Then They Remembered His Words (Luke 24:1-12)

Then They Remembered His Words

April 20, 2025, Easter Sunday

By Pastor Mike 

Luke 24:1-12

The more she demanded of her memory, the more it gave.

— Barry Lopez, “The Open Lot”

***

  How, until that moment, could they have remembered his words?

His departure was so fresh, the shock of having lost him so total. Recalling the warm texture of his voice as he spoke those bright teaches and promises that expanded what it was possible for them to imagine about the world – to call all that to mind… it was agony.

It hurt to remember. Yet that’s precisely what the angels asked the women do: “Remember what he told you…”

“The old has gone, the new is here” (2 Cor 5:17)! The Apostle Paul writes those words in 2 Corinthians. He says that any person who places their full trust in Jesus’ sacrificial death and risen life participates in a new creation. Easter cleaved history into a before and after, an old age and a new age. On the one side, a cosmos alienated from God, and, on the other, a cosmos reconciled to God.

When the women came to the tomb, their remembering was still bound to the old age, its possibilities circumscribed by death.

We can look back two chapters to Luke 22 to see memory at work in the pre-Easter world. Jesus had predicted that none of his disciples would remain faithful to him when it was time for him to suffer. They would run away. Peter was the leader of Jesus’ disciples, and he argued with Jesus about this. Even if no one else could go the distance, Peter claimed that he would never falter. But Jesus predicted that Peter would deny knowing him three times.

After arresting him in the evening, soldiers brought Jesus to the high priest’s house for interrogation. Peter followed. He snuck into the courtyard and lingered by the fire. Some others who were there thought they recognized him, and they pressed him to admit his affiliation with Jesus. Peter denied it – once, twice, three times. The rooster crowed.

Luke writes, “The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord. …He went out and wept bitterly (Lk 22:61-62). This is memory haunted by failure. Memory that can only trace the lines of a botched and broken past. Memory that accentuates but cannot bridge the distance between ourselves and God.

     The women had come to the tomb that morning with their oils and spices so that they might lay Jesus to rest. It was the only thing to do that made any sense. They were seeking closure. Should memories of Jesus and his words pierce them, they would weep like Peter for what was bitterly and irretrievably beyond their grasp.

But what they found when they got there was an opening – an opening alive with angels. And those shining messengers of heaven said to them, ‘Remember! Remember what he told you (Lk 24:6). Remember his words. They are alive, because he is alive. He is not here among the dead. He is risen!’

Verse 8 is a short but all-important verse in Luke’s Easter story: “Then they remembered his words” (Lk 24:8).Hearing and believing that Jesus was alive, the women experienced all his words flooding back to them. At that moment, they entered the new creation – not as memories locked in the past, but as demands and promises invading the present. 

In Chapter 23 of his Gospel, Luke shows us this kind of redeemed, post-Easter memory, memory that surpasses the power of death. The Romans had crucified two other criminals along with Jesus, one to his right and one to his left.

One of these condemned men taunted Jesus, but the other asked for mercy: “Jesus,” he said, “remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Lk 23:42-43).

This is memory that reconstitutes presence, memory that brings forward into every “today” not just the idea of a person or a thing, but their very reality. The criminal is asking that he not be forgotten. But Jesus offers him so much more. Jesus tells him that this very day, he –the man in all his fullness – will be (will live, will exist!) with Jesus.

This is how the words rushed back to the women there at the tomb. They returned in all their fullness, with all their power confirmed and secured by the Resurrected One.

Oh, we aren’t saved because we can quote the words of Jesus chapter and verse. We aren’t saved when we nod approvingly at them as the wise words of an ancient teacher. We aren’t saved by more or less trying to apply these words to our lives.

No, we aren’t saved by our efforts at all. Every effort of ours to keep these words through our own resolve will only place us in Peter’s position, remembering our failure to do so with bitterness and dejection.

We are saved by grace through faith (Eph 2:8-9). Our redemption is God’s gracious gift. Christ seeks us again beyond every closed door, every evil and unjust and bitter ending.

But what we are saved for… We are saved for these words.

We are redeemed for the purpose of enfleshing them right where we are. When we remember like the women remembered, Jesus’ words become more than words spoken once upon a time; they become words continually resounding through his Body, his Church.

These are not dead words recorded on a page. They are living words announced by our lives.

So, friends, which of his words does he want you to remember this Easter? Which of his words will fill your mind, flow from your lips, find a home in your very heart?

Perhaps it is a word that calls you to love far beyond your natural capacity and inclination. He says – not ‘he said,’ but ‘he says’ –“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you…” (Lk 6:27). And when we are surrounded by the world’s hunger, he says “You give them something to eat” (Lk 9:13).

Remember his words.

Perhaps Jesus wants you to entrust your heart to the God who cares for you. For he says, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you” (Lk 11:10).” He says, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. …Instead, strive for the kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.” (Lk 12:22-23, 31). Will you let these words subdue your anxieties and transform you into source of daily bread and peace for others?

Remember his words.

Maybe the word for you today is one that cuts through all your defenses, all your masks, your addiction and your shackles? For Jesus says, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you” (Lk 5:20), and “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace” (Lk 8:48), and “I do choose. Be made clean” (Lk 5:13). He announces our freedom over and over again. Will you let his words resound through your body and soul, that you might announce them to others in need of forgiveness and healing?

Remember his words.

Is he calling you, today to re-pattern your life according to the utter reversal of values in the kingdom of heaven? Jesus says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind (Lk 4:18-19) And he says, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh” (Lk 6:20-21). And “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted” (Lk 18:14). Will you participate in that prophetic anointing? Will you trust in your blessing as you struggle for justice with peace? Will you practice his costly, humble love?

Remember his words.

The disciples and the women who followed Jesus had heard these world-changing words many times. But death intervened and seemed to silence them, to consign them to the past. God’s love for the world and his desire to have love unleashed through us is what saturates these words. But that love story cannot be written in a world where the voices of chaos and retribution, hatred and fear get to have the last word.  

But – “Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here! He is risen.”

With the announcement of his undying Life, all the words were suddenly available to the believing community again, beginning with the women. And we who are members of his Boby share in that inheritance.

We have been given the Holy Spirit, the very spirit of the Risen Christ. In John’s Gospel, Jesus says that the Spirit “will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you” (Jn 14:26).

Because of Easter, there will never be a voice out there in the world loud enough or cruel enough to obliterate the sound of Jesus’ words. Nothing and no one can negate the freedom we have been given to continue hearing and announcing them with the power that he gives us in the Spirit.

Jesus says, “I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. That one is like a [person] building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built” (Luke 6:47-48).

He says in another place, “But as for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance” (Luke 8:15).

And finally, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it” (Luke 8:21).

Remember his words – build a foundation that cannot be shaken, bear the fruit that is love, become his family.

Announce his words – for they have been reclaimed from the silence of the tomb.

Be his words – today – because we can, because he lives.

Thanks be to God! Amen.