Looking for Life in Dead Places
- The Rev. Dr. Brian Rajcok
- Apr 24
- 8 min read
Luke 24:1-12
I recently watched the movie Oppenheimer, the Oscar award winning film about the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the lead scientist on the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb. The movie tries to show the moral dilemma many of the scientists who worked on the bomb struggled with. Early in the movie we are reminded that in the 1800s Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. And Nobel believed that his invention was so powerful that it might end war entirely. In a scene toward the end of the movie, Oppenheimer’s mentor the great physicist Neils Bohr, asks him if he thinks his bomb will not only this war but end all war. To them it looked like the bomb might change everything.
The women who approached the tomb had thought that Jesus might change everything. But then reality struck and all their hopes and dreams for a better future died with Jesus on Calvary. Now they were going to anoint his body and pay their respects. But when they reached the tomb they found the stone was rolled away and his body was missing. While they were perplexed about this, they saw what could only be angels who said that Jesus was not dead; He has risen! And just before they share that good news, they ask the women a deep question: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” The profound question is both literal and symbolic. They are looking for Jesus who is alive in a tomb which is a place for the dead. But the angels also seem to be drawing our attention to something deeply true about human nature. A thing about human beings that is actually what landed Jesus in a tomb in the first place. This is a question that highlights how human beings are always looking for Life in dead places. When the angels ask “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” they’re not only sharing that Jesus has risen from the dead; they’re also highlighting the great problem of human history: our misguided search for life and fulfilment.
I was reminded of the movie Oppenheimer when I pondered the angels question: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” There does seem to be an insanity to thinking that perfecting weapons of war will somehow end war. An insanity to seeking Life through weapons of death. Fortunately, history has shown that so far atomic weapons have not been again in the 80 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Unfortunately, history has also demonstrated that humanity has not matured enough to move beyond war entirely. Even more unfortunately, we still seem to live under the illusion that pouring national resources into weapons of war is the best way to prevent war. We still have the same age old problem of seeking Life where only death can be found.
Writing during the Cold War, Roman Catholic author and monk Thomas Merton commented on the delusion of Americans praying for peace while simultaneously pouring exorbitant amounts of money, time and energy into creating weapons of mass destruction. Merton compared this to a sick man praying for health, but then instead of taking medicine, drinking poison, and expecting God to answer his prayer (New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 120). This is what the United States and all world powers have been doing since long before the time of Jesus.
To be fair, our animal instincts tell us the best way to protect ourselves is to appear so strong and dangerous that nobody wants to fight you. But when animal instincts direct international relations of the most powerful empire on earth, humanity may be in serious trouble. In Jesus’ time this was the attitude of the Roman Empire. The way of the world, the rule of might makes right, did bring peace, at least for those at the top of Roman society. It was called the “pax Romana” or the peace of Rome. Historians note that when one dominant empire reaches the top after much war and violence, there does come relative peace but only because the oppressor is so strong. And along with the pax of Romana came tragic exploitation and oppression, continued expansion and imperialism, and torture and executions meant to frighten people into obedience—for the Romans the best means of doing this was crucifixion.
Jesus had a different understanding of how to establish peace, how to bring about God’s desire for a world of shalom. Shalom is a Hebrew word that means not only peace, but harmony and wholeness, the world made right. Such healing and transformation of the world was behind Jesus’ phrase the kingdom of God. This phrase was a politically charged statement. In both the Greek of the New Testament and the Aramaic Jesus spoke this phrase would have been understood as an obvious alternative to the kingdom of Rome. The peace of Rome was brought about through violence, oppression, and threats of torture. The shalom of Jesus’ kingdom of God was brought about through nonviolence, turning the other cheek, forgiving those who wrong you, loving your enemies. In Jesus’ kingdom, peace comes through absorbing hatred and violence and refusing to dish it back out.
It takes a very spiritually mature person to put this kingdom of God way of being into practice. Jesus spent most of his ministry trying to teach it to his disciples. In his teaching and preaching, his healings and his miracles, Jesus manifested this way of being perfectly. But he not only taught it; he lived it and died doing it. By the way he lived and he way he died, he revealed how to follow this Way. He showed his disciples how to transform their way of being to embody his path of nonviolence, forgiveness, and unconditional love. To no longer seek Life among the dead way of the world, but to embrace his way of shalom.
