Why do you look for the living among the dead?

The angels asked the women in Luke 24, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" They looked among dead things for something that was alive.

We have the opposite problem. We look among dead things for life. Gathering more money, buying homes, the newest Ipod or pad, more education, etc all expecting it to bring us life, yet there is always something better, more expensive, and more money to save. All of those things end up dying.

On Good Friday I went for a run between services with my son in a running stroller. When I got back home I was exhausted due to the extreme wind coming from the southwest. I placed the running stroller in the middle of our front yard and when I turned away the stroller started to roll into the busy road in front of our home. It went all the way to the road and while I was chasing it, people looked in shock as this stroller came whizzing by them. Then it hit the curb, fell over, and luckily my son was not in it!

I compare that moment to our lives. Things that look like life whiz right by us. We watch in amazement with things that promise new life, but they all go by and get thrown down right after. And there was no life in it at all.

Yet, at Easter we celebrate a God who does whiz by us, but lives right among us. Stops right in the middle of our lives in Word and Sacrament, gives our sinful lives new life, and doesn't fall by the curb but continues to live for you. As He lives, we live too.