The Tomb is Empty

Several years ago, when my parents went to Jerusalem, my father kept a journal of his experiences. He gave me permission to use parts of it here if I wanted to. I thought his experience at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher would make a good Easter post.

Here it is also that we stand in line for maybe one-half hour or more to get into the Holy Sepulcher, the holiest shrine in Christendom. Our guide, a wonderful Jewish man, tells us, as we wait, that we are about to make a discovery that is the foundation of our faith. We are about to make the same discovery that Peter made 2,000 years ago, and that the two Marys made, and the disciples, and an untold number of pilgrims throughout the ages. We would enter the Tomb and we would find there – nothing. The Tomb is empty – He is not there.

I really didn’t have to travel 7,000 odd miles to find that out. I believed that before I left home. But, actually being there made me KNOW that He is not there. So, why do I, like the apostles, look for the Living among the dead?

He is not there, so He must be someplace else. I can no longer install my God in a tomb, in a shrine, or in a tabernacle and close the door and shut Him safely away until I want to take Him out and worship Him again. No, if there is a message to me from Jerusalem, it is that Jesus Christ is alive; that I don’t have need of signs and wonders, because, if I will only open my eyes. He is visible to me. And, when I see Him, He asks me to love Him wherever I find him as unconditionally as He loves me. That is the message to me from Jerusalem. My challenge is to open my eyes and seeing my God, to love Him where I find Him.
( WVK - March 1990)

And on the lighter side, for another view of Easter, peek back at last year's post when I shared Pippi's story of Easter, told when she was four.

Happy Easter. He is Risen. The tomb is empty.