“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:5b)
It was a sunny Sunday late afternoon in July of 1995 and I was doing my CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education or Cruel Perverted Experience depending on how you regarded this part of Lutheran seminary training) at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. I liked doing the 24-hour-long Sunday shift as there was nobody waiting at home for me in those days and the Sunday chaplain got to lead chapel services. This was particularly pleasant Sunday for Philly in July. It wasn’t too hot—the sort of ideal afternoon for an elderly gentleman from West Philly to go out for a stroll.
One such fellow did. He collapsed during his walk, was brought to the hospital, and pronounced dead shortly thereafter. A heart attack? Who knows? As on-call chaplain I was assigned the task of notifying his wife that she must come to the hospital immediately. This was pretty tricky as non-medical personnel are forbidden to disclose medical conditions, and being dead is considered a medical condition. About a quarter of an hour later, the wife arrived and was given the sad news by the attending physician. One of the nurses and I stayed with her as she viewed her husband’s body. I was, in a way, superfluous at that moment as the kind RN really gave an enormous amount of comfort to this poor, shocked woman. I think I might’ve explained some procedural steps to her and offered a prayer of comfort before a caring neighbor drove her home.
Since I’d been in the hospital since 8:00 AM that morning and would have to stay until noon the following day, I figured this was time for a break. It was now about 6:45 PM. I left the floor intending to stretch out on the bed in the Trauma Chaplain’s office and watch 60 Minutes. As I headed for the elevator, an elderly gentleman, the same age and bearing a remarkable resemblance to the man who had just passed, approached me. “Excuse me, Sir,” he said. “Could you tell me where the Maternity Ward is?” I directed him to the elevator and told him which floor. He flashed me an enormous grin and said, “I’m going to see my grandchild!”
A death. A new life. That’s the Easter news. Just when we think it’s all over, God shows up with a miracle of joy.
In Luke’s account of the resurrection story (Luke 24:1-12) some women are summoned to do the ritual thing when their loved one dies. I can only imagine their distress at having to wait 24 hours to perform this loving service because they were delayed by Mosaic Law forbidding work on the Sabbath. I’ll bet they, like everyone else, felt the sense of numbness, the confusion, and exhausted inertia that comes after a loved one has died—especially one who dies unexpectedly. It might’ve been just everything they could do to carry their emotionally drained selves up to the tombs and do the “women’s work” of anointing the dead.
And then they find the tomb empty and are perplexed. Two men in dazzling clothes appear out of nowhere, and the women are terrified.
Perplexed and terrified. Doesn’t that describe us about now? We look around us and see—even on Easter Sunday—empty pews. The Old Guard is getting even older and rapidly vanishing and the New Guard isn’t showing up. COVID seems to have struck us a death blow, shrinking our in-person worship attendance. And not just at Faith Lutheran. Churches all over America are watching in confusion and fear, just holding our collective breath and praying this isn’t the end of something we cherish so much.
A recent article in Living Lutheran magazine was titled “They May Not Come Back.” Last week a bunch of pastors from our synod got together for an online meeting to discuss the issues this article presented. The author, Dwight Zschiele, opined that America’s Age of Association—the time when people regularly sought to be included and participate as a community—has come to an end. We are now in the Age of Authenticity in which people focus on discovering and expressing their true selves. Those in this new age of self-awareness have little time for organizational culture and little interest in participating in service organizations or churches.
I think Zschiele might be right. I suspect the mid-sized neighborhood church—the type most of us grew up in—is rapidly disappearing, being replaced either by the anonymity of the mega-church or by the mini-church sheltered in storefronts, borrowed spaces, and people’s homes.
One of my colleagues asked the key question: How do we minister to people grieving the loss of something they knew and loved so much? Pastor Wende Bleam responded by reminding us that we are the Easter People. Yes, like the women at the tomb we are confused and frightened. We may even feel fatigued and overwhelmed, but we still serve the God who brings life from death and joy from sorrow. The question is, do we believe this or just consider it an idle tale?
We can’t be looking for the living among the dead. God didn’t resuscitate a corpse on that Easter morning. God raised Jesus to be a new presence—one that lives in everlasting glory. One that never leaves us. Can we believe that God will raise a new kind of church out of the old? Maybe the “Living Room” church is the way of the future? Maybe our Lutheran presence will be in cyberspace? Maybe in the future we’ll be setting up shop in school cafeterias or community centers? Yes, we’ll miss the way things used to be, but we may reach a whole new generation that never knew those “churchy” things.
The women were perplexed and terrified, but Peter found the nerve to take that little step of faith, to go and check things out for himself. And he was amazed. That’s our Easter hope—to be amazed by the way our living Lord will take situations which seem to be dire and transform them into something which will blow our minds, something we never before considered and never dreamed possible.
We gather on Easter always in the spirit of anticipation, having seen the power of what God has done in the past, and we say in hope Alleluia! Praise the Lord!
May the joy and hope of Easter fill your heart, my friend.
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