The rock band U2 released a song in 1987 called “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”. Like many songs there is an abstract quality to it and you might not immediately define it as a ‘religious’ song but it clearly says something about searching for love and a spiritual journey:

“I have climbed highest mountains; I have run through the fields,
Only to be with you, only to be with you.
I have run, I have crawled,
I have scaled these city walls,
These city walls, only to be with you
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”.

As I read the title line again now I can’t help recalling the scene at the tomb on Easter morning when the women arrived to prepare Jesus’ body for burial and encountered ‘two men in dazzling white clothes that stood beside them’. The women were terrified but the men said to them “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.

It’s a strange question really because of course they weren’t looking for the living among the dead. They were looking for the dead among the dead! The women went to the tomb with the spices they had prepared to get the body ready for burial and when they found no body, they were perplexed.

Of course Jesus had told his followers (Including these women) that he would be crucified, and on the third day rise again. But as is often the way it is clear that his followers did not grasp the meaning of this and the angels had to remind the women of Jesus’ words. It is then, that the women not only remember but they understood. Perhaps at that point too, the women remembered and understood other instances where Jesus had talked about such things: “Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living” Jesus had said to the teachers of the law when discussing resurrection with them (Luke 20:38)

‘Remembering’, in this case is more than just recalling what was said by Jesus. It’s actually a profoundly significant moment of understanding: A ‘light bulb’ moment; when the ‘penny dropped’ and a moment when so many things Jesus said fell into place.

So often we look for Jesus in the wrong place as the women did who went to the tomb. Or rather, we don’t find Jesus where we expect to find him.

A true local newspaper story some while ago told of two, seven year old twins who went missing from their home. Around fifty relatives, friends, neighbours searched alongside the police for hours without success. Even a police helicopter joined in the search. Eventually after some hours the two children were found. They were snuggled up together on the seats of two chairs so that even their legs could not be seen, underneath a tablecloth draped over the edges of a dining room table in their own home!

During the season of Easter, where and how are you looking for Jesus?

• Do you investigate as a historian might – and find jigsaw-piece-facts which don’t seem to fit together?
• Do you search as a scholar might – and study only the context and background?
• Does tragedy in your own life so overwhelm that you struggle to see beyond Good Friday?
• Do you search as a geographer might – and see only boarders and boundaries?
• Do you search for Jesus as the traveller might – needing to tread the very ground Jesus trod?
• Do you spend so much time and energy searching, that you miss Jesus searching for you?

Or do you see with the suddenly opened eyes, hearts and minds of those women at the tomb who remembered and understood the promises of Jesus and rushed away to tell others what they knew in their own hearts?

Christ is Risen – He is risen indeed!