Read Luke 24

In his book Lament for a Son, Christian philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff has explored the grief of losing his adult son in a mountain-climbing accident. “It’s the neverness that’s so painful,” Wolsterstoff says. “All the rest of our lives we must live without him. . . . A month, a year, five years—with that I could live. But not this forever.”

Death is not what God intended for His creation, and the Bible describes death as humanity’s great enemy. If we have suffered the grief of losing someone we have loved, we know the searing pain, suffering, and tragedy of death. Thankfully, we also know the good news of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, which reverses the curse of death. The day will come when we will not seek for the living among the dead. The dead will be raised to life, and Jesus’ resurrection is proof that our hope for death’s defeat is certain (see 1 Corinthians 15).

Luke closes his Gospel by returning to some themes we have seen since the beginning of his account. The angels were present to announce the good news of Jesus’ birth to Mary and to the shepherds, and they are now posted as sentries at the empty tomb. The disciples throughout Luke’s Gospel have been slow to grasp the understanding of Jesus’ identity, and they continue in their obtuseness even after His resurrection. It would take multiple eyewitness testimonies and finally a shared meal to begin believing that the apparition before them was not a ghost but the resurrected Jesus (vv. 36–43).

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Read Luke 23

On February 27, 2015, Boris Nemtsov was another critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin found shot to death in Moscow. Although the Kremlin has denied any involvement, a growing number of journalists, aid workers, and political opponents have been arrested or assassinated in Russia. Nemtsov had spoken publicly about corruption within the government and had been preparing a paper documenting the experiences of Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

When corrupt political leaders want either to seize power or to protect it, they consider the strategy of assassination. We see this in our reading today. Though the Jewish religious leaders wanted Jesus dead, they had to make a political case for His execution. They had to prove that Jesus wasn’t just a religious problem that threatened their regime of temple worship. They needed to paint Jesus as an insurrectionist and a threat to Roman rule. He had to be portrayed as a self-appointed candidate for king, who refused to bow the knee to Caesar.

And they were right, of course, about the radical nature of the message that Jesus preached. When Jesus announced the coming of a new kingdom, He wasn’t simply speaking about how people get to heaven when they die (although this is important). He was proclaiming a transfer of power. He was saying that He deserved worship and allegiance—not Caesar.

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