Luke 24:1-12 (click for full reading)

While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. ⁵ The women^[b] were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men^[c] said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here but has risen. (v. 4-5)

The old saying goes, "Nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Tuesday was Tax Day here in the United States, and many of us parted ways with some of our savings. Wednesday, I received the news that IJ Pinkham died. Even though I knew he was ill, it came as a shock. This news is on top of memorials already planned for Donald Duncan and Arlene Smith. We come to Easter morning fully aware of the inevitable challenges of life. It costs us something to live, and those costs tend to rise more than they fall. And life is finite. We have lost many whom we love, and death will come for us someday as well.

It is worth returning to the context of Ben Franklin's statement about the inevitability of death and taxes. The quote appears in a letter dated November 13, 1789, from Benjamin Franklin to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, a French physicist and member of the Royal Academy of Sciences. The full quote reads:

"Our new Constitution is now established and has an appearance that promises permanency, but in this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes."

Franklin wrote this letter at a precarious time. The Constitution had been approved a year earlier and took effect five months before, when George Washington became the first president. The states were skeptical of centralized power, and tensions simmered between North and South. The colonies had massive war debts and no national currency, only money issued by each state. Every major power in the world was a monarch who claimed the divine right to rule. They all watched and expected the rebellious colonies to collapse from their lack of coherence. Franklin received news from Le Roy that the French Revolution had its own problems. That summer, Parisians stormed the Bastille, a symbol of the monarchy's power. A large crowd of women marched from Paris to Versailles, demanding bread, forcing the royal family to flee.

France would soon descend into the Reign of Terror, where more than 16,000 people were executed by guillotine.

The key phrase in Franklin's letter should have been that the new Constitution has an appearance that promises permanency. His hope that something new was beginning was far more important than the cynicism of death and taxes as the only sure things. The story is a reminder that essential moments in history didn't feel like inevitable outcomes to the people living at the time. Every great human evolution of consciousness felt fragile in its infancy. Franklin's era was uncertain. So was the first Easter. The women who came to the tomb were also living in a world where power seemed absolute and fragile all at once.

The women who came to the tomb Easter morning were keenly aware that death and taxes were strong forces in their lives. They knew their taxes enriched Rome, and they had just seen with their own eyes that Rome had the power over life and death. They came that morning with their spices and oils to prepare the body of Jesus for final resting. Death was not outsourced to a funeral home. The intimate acts of preparation were a family affair, a ritual of love and grief. The older women had done this before, but perhaps it was a first for some younger ones. Did any women in the silent morning procession turn their faces to warm in the precious golden sunrise? Did the sound of early birds' singing reach their ears? Or were they still remembering the shouts to crucify, the whip's crack, the taunts of Roman soldiers?

The women did not come to the tomb with any hope but rather with the solemn awareness of the inevitability of death. When they see the stone rolled away and the tomb empty, they do not shout, "Halleluiah! He is risen!" Verse four says they are perplexed; the Greek word apereo can mean confused, bewildered, or at a total loss about what to think or do. Death may be a harsh inevitability, but at least they had a ritual of what to do. But now the body is gone. What new disaster does this signal?

Two men in dazzling clothes suddenly appear. To say they are dazzling, I don't think Luke meant they were dressed like Elton John, wearing Versace with sequins and feathers. The word for dazzling is closer to a lightning flash. This appearance echoes two other famous scenes in Luke, the angels appearing to shepherds at Jesus' birth and Jesus himself at the Transfiguration. These are the three significant announcements about Jesus—worthy of dazzling attire! So, now must be when the women break into song, with all the Alleluias, full organ pipes, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in the background. "Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!!!"

Instead, while the women are face down in terror, the angels engage in a teaching moment,

"Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to the hands of sinners and be crucified and on the third day rise again."

This response feels unfair. The shepherds were told to "Be not afraid," and said this is good news with great joy. Matthew's angels at the tomb also say, "Be not afraid." John has the angel say, "Woman, why are you weeping?" Why does Luke have the angels give these women a brief theology lecture? Pastoral Care 101 is "Though shalt not lecture the grieving." In Bible study Monday, we thought the question, "Why are you looking for the living among the dead?" was a bit snarky.

This question occupied my mind all week. Are there ways I am looking for the living among the dead? Are we too busy doomscrolling through the news that we do not act with hope? Are we holding on to what has died—so tightly that we can't reach for what gives life? Does injustice overwhelm us? Does this mean our hands have such a tight grip on fear, anxiety, grudges, or resentments that we have no room for new life, curiosity, or new ways of doing things? It is hard to find life if we are rummaging around the long-dead things.

Perhaps this question is more directly relevant to the reader than the women. It echoes Moses' ancient call in his farewell speech to choose the way of life:

"See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity... I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live."
(Duetoronomy 30: 15, 19)

Another reading of the angels' question occurs to me. Their goal was not to bring comfort or good news but to charge these women with the sacred task of bearing witness—to proclaim that Jesus no longer belongs to the realm of the dead but to the living.

Perhaps the angels speak so matter-of-factly because they know what lies ahead: not praise but resistance; not Alleluias but disbelief-even ridicule.

But these women are up to the task. They have stood at the cross. They have returned to tend a broken body. They are strong-hearted enough to carry a message of life even in the face of death.

They will not back down when called ridiculous, naïve, or hysterical.

Because angels know, as we do, that death and taxes feel inevitable. That life often isn't fair, that the world can be unjust. And yet—into that very world, they carry something new.

The resurrection didn't arrive in a time of peace or progress. It broke in when things were falling apart. It does not break forth because the nation has finally become righteous enough to deserve it. Humanity had not finally reached an apex of spiritual enlightenment to understand the ways of God. It arrives in the uncertainty of history. It makes a way where we see no way.

We still live in an uncertain world. There are wars and famines, inequality, and injustice. But that question still echoes from the empty tomb:

"Why do you look for the living among the dead?"

It is not just a rebuke. It's an invitation.

An invitation to stop scouring the tombs of disappointment and despair for answers they cannot give.
An invitation to stop clinging to old certainties that no longer give life.
An invitation to risk believing that life can break through — even here, even now.

Christ is not in the grave. The body is not where they left it.

And neither are you.

You are not abandoned to death, despair, fear, or shame. You are called to bear witness to life.

So go.
Carry this fragile, impossible, joyful news into a world that needs it more than ever:

He is not here. He is risen. May he rise in you!