John 20:19-31

An Empty Tomb is Not Enough

Easter 2B

April 12, 2015

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

 It was in the years following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. A Communist Party official went to a remote Russian Orthodox Church and spoke for an hour on why there is no God. At the end he asked if there were any questions. An old priest rose in the back and shuffled to the front. He stood before the people and said, "Christ is risen!" The people all responded, "He is risen, indeed!"

An empty tomb is not enough.  An empty tomb could mean that Jesus’ disciples had stolen the body, or that he had only seemed to die.  Worse, it could mean the empty tomb was just a hoax, a myth, a metaphor to say that Jesus rises when the hearts of His people come alive with faith.

The disciples were worried and uncertain.  We see this most clearly in Thomas with all his doubts and unbelief.  They had all heard the reports of the empty grave, from the women, from John and Peter who saw the empty tomb.  We are not unlike them in this way, sometimes not that unlike Thomas even.  We demand proof from God.  Proof that defies our doubts, that assails our worries, that comforts our fear.  The empty tomb is not enough. What we need is Jesus, the crucified One who is risen.  And it is the risen body of Jesus that the Lord provides.

The Lord came to His disciples despite all the fear and doubts and worry and unbelief.  He stood in their midst.  The stone covering the tomb could not keep Jesus in. Locked doors in an upper room could not keep Him out.  He comes to them in His resurrected body, flesh and blood, nail holes and all.

What the eyewitness accounts provide is proof of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Jesus shows them His scars in order to show that He really died, that He is the crucified One.  He was slain as a substitute, dying the death we deserve, so that we may receive the forgiveness He earned. But He has come through death. He is alive in His body.  Jesus, the Son of God, is still a man.  He has the scars to show it. We have an advocate with the Father, a high priest who has endured all our temptations and punishment for our sins, and has overcome them all.

Thus the corpse, the very body of Christ, that was born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried, has been renewed.  Jesus is alive!  We praise God for the resurrection of Jesus. As glorious as His death is, His life is more glorious.  We preach Christ crucified. And yet the Church’s proclamation remains, “He is risen.” 

Still today you can visit Jerusalem and see the grave where many believe Jesus was buried within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  But it is just an empty hole in the ground.  Jesus is not there.  We do not see Jesus in the grave, but by faith, we see Him when He comes to us in His Word and in His Sacraments.  It is no accident that the Lord’s Supper is consecrated on an altar underneath the cross.  Here you eat with God.  He gives you His body risen out of death in, with and under the bread.  Here He gives you His blood that burst from His side from the spear thrust in, with, and under the wine.  It is not a corpse you receive.  It is the living, risen, glorified body, true man and true God, which God joins to bread and wine to satisfy your soul, to forgive your sins, to grant you His life and eternal salvation, to encourage and strengthen your faith in Him.

In our lives, here in America, things are not going well for Christianity.  It may not be too long before officials stand in our churches and teach that there is no God, or that God can simply be whatever you imagine Him to be, as long as it isn’t the God of the Bible.  May God preserve us from such evil.  But even if He does not, despite our fears of what has happened and what may happen, we are not left simply with an empty tomb.  For we have Jesus, Son of Man and Son of God, alive, the killer of death. The resurrected Christ still comes to His people, and may God preserve in us the faith to always believe and to confess that He is our Lord and our God, for “Christ is risen. He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!”

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus. Amen.

*This sermon was adapted from a sermon by Pr. David Peterson, Thy Kingdom Come: Lent and Easter Sermons, “Easter Tuesday”, which was in turn reworked from the Rev. Dr. Burnell Eckeradt, http:gottesblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/empty-tomb-is-not-enough.html.