Father Peter F. Hansen

Sermon for Easter Day

April 20, 2003

An Empty Tomb

“Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed .”

One might say that the Christian faith began at the Birth of Jesus Christ, with a star that led the magi from the East; or that it began in the upper room where 120 disciples received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. We may regard that hill overlooking Jerusalem with its three crosses at 3 p.m. on a Friday and the death of Jesus Christ as the moment of beginnings; or go back to the very beginnings of faith with Abraham or Moses or the Prophecies of David, Isaiah, and Daniel. But it would be just as well for us to think of the Christian faith as beginning at a doorway in a stone wall, peering into shadows and the growing evidence surrounding an empty tomb.

     But was it empty? Surely, that morning 2,000 years ago gave ample evidence to the disciples that Jesus was not there. There was no mistake. Carved into the living stone, this tomb was just not very big. They all knew where Jesus should be, and He was gone. Stolen, perhaps? But why? Who would do that? Peter and John entered the tomb to determine the truth of it. The women's story was just too strange; they needed to corroborate it. These men had shared life with Jesus for three years, in the wild, and in town, close up. They saw how He cared for His own things, how He undressed and how He would leave His clothes folded, placing them here or there. Peter entered the sepulchre and saw it, probably not consciously understanding it at first. Jesus had been here . Not just His dead body, but here is the shroud, folded in just the same way He always did, and again, just as He would do it, the head wrapping, set in another place. Orderly, just as Jesus would do it . And they knew. That's when John believed.

     Jesus then began to appear to people. Mary Magdalene may have been the first, as she stood weeping in the garden, then saw a gardener and asked him where the body of Jesus had been taken. Then he said, “ Mary ,” and she knew Him. Peter saw Him and told the others. Cleopas and another disciples walked all the way to Emmaus with Him, not recognizing Him until they stopped to eat and He broke the bread and simply faded out of sight. Just before He disappeared, they recognized Jesus. Christ came into the room of the excited apostles that evening, through the closed door or wall, and showed them His hands and feet and ate with them. He assured them He was not a ghost, but that He had flesh and bones. He invited them to feel Him.

     Thomas had not been with them at this meeting, and not crediting their stories he said that unless he put his finger in this apparition's wounds, he couldn't believe it . The next Sunday, Jesus did appear again to them and showed Thomas the proof. “My Lord, and my God!” Thomas shouted, dropping to his knees. “Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet do believe,” Jesus told Thomas, commending you and me for our faith today.

     He would meet them again at the shore of Galilee. Jesus would appear to as many as 500 people at once before He ascended. His resurrection is the most confirmed miracle of all, given the vast amount of evidence, but is still doubted by many because of what it means. But there is yet more evidence.

     There are the soldiers. They lied about it. Why would soldiers admit to sleeping their guard duty away? And then while fast asleep, they knew who it was that crept in and stole the Body of Jesus. Right.

     There are also the priests. How urgent they were to post that guard, and then desperate to pay off the soldiers to tell that impossible tale of a daring grave robbery by a bunch of fishermen. How urgent they were to stamp out this heresy, arresting Peter and others and ordering them to be silent. Their chiefest lieutenant, Saul of Tarsus , would arrange the first execution of a Christian, the deacon Stephen. And he thereafter rounded many of them up, having them killed. Why? The Temple priests were frightened because they knew Jesus was risen. Saul then rode off to Damascus, not allowing the Christians even to escape Jewish territory. But Saul would not ride back with his prisoners this time. He too saw the risen Jesus Christ and became His most fruitful Apostle.

     The evidence mounts . A risen Christ is the foundation of the Church springing to life inside and outside Judaism . The Gentile world was starving for truth, their gods so obviously a human invention. The word spread incredibly fast, from Jerusalem to Samaria to Syria to Asia Minor to Macedonia to Greece and on to Rome . Before the Apostle John would die at the end of the 1 st Century, Christianity had spread to Spain, perhaps even to England, and into Ethiopia, Egypt, Arabia, Persia and India. What made the word spread so fast? Certainly the Holy Spirit, but the message was driven by the fact of one thing. Jesus Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed.

