Sundays look and feel different right now for our family. If you have maintained the habit of attending church, I bet they do for you or your family as well. Even if you are physically back meeting together, there are surely fewer people present. The attendees are spaced further apart. People may be wearing masks; you may forego congregational singing or even the partaking of the Eucharist or communion. While some of us balk at tradition and habit, most of us, admittedly or not, lean on it as a stabilizing force in our lives. Particularly when it relies so heavily on relationships.

Our family has been meeting in homes on Sundays. We alternate with a few families hosting. It is not the same. We miss so many people, but it provides us with the fellowship and encouragement we would otherwise be lacking.

This past Sunday we read Luke 24. We read about Jesus’ followers grieving his brutal death on the cusp of the marvelous discovery of his resurrection. As a reader, I know what happens on that early Sunday morning, but as a character in a narrative, I am like one of the disciples confused, grieving, misinformed and misunderstood. I find some strange comfort in these stories of wounding and pain. We called out three phrases in the text from Luke 24:1-35.

“He is not here.” (Luke 24:8, CSB)

“But we were hoping…” (Luke 24:21)

“…he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” (Luke 24:35)

I would like to write some notes on each of these phrases from the text. I might spread them out across three blog posts. I hope you’ll stay with me. If you are hurting and lonely, too, you will find comfort in these stories along with his presence.

“Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” asked the men. “He is not here, but he has risen! Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying, ‘It is necessary that the Son of Man be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and rise on the third day’?” And they remembered his words. (Luke 24:5-8)

These women, to whom the angels appeared at the tomb of Jesus, were only trying to show respect and express their honest grief. They had cared for him, financially supported him, and had been spiritually and physically healed by him. They were not being illogical in showing up to the tomb. The man had died, had been buried. They were returning to the place they had left the body. Only it wasn’t there.

When Jesus was twelve years old visiting Jerusalem at Passover, Mary and Joseph looked in the wrong place, too. (Luke 2:41-50) He was not in the caravan returning to Galilee with family or friends, but in the synagogue “in his Father’s house.”

“He is not here. He is not here.” After each uncle or cousin denied knowing where the adolescent Jesus was, Mary must have panicked. How could you lose God?

Where am I searching for him? Am I making the wrong assumptions about where he needs to be? Of course God is everywhere, but is he moving me in ways I cannot see? Am I at the tomb when he has already resurrected?

What are we grieving right now? Sickness and death? Loss of friendships or relationships? Have we buried dreams we thought could never be realized? Jesus’ death was gut-wrenching, but it opened up possibilities to so much more.

“He is not here.”

The grieving women were being reasonable and logical in making heir way to the tomb, arms laden with spices. Jesus had died; he had been buried, so that’s where they expected him. But God is not reasonable or logical; he is extravagant. He is gracious.

In his extravagance he sends out messengers to tell us, “He is not here.” And with our arms laden with our unnecessary burdens we earnestly search for him.