gospEl
E Empty Tomb
Mark 16:2-8
“And very early on the first day of the week,
they came to the tomb when the sun had risen.
And they were saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for
us from the entrance of the tomb?’ And
looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away although it was
extremely large. And entering the tomb,
they say a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe; and they were
amazed. And he said to them, ‘Do not be
amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is
the place where they laid Him.’”
Though the word is not specifically used in the
passage, it is very clearly implied. The gospel is about the "empty" tomb, without which
there would be no Good News. Why? Because
we would have no indication that our sins were truly paid for and forgiven. Most of the time to hear that something is
empty is not good. But in the case of
the tomb of Jesus it makes all the difference in the world, because Jesus had
told His followers that He would rise from the dead. It’s one thing to make great claims. It’s quite another to actually say and then
confirm them.
Many have tried to deny the resurrection of
Jesus. The Jewish leaders bribed the
guards to say that His disciples had come and stolen His body. However, there were too many witnesses of
the resurrected Jesus (see 1 Corinthians 15:3-8). Some hold that Jesus didn’t really die on the
cross, that somehow His death was faked.
They apparently don’t know the cruelty of death by crucifixion, the
beating and whipping He endured before the cross, and overlook the account of
the Roman soldier lancing His side to confirm His death. And the evidence of Jesus resurrection is
found in the accounts of Jewish and Roman historians of His day. And finally ask yourself, why would most of
His Apostles suffer a cruel death rather than deny the resurrected Jesus? People do not die to perpetuate a hoax.
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