     And just what does that mean? It means that everything He said is true . The evidence mounts up. The very fact that a Hebrew sect might impact people whose languages ranged from Sanskrit to Latin in one generation should be evidence enough: Christ rose from the dead and lives in His Church. “Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the world.”

     We are evidence of His resurrection this morning. Look at us: 2,000 years away in time and thousands of miles from the physical place, but we're witnesses of Christ's resurrection just the same. We are not eyewitnesses , but rather those whose souls have been impacted by a man who died. But Who rose again , for we gladly cry out: He is Risen! What else could make us come here this morning, and every Sunday morning, but that on that Sunday morning He rose from death to life.

     The Apostles and so many others were so convinced of His resurrection that they never regarded their own lives the same again. They went singing into the arenas, praising God at their stonings, eyes blazing back at the fires with a light no fire could extinguish. They were certain they would live beyond the grave. Death had no more fear for them, for they had seen the risen Lord . To deny Him was truly to die. To die confessing Him was to go from life to life. No big deal. Not to them .

     And if this empty tomb proves Christ's resurrection, what else does it prove?

     Jesus told His followers that Jerusalem and the Temple were going to be destroyed, leveled to the ground. 40 years after His resurrection, Jerusalem was leveled by the Roman legions after a three-year siege. Jesus told them that they would do even greater miracles than He had done, because He was going to His Father. At Pentecost the Apostles baptized 3,000 new converts. Paul raised a dead boy. Peter and John healed a crippled man, lame from birth . The miracles continued. Jesus told Paul that He would convert the Gentiles, and off to foreign lands Paul went, founding dozens of churches among the Gentiles. As prophecy after prophecy was fulfilled, the disciples watched in faith for the final prophecies of Jesus to come to pass. They watched for signs of the end.

     But such signs eluded them. We watch for them still. Many think the world has by now run its course and that we are going to witness the final chapters unfold. We may, but now we know it will happen, just as Jesus said it would. We know that without needing to live in the actual tribulation days. Every other word He said has come true. Why would He lie about the antichrist or more importantly, about what lies beyond our own tombs?

     When we die, what will happen to us? I am often asked this confounding question. It is confounding because the promises, while certain, lack a lot of detail. You shall pass from life to life . You will be with Christ right after death, if you faithfully follow Him and live for Him today. Whether you call that Paradise or Heaven or Abraham's bosom is inconsequential. You shall have rest from the labors of your life . You will be able to endure the Presence of God and He will love you, wipe all tears from your eyes, and listen to your petitions for those still on earth. Your sicknesses and the ravages of age shall be gone with the old body to the ground, along with all your sinful tendencies. But you shall still be waiting for something. Your own resurrection.

     When Jesus returns to earth, He shall ride in the clouds while trumpets announced His arrival. Then you will be given a new body, from the elements of earth once more, but now cleansed and purified and powerful and eternal. This body will not sin. This body will be able to eat, laugh, walk, and see. But this body will obey spiritual laws, no longer bound to the natural laws that limited our former existence. This body will rise into the air and join Christ in the clouds . This body will live forever, without disease, without pain, without trouble of any kind. Your body will be like Jesus' resurrected body: everlasting, human as only God had meant humans to be. He had you in mind from the beginning, not as you are today, but as you shall be. Jesus proved that you are likewise coming to that blessed state on that
     Easter Sunday morning when He became the first resurrected man.

     And so, if you are risen with Christ , you ought to seek things from above. The things of earth are not so permanent, and even if our earthly lives are temporary , we can be assured that our lives are eternal and that eternal things are far more important for us, beginning now, beginning Sunday, Easter Day, at the doorway peering into an empty tomb. An empty tomb that means so much, for it lets us know, without a doubt. Christ is Risen! He is Risen!

             PFH+