Why do you seek the living among the dead?
The two angels asked this of the women as they went to the tomb of Jesus on the third day (Luke 24:5, 23). It is a very simple question that is actually a statement. After all, why would anyone look for life in the middle of a graveyard?
Indeed, the question posed by the angels at the tomb was more of a rebuke than anything else, just as Jesus rebuked the scribes and pharasees:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. (Matt 23:27)
Two tombs. No life.
There was a time when the presence of the Lord was in a box, the ark of the covenant. The presence of the Lord now resides within us.
Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. (1 Corinthians 3:16,17)
Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? (1 Corinthians 6:19)
Beloved, it is time for us all to stop looking for the living among the dead. God’s presence no longer resides in a box and never did reside in a church building. The tombs of religions and churches have no life.
Jesus is the way, the truth and the LIFE. (John 14:6) The truth of Jesus is the only way to life we will ever find. Without Jesus living in us through HIS Spirit by faith, we also are little more than lifeless tombs. Only as HIS presence, HIS Spirit continually fills us are we being born again into everlasting life. Jesus is our prize, our pearl of great price. (Matt 13:45-46)
In Malachi 3:1 we are told that Lord will suddenly come to HIS temple, which is us if we believe in HIM:
And the Lord, whom you seek,
Will suddenly come to His temple,
Even the Messenger of the covenant,
In whom you delight.
Behold, He is coming,”
Says the Lord of hosts.
God bless you beyond what you can think or imagine,
Brother Andrew