Seeking the Living Among the Dead
Homily for the Easter Vigil Mass, April 19, 2025
See the Easter Vigil Readings Here:
When the women come to Christ’s tomb, the angel asks them; “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
When the women come to Christ’s tomb, they expect to find him basically as they had left him – dead and buried. They come expecting to find the dead among the dead.
And how often do we do the same in our own lives? We cling to our favorite rituals, particular superstitions – that pair of socks you have to wear whenever your team is playing; a particular tie you have to wear for every presentation. A certain way of doing things, not because it’s especially better but because it’s familiar.
When I was a teenager I remember once encountering a girl I had a crush on in an unexpected place around town. So of course for the next several weeks I kept going back to that place, trying to re-create the conditions that worked once in the hope of re-creating that encounter.
Our spiritual life can be like that sometimes. If you’ve ever had an experience of Christ’s presence in your life, an especially meaningful religious moment, or a sudden recognition of the beauty of God’s creation; these moments can be wonderful but fleeting. And if we try to go back and reclaim that experience; try to re-create the conditions that brought it about in the first place, and we don’t find that same experience – it can be frustrating.
We’re looking for the living among the dead. Christ is not looking to recreate the same experiences over and over again. Our God who makes all things new is calling us into a relationship. A personal, living, and vital relationship that grows and evolves and moves us forward.
Because as Saint Paul says, we know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more. And because of this, the world as we know it has changed.
He is alive, he is with us. Now, two-thousand years after his death and resurrection, he is still alive. Do we still look for him among the dead?
We come to Mass and we hear his word proclaimed and preached. We receive him in the Eucharist, and how often are we tempted to fall into the rote practice of religion? Going through the motions and not really thinking about what’s going on? It’s an easy habit to fall into.
We might come like the women coming to the tomb – expecting to find Jesus inert, lifeless, all wrapped up as we left him. But Jesus is alive and active.
The angel tells the women at the tomb, remember what he said to you. And Luke tells us that they remembered his words, then went to tell the others.
“Remembering” as Luke uses it in the Gospel here is not a simple matter of thinking back on something in the past. When the Good Thief says to Jesus on the cross, “Remember me when you come into your Kingdom,” he’s not asking Jesus to think back on him fondly. And Jesus responds that, “this day you will be with me in Paradise.”
And at the Last Supper when Christ said, “do this in remembrance of me,” he was anticipating our Eucharistic celebration here tonight. When we do this in remembrance of him we participate in that same Last Supper; we make present here and now the sacrifice on the cross and the resurrection.
And in a similar way those women experienced the Risen Christ through remembering his words.
Because Christ is still alive in His Word – in the Gospels and throughout the Bible – and when we hear it proclaimed, or when we read in prayerfully, he can still speak to us through it. He can nourish us and strengthen us in the Eucharist. And he meets us face-to-face in the poor and the needy we serve in our community, in our brothers and sisters here in our church community, and in those we welcome tonight into that community.
Christ is alive and is actively seeking a relationship with us. Don’t look for him among the dead.