Daily Devotion: Luke 24:1-12

There was a line: there's almost always a line. You follow the crowds of people inside a massive door, into the semidarkness of a vast candle-lit church. The dome above lets in just enough light to reveal ancient icons of saints looking down on the jostling tourists below. The line snakes its way around an inner rotunda. You wait, and wait, and wait. A grumpy Greek monk allows you inside, a few people at a time. There's a candle-lit outer chamber, and finally, only big enough for one or two people at a time, there's the inner chamber: the tomb of Christ. You kneel, pray, and are shooed out again a minute later.
I found it very moving, but also disconcerting: like the Resurrection itself.
The young men in Luke's Gospel ask, "why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen!" The thing about following a living Lord is that he is rarely to be found in the last place you "put" him. Jesus is on the move, and he is as likely to meet you out in your daily life as in the places we traditionally call "holy." Don't stick around the tomb. He's not there.
This is especially relevant to me, as I worship with a church whose "holy space" is currently the local high school. It brings out even more clearly that the real "holy space" is to be found whenever and wherever God's people gather.
Dear Lord, help me not to linger at your empty tomb. Let me not worship familiar places or ideas, but go find you among your people, and the people we are called to serve. Amen.