The Living Among the Dead
My second point of my Easter/Cornell talk was "The Living Among the Dead.
In Luke's account of the resurrection, the women come to the tomb and are met by two angels. One of the angels asks this penetrating question:
"Why are you looking for the living among the dead?"
This is a stunning question that gets under the skin of what it means to be a human being.
Ours is a culture seeking out life from that which cannot get life.
Material goods, career advancement, "success", even a happy family ultimately leave us incomplete.
No one has captured this existential angst better than CS Lewis:
Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best .possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us. Now there are two wrong ways of dealing with this fact, and one right one.
There is a strange sadness when we obtain that which we have been striving towards.
A disconcerting emptiness.
We are seeking the living among the dead.
Immaterial, earthly things cannot touch the deep places in our souls.
A career no matter how successful has an end date.
Loving relationships all go through seasons of challenge.
Material possessions do nothing to meet spiritual needs.
There is a deep, insatiable hunger inside of you and inside of me that NOTHING IN THIS WORLD can ever ultimately satisfy.
We are seeking the living among the dead.
C.S. Lewis helps us once again:
Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, then; is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
You have a soul.
There is a spiritual reality to your life that only God can fill.
Stop looking for the living among the dead.
In Luke's account of the resurrection, the women come to the tomb and are met by two angels. One of the angels asks this penetrating question:
"Why are you looking for the living among the dead?"
This is a stunning question that gets under the skin of what it means to be a human being.
Ours is a culture seeking out life from that which cannot get life.
Material goods, career advancement, "success", even a happy family ultimately leave us incomplete.
No one has captured this existential angst better than CS Lewis:
Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best .possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us. Now there are two wrong ways of dealing with this fact, and one right one.
There is a strange sadness when we obtain that which we have been striving towards.
A disconcerting emptiness.
We are seeking the living among the dead.
Immaterial, earthly things cannot touch the deep places in our souls.
A career no matter how successful has an end date.
Loving relationships all go through seasons of challenge.
Material possessions do nothing to meet spiritual needs.
There is a deep, insatiable hunger inside of you and inside of me that NOTHING IN THIS WORLD can ever ultimately satisfy.
We are seeking the living among the dead.
C.S. Lewis helps us once again:
Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, then; is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
You have a soul.
There is a spiritual reality to your life that only God can fill.
Stop looking for the living among the dead.
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