Why the Empty Tomb is Crucial to our Witness
Easter Day is always special, but Easter Day on 31st March this year was especially so for me. I was baptised on Easter Day 1990…… I left secular employment to work full-time for the church on 31st March 1995……. and Easter Day 31st March 2024 was my last day working for the church.
Note: Yes, I am now what is called an “old-age pensioner”, but I have not “retired”, I’m just not being paid by the Church anymore!!!! Due to the “sacrifices” involved in working for the Church for the best part of 30 years, some faith about the future is involved here!!
So Easter Day, a few weeks ago, was very special……. But I have found myself reflecting on the importance of being Easter Day people every day…….. I can’t remember who first said this, but they were so right in saying Christians should live their lives as if Jesus died on the Cross yesterday, rose from the dead today and is coming again tomorrow!
In particular, we need to be Easter Day people in our Gospel preaching and speaking, just as much as the first Christians were. For Peter and the apostles the empty tomb was their definitive “calling card”!
On the day of Pentecost, in the first-ever Christian sermon, Peter spoke boldly about the Resurrection of Jesus ( Acts 2 v24). The events of Jesus’ death and resurrection were still “hot news” in Jerusalem, of course, it being less than 2 months since many witnesses had watched, and taken part in, these events.
The empty tomb was available for inspection nearby. If Jesus had not truly died and been buried, Peter would have been laughed at and ignored. If Jesus had not been resurrected, the authorities could have produced His body and put an end to this new faith. But Peter, the apostles, and many others had encountered the risen Jesus, and fuelled with the power of the Holy Spirit, they announced the good news (euangelion) with great passion and conviction.
2000 years or so later, in our day, in our churches and in our towns and cities, I wonder if we have largely lost the power and conviction of the apostolic message of good news, and, in part, whether that is because we fail to give the requisite prominence to the resurrection in our proclamation?
Our Gospel proclamations, quite rightly, often major on God’s love, mercy and grace, or the need to repent and receive forgiveness……. sometimes we deliver the good news through action rather than words as we feed people and serve people in many other ways. All this is good……. But too often the resurrection of Jesus is thrown in as an addendum, or not mentioned at all. We must preach the full Gospel …….. we must share the one bit of the good news ( resurrection) that proves all the rest is true ( forgiveness, justice, grace, etc)!
Our faith and our credibility rests on the fact of the empty tomb every bit as much as it did for Peter and the first Christians.
“If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith……..And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile ; you are still in your sins”. 1 Corinthians 15 v14, 17.
The resurrection of Jesus shows that His sacrifice for sin was acceptable to God, and proves that forgiveness is available to all who believe…….. the empty tomb is the proof of our message! Preaching a message of love and grace, or repentance and forgiveness, without bringing forward the evidence of the resurrection, is an incomplete Gospel….. the empty tomb is the good news, the key point, the clincher! Without the resurrection in our gospel we are in danger of preaching what could be seen as theoretical conjecture …….. the resurrection is our evidence that demands a verdict!
Sadly, we have let the essential fact of the empty tomb become something that we rarely speak about when we have the opportunity to share our faith …… think about how you might argue that Manchester City have been the best team in the Premier League over recent years without mentioning the evidence of them finishing top of the table so often……… it hurts me to say this, as a Manchester United fan, but the facts prove the point!
The Resurrection proves our point!
Can I encourage you to really live your life as if Christ rose again today……… as if the Risen Jesus really, REALLY, is with you ……. and allow your certainty of the empty tomb to excite you and embolden you as much as it did Peter, Paul, and the first Christians?
Christ is Risen……. He is Risen indeed!
Today, every day, not just Easter Day!
Share it and preach it!
Euangelion Evangelists Forum - 21 April 2024
On 21st April 2024 the ChristCentral Euangelion Team are pleased to announce the fourth forum for all those in UK ChristCentral churches interested in Evangelism. Our keynote speaker will be Rachael Heffer, Head of Mission at the Evangelical Alliance. To find out more about the evening click here.