Luke 24:1-12 (Easter Sunday) – April 20, 2025

Narrative Context: The Resurrection without Jesus?

Luke’s account of the resurrection stands apart from the fuller Gospels of Matthew and John in that the risen Christ never appears. At least not in this passage. Unlike Matthew, where Jesus greets the women as they flee the tomb, or John, where he gently calls Mary by name, Luke opens the resurrection story with absence. No Jesus, just emptiness. The tomb is open. The body is gone. Two dazzling messengers proclaim that he is risen. But Jesus? Not yet.

This makes Luke’s resurrection account an especially potent text for those who come to Easter with more questions than clarity, more grief than jubilance, more wondering than certainty.

The women come at dawn, still in the shadow of sorrow. They bring spices to care for a body, not to encounter resurrection. They arrive expecting death and instead receive mystery. “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” the messengers ask. The question lingers across the page like a gentle rebuke and a holy invitation. They are then told to remember. Not to see. But to remember what Jesus said.

Luke’s Gospel constantly points to memory as the gateway to faith. Mary “treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Jesus took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” The thief on the cross says, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And now, at the empty tomb, memory awakens faith once more.

Preaching the Empty Tomb

On Easter Sunday, it’s tempting to rush to joy with brass and lilies and fanfares. But Luke slows us down. The tone here is more muted: early morning shadows, confusion, terror, and amazement. The women are perplexed. The disciples doubt. Peter is amazed. And still, Jesus is nowhere to be seen.

This absence can be a gift to us as preachers. It gives space to hold the complexities of resurrection in a world still deeply broken. We do not have to explain it all. We do not need to make it emotionally neat. Luke invites us into the tension between promise and presence, between memory and hope.

A professor once advised me: “Read the Easter story with some naivete. Read it like it’s your first time hearing it.” That’s what Luke encourages. Without the immediate release of seeing the risen Jesus, we’re asked to trust the promise and remember.

Remembering: The Thread That Binds

The messengers at the tomb do not offer proof. They do not provide Jesus. They provide words of promise. “Remember how he told you…” And the women do remember. That act of remembering is what transforms them into the first apostles of the resurrection.

The command to “remember” weaves throughout the biblical witness. It binds together the salvation story:

Remember the promise of God at Creation that this world is “good,” and God loves it dearly.

Remember the promise after Noah and the Flood, that God would never again wish destruction upon the earth.

Remember the promise to Moses and the Israelites as they were freed from captivity to be the people of God.

Remember the promise to the Israelites that there would be a land filled with milk and honey for all people to thrive.

Remember the promise to God’s people that a Savior would come to be with us and save us.

Remember the Savior coming into this world as a little child, just like us, to show the world how we might live with God.

Remember how Jesus, our savior, fed, healed, and transformed the lives of thousands through his teaching and preaching.

Remember how he included everyone at his table with no restrictions or qualifications.

Remember how he broke the bread and shared it. Remember how he shared the cup and promised the forgiveness of all our sin.

Remember the cross. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

“Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”

Remember that Jesus breathed his spirit into us, so that we know that we are never alone. 

Preaching Possibilities

Resurrection in a Broken World

Luke’s resurrection happens in the midst of profound grief, confusion, and brokenness. Jesus doesn’t burst triumphantly onto the scene in this text. Instead, the narrative unfolds quietly, subtly. The women are met with absence, questions, and the disorienting words of “He is not here, but has risen.” This is not a resurrection narrative that shouts, it whispers. And that whisper happens in a broken world.

Preaching resurrection into a broken world means telling the truth about where we are. On that early dawn morning, nothing had yet been made right. The empire was still in power. The disciples were still in hiding. Grief still hung heavy. It’s not unlike our own context. You and your congregation may come into Easter Sunday with internal and external pressure to proclaim only joy. Trumpets, lilies, bright colors, and smiling faces. But many of us are still carrying Good Friday hearts into the Easter season.

Luke’s version allows preachers to honor the complexity of Easter morning. The tension between hope and heartache, amazement and confusion. Resurrection doesn’t erase the brokenness. It rises in the middle of it.

This is a deeply pastoral word for our communities today. We proclaim resurrection not as escapism, but as defiance. A holy resistance to despair. The tomb is empty, but the world still hurts. And so, the church is called to embody resurrection hope in the places where the world is still grieving, aching, and longing for healing.

We can invite our congregations to name the brokenness they carry even into Easter morning. The personal grief of loss or illness. The ongoing struggles with injustice, war, violence, or poverty. The everyday fatigue and anxiety that doesn’t simply disappear with the arrival of spring. Increased political divisions and greater fear of political violence and retribution. Family struggles and the stressors of life.

Resurrection is not a magic word that makes all of that vanish. It is instead the beginning of something new in the midst of it. Resurrection is Christ’s quiet insistence that death will not have the final word. And neither will fear, oppression, division, or despair.

In this way, Luke’s Easter becomes guidance for the church’s calling. We stand alongside the brokenhearted. We proclaim hope where others see only grief. We remember and help others remember, that Christ has risen, even when his presence is not immediately visible.

This is not a passive remembering. It is an act of holy resistance. And it leads to action. Just as the women left the tomb and told the story, the church is called to go and proclaim the risen Christ. Not with naive certainty, but with brave hope.