Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 24:5

"and as they were affrighted and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?" — Luke 24:5 (ASV)

Why do you seek the living among the dead?—Better, as in the margin, Him that liveth. The question was enough to change the whole current of their thoughts. The Lord whom they came to honour as dead was indeed living, was emphatically He that liveth, alive forevermore (Revelation 1:18).

The primary meaning of the words is, of course, limited to this; but like the parallel, let the dead bury their dead (see Note on Matthew 8:22), they suggest manifold applications. It is in vain that we seek Him that liveth in dead works, dead formulas, dead or dying institutions. The eternal life that is in Christ is not to be found by looking into the graves of the past in the world’s history, or in those of our individual life. In both cases it is better to rise, as on the stepping-stones of our dead selves, to higher things.