Multi-Media Resources:

Easter Video

 

• What Are You Looking For?   Luke 24:1-12, by Rev. Karen Goltz
  (see below)
   

• WHERE IS JESUS?   Luke 24:1-12. by Rev. Rick Thompson       

• They Remembered! Luke 24:1-12, Rev. Cynthia Huling Hummel      

• I will Rise, Again and Again! Luke 24:45-47, John 20: 1-18, by Rev. Frank Schaefer      

• God's Has No Witness Protection Plan, Acts 10:34-43, by Rev. R. Quinn

• Don’t Fence Me Out, Acts 10:34-43  by Rev. Thomas Hall

• God Does Not Play Favorites, Acts 10:34-43, by the Iowa Star

• Pulling all the Stops For Jesus, Acts 10:34-43 and John 20:1-18, by Rev. Frank Schaefer  
   

• Easter Sunrise Sermon , John 20:1-18, by Lutherfetch
• Why Are You Weeping? John 20:1-18, by Rev. Thomas Hall

• Looking for the Wrong Thing in the Wrong Place, John 20:1-18, by Rev. Randy  Quinn

• It's a Miracle! John 20:1-18, Jim from B.C.

• He Is Risen--Now what?  John 20:1-18, by HW in HI,

• Easter Street, John 20:1-18, by Jeffrey K. London

• Irrational Exuberance, John 20:1-18, by Neill Morgan

• Resurrection Power,, John 20:1-18, by John

• Running in the Dark, John 20:1-18, by Ed in WA

• Is It Easter Already?, John 20: 19-31,  by Gary Roth

Skits/Readings:

• Readers Theater: Resurrection, John 20:1-18, Anne in Providence

• The Easter Assignment, Luke 24:1-12, Charlie Woodward

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What Are You Looking For?
based on Luke 24:1-12
by Rev. Karen Goltz

            “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  It’s a good question.  Jesus himself had told them what was to happen to him, and that on the third day he would rise again.  And here it was, the third day, and the women were in the cemetery, carrying the spices used for treating a dead body.  They weren’t looking for the living Christ; they were seeking a corpse they could treat with respect, bury properly, and then leave in the tomb marking his final resting place as a remembrance of him.  Similar to our modern cemeteries today, they probably expected to return again and again to that tomb, to remember Jesus’ life, to feel close to him, and to miss him.

            We hear the story so often and know it so well, it’s easy for us to sit back and snicker at the women and the other disciples for their lack of faith.  Of course Jesus had risen from the dead; he was the Son of God.  That should have been made clear by all the miracles he’d performed, and of course they should have believed him when he’d said he would rise from the dead.  But we have an advantage; we have two millennia of people telling the story, believing it enough to pattern their lives according to it, and passing it down from generation to generation, to billions upon billions of people over the centuries.  It’s old news to us.

            But to the women and the other disciples, it wasn’t a story.  It was their reality.  Imagine it.  You’ve been following this man for months, maybe years, believing that he was the long awaited Messiah.  He’s supposed to save Israel and make her be a light to the nations.  But then you see him captured, and killed.  Dead.  No pulse.  No extraordinary measures available to bring him back.  He’s dead, and placed in a tomb, and left there for days.  Despite what you may have believed, despite what he may have told you about himself, death seems pretty final.  So you make yourself get used to the idea that this man, no matter how much you loved and admired him, was in the end just a man, and now a dead one, at that.  Try to imagine yourself accepting the death of a loved one, a death that you yourself witnessed, only to find that the plot they’d been buried in was now empty.  Is your first thought resurrection?  Probably not.  You think either grave robbers or vandals, or maybe you’re so discombobulated that you can’t think of an explanation at all, and you just stand there, perplexed and confused.

            Now if you’re standing there and two men in dazzling clothes suddenly appear out of thin air and tell you that he is risen, you might be a little more open to a crazy idea like a dead man being alive again.  But if you’re at home in mourning, and a few of your distraught family members or friends come in and tell you the same thing, would you believe them?  Be honest now.  Your distraught cousins, who were so scarred by witnessing the death that they’ve been hysterical all weekend, return from the cemetery and tell you that the person you saw die isn’t really dead.  Most of us wouldn’t believe them; we’d call and make an appointment for them with a grief counselor.  It’s not healthy to live in that kind of fantasy world; you have to accept the reality that you live in a hard, unfair world, and deal with the facts of the day. [continue]