“Why Seek the Living Among the Dead” – Brad Jersak

Violated, Grieved, Relieved & Liberated

A dear friend of mine recently experienced humiliation by patriarchal connivers in her church. It took me back to the era when unwed pregnant teens were forced to stand before their congregation for public shaming and shunning (no father named or present!). Their experiences were violations and overt spiritual abuse.

But my friend is no teenager. She felt the violation, allowed herself to grieve, then relatively quickly moved on to relief and even liberation. Why? Because she can simply leave and, gratefully, safer harbours welcome her arrival. Her conclusion echoed the words spoken by angels at Jesus’ vacant tomb, “Why seek the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!” (Luke 24:5-6). To her, the call of Jesus was to cease suffering under an oppressive structure where her holy angels and spiritual confidants assured her, “Jesus is not here. It’s time to leave.”

Not that I’m the evangelist of exodus from faith communities. I’m aware and wary of the trauma of post-church alienation. It’s rough when someone loses the only family (spiritual or literal) they’ve ever known. Worse than loneliness… there can be an uprooting, a deep sense of lostness.

But I also know from long experience that those who step away have often passed through years of agonized soul-searching and already were alienated inside their church walls. Very few bolt from their spiritual home on a whim over trivial domestic conflicts (at least not the first time). To borrow a metaphor from my colleague Andrew Klager, most courageously pursue their faith pilgrimage “with a pebble in their shoe.”

Until they don’t. Until they realize the pebble is broken glass and the blisters are infected wounds. Until the soul damage they’ve sustained over time accumulates and their overdue departure is an act of following Jesus the Liberator. I call these folks ‘beLeavers’ in my book Out of the Embers. Maybe they’re not simply prodigals running away from home. Maybe some just are obedient disciples leaving an empty tomb:

“Why seek the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!”

“They’ve taken my Lord away”

In the Gospel story (John 20), Mary Magdalene, bereft, stands outside the tomb weeping. Two angels ask her,

“Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”

I feel her pain. I feel the grief of those devoted to Jesus who can no longer locate him in the worship services where they once heard the gospel. Even when his name is invoked, they know that Jesus is being used as a bumper sticker for worldly ideologies and political agendas. We are witnessing this in increasing measures as modern day Caesars and Herods and Caiaphases around the world have compromised and transformed the Bride of Christ into the beast of Christendom. The ministry of reconciliation has become the ministry of propaganda.

No, that’s not quite right. The Bride prevails and clings to Jesus… but she testifies that the hierarchs, patriarchs, and oligarchs who seek to dominate the empty tomb have somehow taken away her Lord and she doesn’t know where they have put him.

Recognizing this, “she turns around…” Mary Magdalene, symbolizing the Bride of Christ, “turns back around” and in turning away from the tomb to the Garden (hints of Eden renewed), “saw Jesus standing there…”

How often have people who were trapped in cults, like victims of domestic abuse, been threatened, “Without us you are nothing. If you leave, you are lost. Beyond our control, you are hellbound! Salvation is found here, not out there! Apostate!” But she knows. The tomb is death. It’s time to go. And as she turns back around, she sees Jesus standing there.

Meeting the Gardener

Upon turning from the tomb to the garden, Mary’s tear-filled eyes see the One who already, still, and forever has her heart, “but she did not realize that it was Jesus.”

He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Can I suggest that she wasn’t mistaken at all. John’s account began, “There was a garden,” reminiscent of Genesis, and the Gardener is the New Adam, tending Paradise Restored.

The initial grief of leaving an empty tomb community is disorienting, grievous, and it’s hard to see clearly through our tears to recognize Jesus right before our eyes. But the heart the still loves Jesus, seeks and desires to know where to find him, who says, “Tell me where he is and I will get him,” may soon hear the most beautiful word in the world: one’s own name in Jesus’ own beautiful voice:

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

Such tenderness. Such kindness. Such love.

Even in a culture and era and stench of Christless tombs that pass themselves off as mega-ministry revivals, Jesus comes to Mary. In her turning, he is right there, speaking her name, and she wakes up to his immediate presence.

Take a moment. Be Mary. Behold Jesus. Hear your name on his lips. Don’t rush past it.

• I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses,
• and the voice I hear, falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses.
• And he walks with me, and he talks with me,
• and he tells me I am his own’
• and the joy we share as we tarry there,
• none other has ever known.

A Lamp Stand Removed

In Revelation 2:5, Jesus warns one of the seven churches in Asia Minor,

• “Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place.”

Look, I think Jesus is speaking rhetorically precisely to wake up and restore his church in Ephesus. And historically, we know his urgent, loving warning drew them back to their first love.

And in the 1970s, when hell-preaching revivalists came to my little town with this message, the congregations heard and heeded the warning in good faith (despite the preacher’s manipulative antics). In other words, we still experienced the heart of Jesus for restoration, not condemnation. He had no intention whatsoever of “removing the lamp stand from its place.” It was a wake-up call, not an eviction notice.

But today, for the first time in my life, I’m not so sure. To my bleary eyes, great swaths of what we call ‘church’ appear to “have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they have put him.” I am not wise and discerning or patient enough to know when Jesus’ warnings become reality and he comes to remove lamp stand from its place. I really don’t. That is so far above my pay grade and those who presume to know seem also to be the first to claim that they are “the one true church.” Congratulations. (I see Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf enthusiastically praising NY greasy spoon for advertising the World’s Best Cup of Coffee).

While I have no idea which lamp stands Jesus has removed (or if he ever truly does), I do see buildings and pews and hear music and preaching that I once associated with Jesus. But it’s as if Jesus has been evicted from places where I used to meet him and the new ‘landlords’ spout a message that is NOT good news for all people. It’s as if Jesus is saying,

• “So then, why seek the living among the dead? I’m not in those tombs.
• I am very much alive. [Your name], follow me.
• And no, you are not alone. You are not a runaway.
• Go instead to my brothers…”

How precious that Jesus refers to his disciples as brothers, even locked away in hiding and afraid for their lives from the religious establishment. He still has brothers, and says,

• Mary, go find them. Tell them. Do not be afraid, do not despair, I am alive.

The good news is that there are communities of faith in various forms (sometimes unfamiliar) where Jesus is alive and present, welcoming spiritual refugees into an embrace of hope, comfort, healing and encouragement. That’s the good fruit we ought to watch for. On the other hand…

“Is it I, Lord?”

Look, perhaps I sound morose about the corrupt ‘state of the union’ and might be accused of ‘Bride-bashing.’ I really don’t intend to… I see a world of contrast between the empty tomb and Mary Magdalene, between corrupted Christendom and faithful Jesus-followers. I’m also hyper-aware of Jesus’ warning to me: “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Matthew 7:2).

I believe Jesus, so in measuring the good news of the Gardener beside the empty tombs of Christendom, I will rewind to the Last Supper, to Jesus’ warning that one (and many since then) will betray him. The appropriate response—my response—is not “Is it him? Is it them?” but rather, “Is it I, Lord?” Sadly, I can think of too many instances where I have no doubt. And the only response I can find is, “Lord, have mercy.”

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