioms which make no sense in our current context. But what if we, as followers of the way of Jesus, were to live in such a way that those ancient words were brought to life by example in our words and deeds?

Those of you who know me, know that I won't accept this life of living gospel to be only one of social justice and acceptance. What if the radical nature of the gospel wasn't encapsulated in the 1960s. What if there was something before "the way its always been began" in 1890? What if we were able to reconnect with the old, the ancient; and not the dead? You see, the Church has killed the gospel. Whether fundamentalist or liberal mainline, we kill it in the same way; legalism - or better said, the ability to tell in another the validity of their faith. We kill the gospel by using angry words to define others, while outsiders, nonbelievers look on and scoff at our hypocracy. Seekers come to our churches expecting to find life, and instead find themselves at an open coffin wake. They are able to see glimpses of the life we once had, but inevitably are struck by the mourning by some, and worse yet, those who continue to beat on the corpse though she has long since died.

This isn't a happy Easter post, and for that I'm sorry. But there is hope here. "If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation." As followers of the way of Jesus we can choose today to be a new creation; to be restored; to move from the place of the dead to the way of the living God. We can bring those ancient words of God's grace to life in our living. We can be a city upon a hill, a light to the nations, salt to the world. We have to want to live. We have to stop looking for the living Jesus among the dead, and seek the abundant life that comes as we join him in bringing the gospel to life day by day.