The empty tomb on Easter Morning

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We thank God for His word as we explore it, and in particular, of course, we mark Easter Sunday. As Christians in the Reformed tradition we mark our Lord’s death and resurrection every Lord’s Day, but at this time of the year, we have a particular opportunity to witness to the world around us, most of whom have no experience or indeed interest in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

What is Paul saying here? If we were to have a big picture message and an elevator pitch, we might say that if Christ Jesus was not raised from the dead, that is, if the the the boundaries of human life were applied also to God, if God could do nothing that we cannot do, then all of our hoping, all of our praying, all of our faith would be false. Church, this building, this group of people, this act of worship would be pointless. We would have no hope.

But, as we see in verse 20, Christ was raised from the dead. So we have hope, forgiveness and eternal life.

One of the really sad things about the Pastoral Epistles, indeed all of the Epistles, is that we only have one side of the conversation. We have Paul’s replies or Paul’s initial letters, but we never have the letter from the Corinthians to Paul (which would make our lives a lot easier, because if we did, we would know the problems he was dealing with without having to read in between the lines).

We don’t know exactly what was happening at the time that Paul was writing, but through reading his words, his letters, we can infer answers. The fact that Paul spends at the very least twenty-one, and we haven’t read them all, verses explaining how Jesus came back from the dead and why this was important, and why we should believe in it, would suggest certainly to me and maybe to you as well, that there were some in Corinth who were doubting that Jesus had indeed risen from the grave.

Maybe these people believed everything else that they had been taught. Maybe they believed that Jesus was born of the Virgin. Maybe they believed that He went about doing miracles. Maybe they believed He was the Son of God. Maybe they believed He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was “crucified dead and buried” as the as the Apostles’ Creed says. But maybe they stopped just a few inches short and could not bring themselves to say that He was raised from the dead.

And maybe, of course, they struggled to believe a whole lot more, after all, there is an awful lot to get your head around when you become a Christian.

“Surely that’s OK?” they may have said, “I believe 85, 90, 95% of this message. Surely that’s enough to get me over the finishing line?” “I believe some really difficult bits, Paul,” they may have said, “I believe that Jesus could have been born of Mary, even though she was a Virgin, even though I can’t explain it. I believe that as Jesus was baptised, the dove descended on Him from heaven. I believe that Jesus could transform the laws of nature and turn water into wine. But ask me to believe that after three days He came back from the dead. Nah, Paul, I’ll leave it. Surely I believed enough.”

I know a man a little like this. He’s a bit of a confused Christian. He would go so far as to say that he believes that Jesus Christ was a ‘good man’. He would go so far as to say that Jesus did the most wonderful things. He goes so far as to say that Jesus was surely the most God like person who ever walked the earth. But he would not go as far as to say that Jesus was God incarnate, and he certainly wouldn’t believe that He rose from the dead. For him, Easter (whether just today, or every Lord’s Day) is just one step too far.

Throughout the course of the Church’s history, there have been people who formed different heresies trying to explain why, in fact, Jesus had not come back from the dead.

Was He just unconscious on the cross? Was there a doppelganger? Was His body stolen from the tomb? After all, that particular lie was spread from the outset (see Matt. 28. 11ff).

People have gone so far to try and explain the unexplainable, to scientifically analyse what happened, and put in paper and ink why it can’t have happened. There are heresies for almost every appetite. They believe most of it, but not that. Surely that’s OK? Maybe we also know people like this? Perhaps there are people in this very Church who are sitting there and realising that this is how they feel about the empty tomb?

Well, says Paul. For Christians, belief in the resurrection is essential. Not only is it surely the case that if Christ had gone about doing all the things He did, and then went to the Cross and had stayed dead in the tomb, we would not be talking about Him today. He would be yet another interesting person in the annals of history.

But, says Paul, without Christ rising from the dead, we would, to quote Private Fraser, be “doomed”. The words of the Easter hymn spring to mind: This joyful Eastertide, away with sin and sorrow

Concluding with that line at the end: Had Christ that once was slain ne’er burst His three day prison, our faith had been in vain. But now hath Christ arisen.

So what does Paul say? He reminds his readers how he, and indeed others, had encountered the living Jesus.

Just as an interesting aside as we proceed, we can see in chapter 15 at v3, that Paul writes, “I delivered to you as the first importance what I also received.”

Now if we turn back just to halfway through Chapter 11, (a passage that is now indelibly marked in my Bible with some communion wine, because I spilt some communion wine on this page at my Church’s last communion season, which is quite appropriate actually, for Chapter 11) we will read in verse 23 that Paul wrote, “for I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.”

You see, Paul has a habit of of qualifying the important things he says by explaining how he received them from the Lord and passes them on to his readers: and he’s doing, I think ,the same thing in chapter 15. “I delivered to you,” he writes “as of first importance what I also received”.

Paul begins by reminding us, “of first importance… [that] Christ died for [y]our sins.” (15. 3)

Note that this immediately knocks out that first heresy - maybe He was a doppelganger, maybe it was an illusion trick, maybe He was just unconscious as He hung from the tree.

No, friends. Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and He was buried. We know this, of course, from the endings of the Gospels, where we have spelled out in incredible detail whose tomb it was, that Jesus was laid in, who attended to Him as his lifeless, yet probably still warm, body was laid in that tomb.

He died and He was buried and He was raised on the third day, Paul writes, “in accordance with the Scriptures”. (15. 3) For all that the Scriptures had foretold of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ had to be fulfilled, and they were.

