Faith in the Empty Tomb - 03/27/2016

WARNING PREACHY…

Easter Sunday is the pinnacle of the Christian faith, not Christmas as many suppose: the single reality that Jesus rose back to life from the grave.  St. Paul makes it abundantly clear that Christianity IS pointless if Jesus did not rise from the dead.

¹³If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁴And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. (1 Corinthians 15:13-14)

So for me, as a Christian who acknowledges the reality of the empty-tomb, Easter is the celebration of the origins of my faith.  For if there were no resurrection then the Cross was the end of the story – a failed and executed human Jesus. 

But in the reality of the risen Lord I recognize a faith, an active hope, which transcends my five-senses.  Despite the utter despair and hopelessness of what I physically perceive, faith informs me the empty-tomb overcomes.  For faith in the empty-tomb is the spiritual reality that God has conquered sin and death in this world - despite what we perceive. 

Faith in the empty-tomb does not remove the obstacles we face in this world, but rather the obstacles prove our faith.  For it takes no faith to trust God for this month’s rent when there is a million dollars in the bank, but when our last check just bounced and the rent is due then, and only then, will we see if we actually have faith.

So then, faith in the empty-tomb informs us that Christianity is not about “getting saved” but about acknowledging that we have “already been redeemed” by Jesus on the cross.  For His death and blood has defeated sin and death.  Out acknowledgement that this world is not the death that we perceive it to be but, a spiritual reality that always informs us we are on a journey, through this life, toward a new land.  A land flowing with milk and honey with our God.

Easter, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the empty-tomb, is the pinnacle of the Christian faith.  The question is as it always has been – will we acknowledge it?

Happy Easter!  He is alive indeed!

¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.  (1 John 4:18)