There will be more than one empty tomb!

If you have been paying attention to the world around you over the last few weeks, then you would know that there is more than one reason to celebrate Easter. Culturally, many people look forward to eating lamb or other dishes only seen once a year. Others look forward to the candy inside the eggs. And for some it is the time of year to put cash in the register. There is one group though that gets very excited about celebrating Easter, who know the true meaning of Easter, dentists. Aside from Halloween, Easter might top Christmas in terms of candy consumption and therefore cavities. The world has many reasons for celebrating Easter, but the Bible only speaks about one.

Even if we go back before Jesus’ empty tomb, we can see the one reason for celebrating Easter. In our Old Testament reading from Exodus 15, Moses and the Israelites were celebrating. Their reason for celebrating was captured in a song of praise to the Lord, 1 “I will sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. Both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea. 2 The Lord is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation… 4 Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he has hurled into the sea. The best of Pharaoh’s officers are drowned in the Red Sea.” There are more words to the song, but those few lines show you why they were celebrating. Israel had just been saved from Egypt’s army, not because they fought back sacrificing loved ones in battle, but because God himself fought for Israel. No one from Israel had to fight or risk their life to save themselves, God alone saved them from certain death. It was that reason alone that caused them to celebrate. God saved them from certain death.

On Easter morning Jesus rose from the dead. In our Gospel reading from Luke 24, Jesus’ resurrection is recorded as a fact. In the Greek language, the language of the New Testament, there is a verb tense called the ‘perfect’. Verbs in this tense indicate an action that occurred in the past and has ongoing results into the future. Two words appear in the perfect tense in the verses we heard this morning form Luke 24, ‘rolled away’ (which is one word in Greek) and ‘it happened’ (again just one word in Greek). In their context, ‘rolled away’ referred to the massive stone that the women found rolled away from the entrance to the tomb, and ‘it happened’ referred to Peter finding Jesus’ tomb empty except for the burial clothes lying by themselves with no body inside. Along with the other events recorded in Luke 24, not to mention the other Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John, and the many other New Testament books recording Jesus’ resurrection, the resurrection is a guarantee, fact, history, unchangeable, done, finished, completed and verified.

The resurrection of Jesus occurred. Today we would call it newsworthy, something that needs to be announced, shared, tweeted, posted, put in a story, reel, highlight, notification, newspaper, book, magazine, blog, podcast, poster, billboard, children’s book, medical journal, etc. But the resurrection of Jesus is not just an undisputable, historic, cross referenced and recorded event. If it were only that it would be perplexing and amazing, but then it would stop. It would be like many of the great things that have happened throughout history. At the time they are impressive, but they fade and lose influence as the world changes. If you visit great works of art, buildings, museums, battlefields, or other impressive things, they may have a lasting effect on you, while most fade away. And your friends and family will pretend to care about the pictures you have of whatever great thing you saw, but it means little to them.

Jesus’ resurrection is not just a fact. Jesus’ resurrection is not to be read or retweeted or shared or clipped out of a newspaper to put on the fridge and then in time it is put into a filing cabinet or deleted or to acquire dust. It is not only an event from 2,000 years ago, not only a never duplicated medical event, not only something that happened outside of you or independent of the sphere of influence on your life. When Jesus’ resurrection becomes just a hashtag, trend, catchphrase, or reason to eat lamb, look for eggs, eat candy and get cavities, then you have a problem. The problem is death. The problem is your own death and whatever tomb you will be laid in. Jesus died, but he rose. You will die. You will die, and what Jesus did on Easter has an effect on death.

Very early on Sunday, women who followed Jesus went to prepare his quickly buried body for permanent entombment. Yet when they got to Jesus’ tomb, the stone had been rolled away and his body was not there. And we read in Luke 24, 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” The angels reminded the women that Jesus knew he would die and rise. Then, the women told the remaining eleven disciples and the other followers what they had seen and heard, and we hear their reaction in Luke 24, 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened. The empty tomb had an effect on all who heard about it and saw it.

Jesus’ resurrection had an effect on the women and disciples because it was not just another random fact from history in a chaotic world, but a carefully planned event. There was a specific reason for the resurrection. We hear the reason in our New Testament reading from 1 Corinthians 15, 3 … “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter], and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also.” All of these witnesses saw Jesus alive again, and the reason they saw him alive again was that he had come to die for our sins and be raised to save us according to the Scriptures. The Scriptures, the Word of God, the Bible prophesied, described, promised and recorded Jesus rising from the dead because of our sins.

Jesus rose from the dead not because it would be a great historic event, but because of sin. As I look around and think of those watching online, I know some of the struggles in your life, the disappointment, the abuse, visits to doctors, hospital stays, appointments with therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists. I also know about your striving at work, in school, in sports, working to keep up with friends, family, neighbors, the status quo. You all have the pull and pressure of resting all your hopes and dreams on what you can accomplish by your own blood, sweat and tears. I know partially and it is too much. You know what weighs you down because you are not good enough. You also know the accomplishments in your life that you collect to make yourself feel like you are worth something to the world. The problem with all of this is sin because after you have lived a life striving to be your best whether you feel you have failed or achieved that, you die. Your life will be taken from you. You cannot stop it. You will die and have a tomb, a final resting place of some kind. And that is terrifying because you cannot control death.

Because of sin, death ultimately controlled all of us, until Jesus. Jesus rose from the grave. Jesus overcame death. He has control over death. He has the power to give life. The event of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea is a fact, history. More than that for those who walked through, it saved their lives. It was not just a miraculous event that would be worth tweeting about, appearing on national news or chatting about over coffee. God saved their lives by splitting the Red Sea and destroying Pharoah’s army. Jesus’ empty tomb had an effect on the women and the disciples not because their teacher, leader, Rabbi or friend had come back to life to hang out with a few more times. Jesus’ empty tomb meant their Savior accomplished his goal to save them from death. And Jesus’ resurrection is also the guarantee of your resurrection. On the cross, Jesus paid the penalty of death for your sins. Your sins are forgiven. You have no guilt when worrying about God’s expectation for you to be perfect and without sin. You have the righteous, good, holy, worthy, perfect life God demands for you through Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead has direct meaning for you. The angels said to the women that first Easter morning in Luke 24, 7 “The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.” And Paul wrote in our New Testament reading from 1 Corinthians 15, 1 “Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved.” The gospel is Jesus died and rose to forgive you for your sins saving you from certain death to give you eternal life in heaven.

There is more than one reason to celebrate easter if you pay attention to the world around you. If the reason is only cultural, candy obsessed, for cash in the register or cavities, then the true reason has been lost. The reason to celebrate Easter is Christ resurrected. The reason God allowed there to be one empty tomb is so that when you face sin and death, you can be confident in your forgiveness and your own resurrection. The good news of Easter is that there will be more than one empty tomb. Amen.