Why do you look for the living among the dead? Luke 24:5

What is being a follower of Jesus? If I asked if anyone here were a follower of Jesus, we would all probably raise our hands. Without a raise of hands, can we look at the persons around us and see a follower of Christ? What does one look like, act like, and speak like?

We can “share” Jesus on Facebook, or “follow” Jesus on Twitter, but are there qualities that mark a person today as a follower of Jesus that marked a disciple in the generation that witnessed the life of Christ? The answer that I have come to believe is seen in what we do with life and death. What we do with life will affect how we love, serve, and forgive.

One interesting thing I find at the resurrection of Jesus was at the garden tomb. I have been drawn to the statement of the messenger to the women, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” At the resurrection of Christ, it was said in Isaiah,

But your dead will live, Lord;
their bodies will rise—
let those who dwell in the dust
wake up and shout for joy—
your dew is like the dew of the morning;
the earth will give birth to her dead. (Isaiah 26:19)

Likewise in Hosea 13:14 it says,

“I will deliver this people from the power of the grave;
I will redeem them from death.
Where, O death, are your plagues?
Where, O grave, is your destruction? (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:55-57)

We can all admit it is better to be alive than to be dead. Wise Solomon even stated in Ecclesiastes 9:4–”for a living dog is better than a dead lion.”

Tradition had taken the women at the tomb to a place where their teaching had forsaken them, even though they had the Living Word in their midst. It was in their habit of dealing with the despair of the dead that caused them to miss the hope of the living.

Death has always been a fascination of humankind. The earliest known literature contains stories of men trying to understand death and find acceptance, or resolve, in it. The struggle of life and death led to epic heroes who became men of renown as a result of being resigned to the fact that death is a certainty and glorious life must be embraced to the fullest. Being marked by deeds of greatness would cause one to attain to a name that will endure forever in the halls of immortality.

Jesus would have more to offer than a name, or legacy, like Hercules, Achilles, Muhammad, Buddha, and Confucius.

The life of Christ was marked by His light. He was the light of life among the walking dead. Being reflections of that light means that we stand out from the world as ones NOT dead.

Today, because of humanistic indoctrination and the teaching of evolution, life is a worthless existence. The atheist is left with struggling in the arena of an epic hero at best.

n the last century, there was a very prominent British philosopher named Bertrand Russell who had a interesting view of life and death. He wrote:

“The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach and where none can tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent death.

Brief and powerless is man’s life, on his and all his race the slow, sure doom falls, pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way. For man, condemned today to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself to pass through
the gates of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day.”

In our world of worthless life, we have suicide and substance abuse in exchange for it. I remember a movie from the eighties called “Better Off Dead,” and a theme song to a hit TV show was entitled, “Suicide is Painless.” Death is the obvious and rational choice of a broken life devoid of hope and not worthy of redemption.

The women, like some in the church, were in the tradition of death. I could spend many hours talking about other characteristics of a disciple which follows in the tradition of death like fear, faith. and forgiveness. Fear is a product of a culture of death. Faithlessness likewise is a fixation on fear and ultimately that of death. I could talk for hours on the affects, symptoms and characteristics of a dead church, for instance:

One of the basic reasons people leave a church is that they simply never let Jesus “plant” them so their roots can go down deep and bring forth fruit. Coinciding with that is a lack of furtile soil within the local body to facilitate growth. The Bible suggests that without roots, we cannot flourish: “The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God” (Ps. 92:12-13).

God, through Jesus, established the church. And people are like trees: They must develop a root system to grow and flourish. I have noticed this over the years and have talked about it with other preachers. There are those who attend church services, and who even get counsel, but they always seem to be on the fence. Shepherds call sheep such as this “fence” sheep because they stay close to the fence, always looking for a way to get out. The danger of death is not real and the appeal of life is not enough to keep a sheep from leaving the fold.

The gospel prospect of a new birth is a win-win for all. Salvation is a result of putting the old life to death. Baptism and suicide are very similar. In fact, Knofel Staton used to put it this way. The best thing that could happen to a new Christian would be to hold them under at baptism. “I . . . baptize . . . you . . . in the name . . . of the Father . . .” At baptism, the faithful one gives his life and God takes his life and he is raised in the newness of life. Baptism puts to death the old and raises the new in the likeness of the resurrection of Christ (Romans 6).

Like the movie The Matrix, we have two choices: the blue pill, which takes us back to a lie, or the red pill which leads us to the truth by putting to death the past. One of those memorable quotes by the character named Morpheus describes the absence of life if the blue pill is taken, is compared to the life of a “Slave, born into bondage.”

The cross which was streaked red with the blood of Christ is the path to Truth and end to the bondage into which sin had bound us. At the resurrection, tombs were opened and a proclamation was heralded to those chained in the prison of death. Jesus is ALIVE!

In the beginning, asked what does a follower of Christ look like? He walks not in the tradition of the darkness of death but in the liberation of the freedom of life (Luke 1:79).

Life is in the love and encouragement of others because we first knew the love of Christ who saved us from death. We encourage death, however, when we refuse to love. We kill when we tear down and discourage another. A Christian with a tendency toward death will neither love, nor forgive. He will discourage because life is not in him. “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (1 John 5:12)

Death is in the spectators who sit in the pews and do nothing but expect death. Life is in the expectation of the exercise of our faith by losing our life to find it. Would you forsake the tradition of death and for life’s sake:

• Would you take on a ministry you’d never considered doing before?
• Would you forgive that person you’ve hated for years?
• Would you talk to that friend or relative who you know would end up in hell?

Does Crawford County know of an alive church with all the discussion of the “cancer of poverty” and the Crawford Conversation—how great on opportunity is there?

Leave here today walking in the knowledge of life not in the tradition of death. There is a famous song that has the line, “I’m alive because He lives.” Is Jesus alive? Yes. Is His Word alive? Yes. Is the body of Jesus alive? Yes. Be alive.

Be the light and love of Christ that his life may be in you and the world will know that there is life among the dead.