The Missing Person Report

A sermon about life-changing surprises

It all started with a missing person report. A group of out-of-towners were in Jerusalem for Passover, when one of them fell afoul of local authorities. He was tried on trumped up charges in a kangaroo court, got the death penalty, and was executed immediately, poor wretch.

These terrified travelers knew that any one of them could be next. They had to get out of town fast…only first they had to give their friend a decent burial. Under the circumstances women could move about more freely than men, so the next morning several rushed back to the borrowed tomb where they’d left his body.

Lucky break, someone had already shoved back the big rock blocking it. They ducked inside only to find the body gone. And this was a strange sort of gone, unlike anything they’d experienced before. The tomb was empty but still they heard things, they saw things, their minds zapped back to chance remarks he had made in recent days. “I’ll be betrayed,” he had said. “I’ll be killed, but I won’t stay killed,” he had said. “I will rise.”

Stumbling back from the doorway they started running toward the sanity of their friends, but they couldn’t outrun those eerie feelings. They couldn’t shake the query that echoed in their heads, the question that bounced from wall to wall in that empty tomb: “Why are you seeking the living among the dead?” What in God’s name was happening to the world, that the dead wouldn’t stay dead any more?

Back behind closed doors they breathlessly filed their missing person report. “Right!” their friends said. “If we believe that, you’ll tell us another one!” they said. Everyone started packing up to go home, relieved that now there was nothing more they could do. Everyone, that is, but Peter. The question echoing in the women’s heads was now bounding around in his, “Why are you seeking the living among the dead?” Was it possible that what they were all doing—heading back into life without Jesus—was really a kind of dying, and that holding out for some sort of risen relationship with him was really living? There would be no returning home for Peter until he had checked out this missing person report for himself. When no one was looking he slipped out the door and back to the tomb. It was just as the women had said: a strange sort of empty where you see things and hear things and suddenly you feel as though Jesus is somewhere just beyond you speaking to you…”I won’t stay killed, I will rise. Follow me.”

In coming days this missing person report would become the talk of the town. One after another of Jesus’ old friends would be going about their business—working, eating, traveling, hanging out—and suddenly they would somehow see him, they would overhear him, and his gestures and words would impart breathtaking strength and hope. The empty tomb turned out to be a womb for faith, the living seedbed from which new Christians kept springing. The echoing question, “Why are you seeking the living among the dead?” morphed into a mantra: seek new life with the one who had been betrayed and killed, and then rose again.

2000 years later it’s still happening. Just last night we baptized little Brandon Barry, who’s a kind of kicking and gurgling Easter story himself. Just before Christmas, when his expected birth was still nearly many weeks away, his mom Angie went into labor that couldn’t be stopped. Grandma called St. Michael’s and the Prayer Chain started praying. Little Brandon slipped into this world unable to breathe well for himself, or eat, or maintain his body heat, but all that turned out not to matter. Two weeks later he left the hospital, and mom and dad started planning to bring the far-flung family together on Easter Eve so they could bring little Brandon to the font. As acolytes filled the great glass bowl with a clear and sparkling stream, we thanked God for the water in which we may still be buried with Christ in his death, and by which we may share in his resurrection. At approximately 8:57 last night little Brandon Barry became the newest Christian in the whole world. As you leave today be sure to dip your fingers in the wall font by the choir loft, and bless yourself with a bit of Brandon’s baptismal water. Then during the week check out Noah Barry’s Facebook page for some great photos and true testimonial about how good the good news of Christ’s rising can be.

The kind of thing that has happened for Brandon and Noah and Angie keeps happening for all of us, all the time.

The great blessing of Easter Day is to be reminded of what’s already going on in our own lives. Think back over your own experiences from last Easter to this. How many times did circumstances back you into some cul de sac? At what point did the light begin to dawn that you had gotten into a place of seeking the living among the dead, and that you needed to turn around and see that a new and different way forward was not only possible, but already waiting for you?

Or maybe this morning you’re currently in a cul de sac. So to put things in perspective think back to two Easters ago, or four, or six, or eight. How many times has God quietly pulled your fat out of the fire, and given you a fresh start? I have a friend who was overwhelmed by family tragedy, spaced out, ran a red light, and T-boned a Metro bus. For weeks while she was laid up with broken ribs she asked God why, why had he let this happen on top of everything else? Slowly her answer came. Since she was already running the red light, and since the bus was already hurtling toward her, this timing kept the bus from T-boning her.

At what point does it begin to dawn on us that we live in a graced world? When do we wake up and realize we have been seeking the living among the dead?—that’s called repentance—and discover God’s Spirit is already rising within us?—that’s called forgiveness. Truth is, our risen Lord is always already with us, buoying us up and granting us a fresh start, day after day after day. And come the day that all our earthly risings have run, the best is yet to come: that heavenly rising in which we return to eternally live with our risen Lord, forever more to sing ‘Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!’ The Lord is risen indeed! Amen. Listen to the Sermon: