The King is Risen Indeed

Some of the most famous and impressive structures on earth are tombs, or contain tombs: The Taj Mahal; the pyramids of Egypt; Westminster Abbey—it’s a long list. But there is one tomb that overshadows any of these in importance—a tomb that ironically can no longer be located with absolute certainty—a tomb just outside of Jerusalem, owned by a wealthy man named Joseph of Arimathea. This tomb contained the body of Jesus of Nazareth on Friday, but it was empty on Sunday—for the reason we celebrate today.

            The other tombs, for all their tons of limestone, marble or granite, are silent testimonies to death and its power over people. When archeologists or grave robbers first opened the pyramids, they found the bodies of dead Pharoahs, but when the women came to anoint the body of Jesus, they found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty—because Jesus had triumphed over death—the greatest of victories!

            “Empty” is usually a negative word. An optimist may view a cup as “half full” while a pessimist sees it as “half empty,” but when something is totally empty, like an old pop can, what else is there to do but toss it? Your gas tank is on empty—not good. If someone calls you “empty-headed,” that’s not meant as a compliment. But on this Sunday, “Empty” is gloriously positive. Empty is everything! “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.” That “place” is empty now, because Jesus lives!

            Listen again to the words of the angel: “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.” Indeed, before the fact, Jesus had said that he would be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise. It had happened just as He said.  Jesus had called his shot. The resurrection became God the Father’s seal of approval on Jesus’ great mission of rescuing us—the price Jesus paid to cancel our debt was accepted—and now even our most extreme enemy—death itself—is defeated! The apostle Paul expressed it like this: “We believe that Jesus died and came back to life. We also believe that, through Jesus, God will bring back those who have died. They will come back with Jesus.” (1 Thess. 4: 14)

            Everyone—in their heart of hearts—wants to believe that. No one can think about their own death without some fear or anxiety—if the grave is, in fact, the end of everything. If it is simply the end, humanity is no better than the leaf of a tree that grows for a time and then shrivels, drops to the ground and dies.

            The Gospel—the Good News—or maybe we really ought to call it the Great News—is that Jesus died and came back to life! The resurrection is genuine! History and archeology both support the emptiness of Jesus’ tomb that Sunday morning. The Jerusalem authorities had a missing body problem on their hands. There is no record of anyone, anywhere, in any source—friendly or hostile—reporting that the tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea was still occupied on the morning of the first Easter. What all the sources report is that it was empty.

            And yet…the empty tomb alone is not enough for faith. The empty tomb is like the shell without the kernel; the envelope without the letter. The empty tomb by itself could never have sparked the birth of the Church. It was Jesus Christ Himself who filled that void with reappearances on numerous occasions. About twenty years after the first Easter, the apostle Paul told the church in Corinth: “Christ died to take away our sins as the Scriptures predicted. He was placed in a tomb. He was brought back to life on the third day as the Scriptures predicted. He appeared to Cephas (the Aramaic name for Peter). Next he appeared to the twelve apostles. Then he appeared to more than 500 believers at one time. (Most of these people are still living, but some have died.) Next he appeared to James. Then he appeared to all the apostles; last of all, he also appeared to me.”

            Apart from all the eyewitnesses just named, there are so many proofs. What changed these poor, doubting disciples into believers? And not just believers, but people so transformed that they would willingly risk death for their convictions? What changed the day of worship from Sabbath to Sunday? What fueled the growth of the Christian Church itself? It was nothing other than the truth that Jesus is risen indeed. The evidence overwhelmed even some of Jesus’ former enemies, as recorded in Acts 6: “The word of God continued to spread, and the number of disciples in Jerusalem grew very large, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.”(7)

            For thousands of years now, Christians have understood that Jesus’ resurrection is the very heart of his Great News. Martin Luther once wrote: “He who would preach the Gospel must go directly to the resurrection of Christ. He who does not preach the resurrection is no apostle, for this is the chief part of our faith.”

            The women of that first Easter morning saw them first—the empty tomb and the risen Lord—and not only were their lives changed, but history was changed. Your life can be changed, too, because once faith tells you that “Jesus Is Risen Indeed,” your life can never be the same! You are the reason he died on Friday and came back on Sunday! If faith is telling you that “Jesus Is Risen Indeed,” you are sharing in his risen life right now. That means the grave is not the end of everything after all. Jesus’ resurrection changes the grave from a dead end into a doorway; a doorway through which we pass on our way to an audience with the King of Kings. Not only does Jesus’ resurrection remodel the grave, but it also means that our own bodies will be remodeled. We confess this in our creeds: I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Just as Christ was raised physically from the dead, our bodies will be raised physically; our souls will be rejoined to perfected, resurrected bodies that will live on forever in the life of the world to come. Completely whole. Totally restored. A perfectly tuned physical body is also one of the promises of Easter.

And that’s not all.  Because Jesus lives, he can come to us. He comes to us here, in words that raise believers to new life; He comes to us here in the washing of baptismal water; He comes to us here, hidden in bread and wine. He comes to us here in the caring words and actions of fellow Christians. Jesus lives in his Church to feed and nurture and serve us! We connect with a living God here! He comes right down to our level to forgive and strengthen and teach us, and in return we praise Him, we pray to Him, we give back to Him, we serve Him. This only makes sense if Jesus really is alive! And He is. That’s why we are here. That’s why we are…because Jesus is Risen Indeed.