We then find, as proof of His resurrection, that Jesus appeared to a great number of people. I won’t go through all of them because there are quite a number of appearances nestled in those two or three verses. Some of these appearances were undoubtedly in the flesh, who can forget Thomas, feeling the the print of the nails in Jesus hands? (Jn. 20. 24ff) Some of them, equally, were surely appearances in the spirit.

Now I’m not trying to suggest (as some heresies would have us believe), that some of the time that Jesus walked about on Earth, it was in spirit form only. However, as we’ll see later on, certainly Saul’s conversion happened as a voice called to him from Heaven.

We see first of all, that Jesus appeared to Cephas, Cephas of course being Peter. We can see this in John’s Gospel in chapters 20 and 21. Interestingly the way that Paul writes certainly infers that Jesus appeared to Cephas first, although, as we see in John 20 at verse 19, Jesus appears to the disciples, among whom we can assume Peter was present.

He then, only a few verses later, appears to Thomas, henceforth known as the Doubter.

Later on still, we read that Jesus appeared to James, the brother of Jesus: who can forget that moment of intervention in the middle of Jesus’s ministry when He was at his zenith, when his mother and brothers and sisters appeared and said, We are worried about you. Jesus, we think you should stop this. (Mk. 3. 31ff)

Jesus didn’t have much time for them on that occasion, but clearly found time for for his brother James after He had come back from the dead, for He appeared to James and we can read in James’s epistle of how he encountered his Lord, Saviour, and brother. In Acts 1.14, we can read how James was among the group of the disciples who were praying in the upper room at the time of Pentecost. James clearly believed what had happened, that Christ had been raised from the dead, or else he would not have been wasting his time with that funny group of people who were going round believing that somebody could come back from the grave.

Then of course, we come “last of all, as to one untimely born” (15. 8) to Jesus’s appearance to Saul. As I say, a spiritual encounter perhaps, but an encounter nonetheless.

And of course, while Paul writes “last of all” in his letter, we know that down through the centuries Jesus has appeared to so many and such varied people. Maybe some of you here have encountered the risen Lord as well in your own walk of faith.

But what does this mean? Paul makes very clear that this good news is far from being some sort of heavenly magic trick, a way of convincing us that Jesus was a good egg. The resurrection means that we are no longer “still in our sins”. (15. 17)

We are no longer bound by those things that, at one point in life, had separated us from God. We then read in verse 19 that we now no longer have hope only in this life. Surely it’s one thing to hope that next year, next month, next week, something good will happen, but it something entirely different to have a genuine hope in eternal life.

Rather, we read that, in Jesus Christ, our sins are forgiven, our communion, our link with God, is restored and strengthened, and our eternal life is secured. Paul really drills this home as he makes such a a telling comparison in verse 20 onwards. He speaks of how, by one man, sin entered the world and indeed, by that one man’s actions, came death. You don’t need me to spell out the implications of Genesis 3 to you: you know what happened.

And yet, as by one man came death, so “by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead”. (15. 21) Just as one man allowed himself and his wife to fall into sin, and then in turn allowed sin to enter the world, just as that one or two people changed the course of human history, so too, in Jesus Christ, the whole created order is changed.

Eternal life is found. The formerly final end that was death is no longer an end, but rather a portal to a new beginning. Remember friends, how Jesus Christ went to the cross and died in place of dreadful Barabbas, and for that, Barabbas was surely thankful. But He also died in place of you and me. He died for sins that we were not to commit for another 2,000 odd years. He died knowing our hearts and our souls, and how black they are and how calcified they are with with sin and with passion and with earthly interests.

We know how in torment, He prayed in the garden (Lk. 22. 39), how, in pain, He hung on the cross (Lk. 23. 33), and how in death He paid that ultimate sacrifice as He cried, “It is finished” (Jn. 19. 30), and won for us eternal life.

Jesus through this showed us mercy in not giving us what our sins deserved, and then grace in giving us that which we could never earn or deserve.

And yet even though our sins were forgiven through Christ’s propitiatory death on the Cross, death was not the end. For over God death could not have dominion. Friends, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not just for Easter Day. We know a dog is for life and not just for Christmas, and so too we know that Jesus’s resurrection is most surely not just for Easter Day.

Furthermore, as a non-negotiable part of our Christian faith, it is not enough for us to believe everything else, bar one. As we read the Catechism, as we study Scripture, sing our hymns, say our prayers, it’s not enough for us to say and affirm every bit and then cross our fingers when we get to this difficult bit.

Because without the resurrection, everything that Joshua, or Charles, or Jenny or any other preacher in this church or in any church throughout the world, has ever said is an absolute lie. Their “preaching is in vain,” Paul writes, and their “faith is in vain” (15. 14). They are, and I am “misrepresenting God” (15. 15). Without the resurrection, your faith and mine would be a fraud. Without it, this place would be pointless. Without it, our prayers, our praises, meaningless.

And yet Paul encourages us to remember, that in Jesus Christ we have life, we have life eternal. He encourages us to remember that in Jesus sin is defeated and the gates of heaven, the gates to eternal life are opened to us. Therefore, friends, let us trust in the work of the cross and in the work of the empty tomb for, without it, we would have nothing, and yet with it, we have everything: Had Christ that once was slain ne’er burst His three-day prison, our faith had been in vain, but now hath Christ arisen. Amen