The Empty Tomb .... Is Still Empty !

Common Sense Commentary: "He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come see the place where the Lord lay." Mt.28:6

Twenty witnesses walked quietly into the beautiful Garden of the Tomb, at the foot of Mount Calvary, outside the walls of Jerusalem. We had come there, as millions of believers before us, to walk where Jesus walked and to see Galilee, Calvary, Gethsemane, and the tomb where He was buried. As we walked through the garden, everything was green and blooming but the sun was behind the hill of Calvary and cold shadows filled the garden as we neared the tomb of Jesus. A leafy frame opened between us and the dark entrance where He was carried, by His disciples, to be buried on that fearsome day. The open door to this famous sepulchre dimly revealed a hollow interior and the cold slab where He once lay.

We approached in a whisper and with reverent steps to the most notable spot on the face of God's earth.

A solid rock cliff loomed over the tomb. In front of the entrance was a 10-inch deep channel, about 15 inches wide and 12 feet long, in which once rolled the four thousand pound stone which sealed this door. As Simon Peter, so many years ago, in Luke 24:12, "... ran unto the sepulchre; and stooping down, he beheld ....", we 20 witnesses stooped down and entered the tomb where the body of Jesus was buried. There, in the semi dark quietness of the sepulchre, we saw the most fantastic sight ever seen by human or angelic eyes, since the day He arose .....the grave of Jesus Christ .... empty !

Every time I see that empty grave, I can almost hear the angelic words echoing down through the centuries ... "He is not here but is risen." Thank God, neither His body nor His bones are in that death grave and have not been since three days after His crucifixion.

"Death could not hold it's prey." Jesus left this tomb with absolute and final victory over death and sin. His crucifixion without resurrection would have meant nothing. Though His death is the heart of the gospel, His resurrection is the power of the gospel.

It is an interesting fact and conclusive that, in the early part of this past century, when an Englishman by the name of Gordon uncovered this tomb for the first time, .... it was empty. There was not a sign of bone or cloth or metal in it even then. It has been empty since that first Easter morning in 33 A.D.

The nearest and dearest thing I know to compare with a visit to the Garden Tomb of Jesus is to bury a true, born again believer in Jesus and His resurrection, and KNOW that I shall see this friend or family member again. PRAISE HIM!

Pass it on. RB