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BECAUSE THE TOMB IS EMPTY
Spring Valley Mennonite; April 17, 2022; Mark 16:6, Romans 10:9, Acts 4:8-12, Ephesians 1:19-20, 3:10-11
We gather this morning to celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ!
In fact, the Resurrection is why we care to meet every Sunday Morning!
The Resurrection is the cornerstone of the Christian faith, and to be a Biblical Christian, by God's definition, one must believe that Jesus was not only crucified and buried, but that He rose again on the third day.
That is the Gospel, the Good News!
Go with me this Easter morning back in time to that first Easter morning.
In the early morning light, some women from among Jesus' followers are making their way to the tomb to further anoint Jesus' body with spices.
These last two days had been horrific for all who had followed Jesus; the hours had been filled with shock, sorrow, fear and uncertainty.
There were so many questions: Was Jesus really the promised Messiah?
Had He not done miracles, including raising several, including Lazarus, from the dead?
Had He not claimed to be the Son of God? Had He not been welcomed by the crowds into Jerusalem a short week earlier with the words "Hosanna to the Son of David?"
Their steps were heavy as they picked their way down the path in the early morning light.
They approached the garden tomb where they had seen the body laid on Friday evening; all joy and hope was dead; they were heading for a meeting with a corpse.
They had no expectations other than what is reflected in their conversation: they wondered among themselves 'who will roll the stone away from the grave.'
They knew nothing of the soldiers guarding the tomb, or the Roman Seal which would have prevented the stone's removal.
If they had known, it is doubtful whether they would have attempted the early morning trip.
Approaching the garden tomb, their tongues grew silent; conversation suddenly ceased.
As they looked, uncertainty filled their minds.
The tomb stood empty.
The large stone had been moved away from the entrance.
With hesitant steps, they approached the tomb.
As they peered inside, it took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the gloom inside.
But instead of finding the wrapped body of Jesus, they received the surprise of their lives!
There stood an angel who announced the most blessed words they had ever heard: "Do not be amazed.
You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified.
He has risen!
He is not here!
Behold the place where they laid Him." (Mark 16:6)
In decisive answer to sceptics of all ages, the empty tomb stands.
All of history turns upon that moment when Jesus was raised from the grave.
Why is the Resurrection so important?
Why does Christianity rise or fall upon the fact of the empty tomb?
Is it not more important to focus on the Cross where the precious blood was shed, and God's terrible wrath was satisfied?
We must remember that the Cross is only part of the Gospel.
The entirety of the Gospel is what is truly important as articulated by Paul in 1 Corinthians 3: "Jesus died for our sins, (that) He was buried, and on the third day He rose again."
The death, burial and resurrection are all essential to the Gospel message.
To think one part of the Gospel is more important than another is like asking which is more important to the body, the heart or the brain!
Both are essential.
But do consider this: without the empty tomb, the cross would be meaningless.
Without the resurrection, we are left with only the tragic and untimely death of a religious leader.
Without the empty tomb, Jesus was only an ordinary man, and a great deceiver at that, for He based His credibility as the Son of God upon the fact that He would rise from the dead.
Without the Resurrection, there would be no Christianity at all, and Jesus and His followers would be relegated to the backwaters of history.
BUT...Christ is risen from the dead!
The tomb is empty!
And because the tomb is empty, consider with me of three main outcomes or personal benefits we derive from the empty tomb.
First, the Resurrection gives us :
I.
A CREDIBLE FAITH
Have you ever had someone say, "Christianity is fine for you, but I have my own religious beliefs.
All roads lead to God?" In our secular culture, everyone goes to heaven.
Is this true?
Is our faith credible?
The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ adds absolute proof to Jesus' claim that He was God.
One can travel to the tomb of Mohammed in Medina, Saudi Arabia or to the tombs of Buddha and Confucius in China, and in these graves you find the dust of death.
Yet if we go to the garden tomb, it stands empty!
Of all the founders of major world religions, ONLY Jesus Christ claimed to be God and backed up His claims with rising from the dead.
The empty tomb of Christ is the cradle of the Church.
Author Michael Green, in his book Man Alive, well states the importance of the resurrection and our faith: "Christianity does not hold the resurrection to be one among many tenets of belief.
Without faith in the Resurrection there would be no Christianity at all.
The Christian Church would never have begun; the Jesus-movement would have fizzled out...with His execution.
Christianity rises and falls with the truth of the resurrection.
Once disprove it, and you have disposed of Christianity."
Romans 10:9 states the relationship between our faith and the resurrection: "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved."
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is an essential part of the Gospel.
To attempt to believe in a Messiah who is dead, who remained in that Garden tomb is to believe in a false Christ and will not result in salvation.
Only a risen Christ would prove He was God.
Only the death of God the Son could pay for our sins.
There are those who would say that it is not important to believe in the bodily resurrection from the grave.
One attorney who thought like this was Frank Morison.
In his book, Who Moved the Stone?
He tells of "...how he had been brought up on a rationalistic environment and had come to the opinion that the resurrection was nothing but a fairy- tail- happy ending which spoiled the matchless story of Jesus.
Therefore, he planned to write an account of the last tragic days of Jesus, allowing the full horror of the crime and the full heroism of Jesus to shine through.
He would, of course, omit any suspicion of the miraculous, and would utterly discount the resurrection.
But when he came to study the facts with care, he had to change his mind, and he wrote his book from the viewpoint of a believer.
His first chapter is significantly called, "The Book that Refused to be Written," and the rest of his volume consists of a shrewd and attractive assessment of the truth of the Resurrection.
The great amount of evidence of the resurrection lends absolute credibility to our faith.
Christianity is built upon the solid rock of the historical fact of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
We serve a Risen Savior!
Because the tomb is empty, the second outcome and consequence of the Resurrection is:
II.
THE RESURRECTION ADDS CERTAINTY TO OUR HOPE OF ETERNAL LIFE
There was no hope in the hearts of the women that morning on the way to the graveyard.
There was no hope among any of the disciples.
I have observed the hopeless look at funerals among those who have no assurance of the Resurrection.
For them, death is the final goodbye.
Death contains a dreadful fear for those without hope.
Death remains one of the taboos of our society.
But look at the difference the resurrection made in the lives of Jesus' followers!
Look at Peter-bold, brash Peter who, when the chips were down, denied that he even knew Jesus for fear of his own life.
But after the resurrection, look where we find him: in the temple, preaching-and what was his subject?
The resurrection!
Listen to his bold words as he fearlessly confronted the very people who crucified his Lord, found in Acts 4:8-12 (Turn and read).
That's some bold preaching from one who was in hiding a few weeks earlier.
What made the difference?
The Resurrection!
All the Apostles except John died as martyrs.
Men don't die for what they know to be a lie.
Peter's hope had died Friday afternoon but was reborn on Easter Sunday morning.
When that stone was rolled away from the grave, figuratively speaking, it smashed open all the resting places of believers who would ever die knowing Jesus.
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