Mark 16:1-3 “When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, ‘Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?’”

Maybe I’m just more aware of it now that I am more involved in our family’s shopping. Maybe it is something more cashiers have been trained to do at the checkout counter. I am unloading my grocery cart at the cash register, and the cashier asks me, “Did you find what you were looking for?” Every Sunday afternoon our family goes grocery shopping at ALDI, and without fail the person scanning my groceries asks me, “Did you find everything you were looking for?” But it’s not just ALDI. J.C. Penney, Lowes or Home Depot, CVS Pharmacy–they all ask the same question: “Did you find what you were looking for?”

The two Marys and Salome were looking for Jesus when they came to his tomb that Sunday morning. The body itself was usually anointed with perfumed oils. Notice that Mark says they were coming “to anoint Jesus’ body,” not merely add some potpourri to the tomb.

But something was missing. These women expected that Jesus was dead. They expected, then, that he had been just another mortal human teacher–a great prophet, an outstanding example and role model. They expected he was a man whose memory they should honor and celebrate, like we do with the Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson memorials on the mall in Washington D.C., but nothing more. They were looking for Jesus, but with the wrong expectations.

And notice how this had deformed and disfigured their Christian lives. For the past two days they had worried about a problem that didn’t exist. For the past twelve hours they had wasted time and lost sleep over solving it. They had spent large sums of money–the kinds of oils and fragrances used for this kind of thing were not cheap–to use in a tomb that had no body. It is interesting that we never hear again about the fate of these rather expensive deodorants they had purchased. In light of the truth they learned about Jesus, none of this mattered anymore.

You and I know better, I believe. We don’t think that we are following a dead hero, as though Easter was a spiritual version of President’s Day. We are looking for a risen Lord, our victorious God, the conqueror of sin and death, and Satan and hell, and every other evil with which our world has to contend.

But notice how, though we know this in our heads, and we believe it in our hearts, somehow it escapes us in our practice. We live like Jesus was dead. We worry about problems, that may not even exist, as though it all depended on us to solve them. We waste time and forfeit sleep over a future we don’t control: what’s going to happen at work, what’s going to happen at school, what’s going to happen in Washington D.C. or the state capitol, what’s going to happen at my next doctor’s appointment?

I am not saying we should do anything foolish or neglect our responsibilities. But Jesus is alive, still today, two thousand years later. He is victorious over sin and death. Doesn’t the living and victorious Jesus have the future covered for us?