And Jesus not only taught that this is the way we should be. He made the radical claim that this is how God is. This way of loving and forgiving and refusing to respond to violence with violence is the way God is. This way of turning the other cheek, loving your enemies and forgiving your persecutors, is what Jesus said God is like. Loving instead of demanding. Forgiving instead of punishing. Not returning evil for evil. Jesus said this is Way God is and what God calls us to be too!
This idea goes against everything most religion had ever taught! The gods of war that dominated the Ancient Near East. The Roman gods and the pagan gods of northern Europe. They taught that might makes right. That war and violence and domination were the way of the universe. And it made sense because that’s how life is. That’s the way of the world. But Jesus saw in the Hebrews Scriptures and in his own experience of God as Father, a different way of being at work in the universe. A way of peace and nonviolence, a way of unconditional love and forgiveness, the way of shalom itself.
Following this Way would leave those who followed it entirely exposed to the violence and cruelty of those who follow the pax Romana way of the world. Followers of the Way of Jesus would leave themselves totally vulnerable and at the mercy of those who believed “might makes right”. Followers of the Way, as early Christians called themselves, followed this path of Jesus and were persecuted and fed to lions. In the era that followed Oppenheimer and Merton, Civil Rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. tried to follow this Way of Jesus, but were attacked with dogs and water cannons, beaten and arrested. This is the kind of thing that happens when the nonviolent way of Jesus collides with a world that looks for Life among instruments of death.
When these two ways of being collided in the life of Jesus, the way of the kingdom of God was crucified by the way of the world at Calvary. The way of the world promoted by the Temple establishment and the Roman empire killed Jesus on the cross.
At this point Jesus’ disciples may have thought at this point that maybe he was a just a dreamer. A nice man with some nice ideas that won’t work in the real world. I mean let’s be real. Jesus does sound like a dreamer who doesn’t understand the real world. Reaching the top of the food chain is the best way to protect yourself. We all know that. Then Jesus comes along trying to say God’s way is the complete opposite? Either he has no idea what he’s talking about, or else he’s calling humanity to a completely new way of being that our world has still yet to even remotely approach.
Jesus died. His way was defeated by the way of the world on a Roman cross. The Son of God put to death by the sin of man… But there was more to the story. When the women found the tomb empty on Easter morning they discovered that Jesus’ way of peace was indeed victorious. Somehow, some way, the path of Jesus does indeed lead to life! Our Crucified King went straight into the heart of sin and suffering and death, and somehow came out the other side. The way of forgiveness, nonviolence, and love did overcome the way of the world.
The resurrection shows that the path of forgiveness and love and turning the other cheek is not futile. Jesus followed this Way and it led him to the cross, but God raised him from the dead. Yes the early church following this Way led to persecution and martyrdom, but it also led to the church spreading like wildfire in a way that never would have happened if those opposed Rome head-on. And yes those involved in the Civil Rights Movement were beaten and abused and MLK himself was killed by racism and hate—but the movement showed that this nonviolent way of Jesus initiated change that never would have come through violent revolt.
We know that following the way of Jesus changes everything. As followers of Jesus we might ask ourselves whether we look for the living among the dead? Whether we seek peace and security in weapons of war or authoritarian leadership. Whether we seek Life in the deadly things of this world. If the angels observed our lives and witnessed all the places we go to seek to comfort or security, value or belonging, meaning or satisfaction, would they ask us why do we seek the living among the dead?
Both in our personal lives and in the wider world, let us seek in the way of Jesus Christ. The way of nonviolence and forgiveness and unconditional love. Let us turn our gaze away from the way of the world to the Way of the kingdom of God that Jesus taught. Let us shift our vision of peace in our personal lives, and let us shift our vision of peace for humanity. Let us no longer look for the living among the dead.
Because today we celebrate Jesus Christ rising from the dead and the new life we have in him. Today we celebrate that the Way of peace and forgiveness and love has overcome the way of hate and violence and cruelty. Today we celebrate that this Way of Jesus Christ has defeated death, freed us from sin, and redeemed our broken world. Christ is Risen!
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Pastor Brian | Easter Sunday | April 20th, 2025
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