"The Living One" is the way the two dazzling men at the tomb refer to the Risen Jesus in Luke's Gospel (24:1-11.) They ask the women who have entered the tomb to prepare Jesus for burial, "Why do you look for the Living One among the dead? He is not here. He has been raised!"
Jesus is not just a savior we remember from the past. He is even now The Living One. The Resurrection isn't simply something that's over and done with. Jesus lives still and loves intimately. The Living One is someone with whom we can have a personal relationship in the present.
The Living One is the powerful source of our New Life, living on in you and me, loving us into newness, gradually transforming us into his image, changing us from sinful, selfish individuals into a free and loving people.
The rich source of our Easter joy is not just that our savior was raised 2000 years ago, but that Jesus is living still and all of us together are living in him. The Living One makes his home in us and is himself the home of every human being.
In his poem, As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Gerard Manley Hopkins says,
"--for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his,
To the Father through the features of men's faces."
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