The Sunday of the Resurrection: Easter Day 2025, rcl yr c
ISAIAH 65:17-25; PSALM 118:1-2, 14-24; ACTS 10:34-43; LUKE 24:1-12
when they went in, they did not find the body
Finding is an important theme running through Luke’s Gospel.
Animals, like lost sheep, are found by shepherds. And a colt is found for Jesus to ride into Jerusalem. Things, like lost coins, are found too. Mary is told that she has found favour with God. In the synagogue, Jesus finds the place in the scroll of Isaiah where it is written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me … ”
People are found, like the blessed servants found alert and at work by their masters. Sons are found by fathers. Jesus finds a faithful centurion. A man formerly possessed is found at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. A foreigner is found praising God for having been healed of leprosy. And disciples, being disciples, are found sleeping.
Jesus, too, is found. Right at the start, shepherds are told that they will find Jesus in a manger, and they do. When Jesus is a boy, and he is left behind by his parents in Jerusalem, Jesus in found in the Temple. After the Transfiguration, Jesus is found alone. When he is falsely accused, Jesus is found by his opponents “perverting our nation, forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor, and saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king.”
Near the end, even Pilate finds no reason to condemn Jesus to death.
And today, the women at the tomb, looking for Jesus, find that the stone is rolled away from the tomb.
It’s almost as though the Gospel is one long Easter egg hunt, finding animals, finding things, finding people, and even finding Jesus, all leading us to this moment—when we would expect that Jesus is found alive.
But. He actually isn’t, is he! After all this finding, after being led through the Gospels to this moment, we would certainly be ready for the ultimate prize at the end of a very long scavenger hunt. But instead, the women do not find what they are looking for.
“[W]hen they went [into the tomb], they did not find the body.”
I imagine most of us can relate to this, in our own way. We look, and look, and look. And we find good things along the way. But the ultimate prize exceeds our grasp. We find a new place to live, only to discover just how terrible a plumber the previous occupant was. We find a new job, only to discover that the bosses aren’t as honest as we thought they were. We seek gratification, we seek escape, and find them empty. We seek spouses and partners, only to find they never make the bed. We seek friendships, and find them—only for friends to fail us when we need them. We seek justice, only to find it perverted by the powerful. We find churches, only to find them far from perfect, and full of far from perfect people.
We seek, and yet, it seems we so often do not find what we are looking for. Like the women at the tomb, who, going “in, they did not find the body.” And we, with them, should be shocked. We were promised more than this, weren’t we?
This makes Jesus’s own words hard to square with the lives we live. Jesus himself says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” Apparently this was not true for the women seeking Jesus; often enough, it’s not true to us, either.
God’s grace, though, is thankfully far bigger, and God is far more imaginative than we are; we look for the wrong things, only to be found in the middle of a story that beggars belief. Because what the women do not find in that empty tomb is death. “He is not here,” they are told, “He is not here, but has risen.” And the world begins to turn on a new axis: it begins to turn around life as we could never have imagined.
Beyond our imagining, a new age is dawning, and the great reversal begun; suffering is unwound, injustice unravelled. And in Christ, for the sake of all of us, our failing friends, our faulty family members, our broken communities of faith, and even in the face of tyrants: we are found now in the midst of life. Because in him, death—and all that travels with it—is being trampled under the foot of a man once dead. But who lives.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.