You see them all the time on TV. We call them “infomercials,” but they’re really nothing less than paid 30-minute sales pitches that are trying to sell you something. Trying to convince you that you need to buy something that you didn’t even know that you needed! And whatever it is that they’re trying to sell you, it’s always bigger or better or faster than what they were trying to sell you last year. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a new kitchen appliance or a new cleaning solution or a new type of exercise equipment or a new whatever. The announcers all talk very loudly and very fast and show you dramatic demonstrations of how this new product will make your life so much better. And then there’s the call to action. Call now. Operators are standing by, and if you act during the next 30 minutes you’ll get the special introductory price and some extra accessories that are free of charge except for the additional shipping and handling charges!
The problem is that if you do actually call now and place your order, you may very well find that the product you eventually receive doesn’t really live up to all the hype. It doesn’t work as well as it did on the infomercial. You may use it once or twice, but after that it’s likely to end up on a shelf or in a corner and never get used again. It was all just a lot of hype – hype that cost you a lot of money. And after you’ve spent your money, you’ve got nothing to show for it. They make lots of promises – but those promises often just aren’t true.
If you stop and think about it, the same holds true for the Christian Church. If some man by the name of Jesus didn’t actually die on a Roman cross 2,000 years ago – and if He didn’t come back to life three days later – then we might as well pack up and go home. Everything the Church teaches and believes means absolutely nothing unless the resurrection really happened – unless it has a basis in a historical fact. Justification by grace through faith – the declaration that our sins have been forgiven because Jesus died and rose from the dead – depends entirely on the historical fact that Jesus’ tomb was really and truly empty on Easter morning.
Historians are sure of one thing. No matter whether or not they believe that Jesus rose from the dead, it’s considered a historical fact that on a Friday roughly 2,000 years ago, a man by the name of Jesus of Nazareth was executed on a cross outside the city walls of Jerusalem.
But what if Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead? Let’s suppose for just a minute that His disciples stole His dead body from the tomb – which is exactly what some of the Jews claimed. Well, if that’s true – if Jesus didn‘t rise from the dead – then we’re in a lot of trouble. We’re all sinners and we all deserve death. We need Jesus’ death to pay for our sins, and His death doesn’t mean anything unless He defeated death by rising again to life. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then we’ve got nothing.
But it’s even worse than that. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead and we have no forgiveness of sins and no promise of a new life – then neither do our loved ones who have already died. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then we have no future. We have only this life – this miserable life full of pain and suffering and, eventually, death. Our loved ones have no future, either. They’re dead – and that’s the end of it. That’s a pretty depressing idea, isn’t it? If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then we and our loved ones have staked our lives on a fantasy that’s as worthless as some piece of junk we buy from an infomercial.
Listen again to the words of St. Paul from today’s Epistle reading, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead.” And that, my friends, is another historical fact.
There are, of course, many theories out there about what really happened in Jesus’ tomb. You may have seen some of them in those cheesy re-enactments that seem to pop up this time of year on the History Channel. There’s the stolen-body theory, there’s the wrong-tomb theory, there’s the theory that Jesus was given some mysterious drug and only appeared to die, there’s a theory that on Easter morning the women who went to find the empty tomb were only hallucinating.
There’s even something known as the “lettuce theory” – a story that claims that the gardener responsible for the area where Jesus was buried was so upset about people trampling his lettuce that he secretly moved the body to a different tomb! As crazy as this one sounds, it actually goes back roughly 1,800 years, for it was mentioned by Tertullian – one of the great early church fathers who died in the year 230 AD!
But none of those theories hold water. There’s not a single shred of evidence giving proof to any of those theories. If any of those theories is even close to being true – then why didn’t someone find the body? Well, the simple fact is that no one could find Jesus’ body because He was alive. He was dead on Friday – but on Sunday He was alive!
During the 40 days between Easter and Ascension Day, many people – hundreds of people – saw the risen Jesus Christ. They saw the wounds in His hands, His feet and His side. They heard Him speak. They saw Him eat. Just as witnesses had seen Him die, now the witnesses saw Him alive.
The disciples were so certain about Jesus’ resurrection that they staked their lives on it. Only the disciple John actually lived to old age – all of the rest died bloody deaths because of their faith. Andrew was crucified. Peter, Philip and Bartholomew were also crucified – crucified upside down. James was beheaded. They would never had died this way of they were just making up stories about Jesus’ resurrection. They would never have died that way if the resurrection was just a lie. Sooner or later, someone would have said something – something to explain that Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead. Someone would have spilled the beans and confessed where the body was really hidden. But they didn’t. They suffered and died proclaiming Jesus’ resurrection.
Jesus rose from the dead. That is clearly established by Scripture and by the life-and-death testimony of countless witnesses. The tomb is empty – so what?
Well, the “so what” of the empty tomb is that we have life. In our Epistle reading, St. Paul wrote: “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.” The fact that Jesus rose from the dead means that someday we, too, shall rise from the dead. It means that death is not forever. It means that since death could not hold on to Jesus, then death cannot hold on to us, either. It means that since death could not hold on to Jesus, it cannot hold on to those who have already died in Christ. It means that the earthly death we face unless Jesus returns first is not the one that really matters. The only death that really matters is in our past. We were dead in our sins, but when Jesus died and rose from the dead, our sins were forgiven. We were made alive. In the final words of our Epistle lesson: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” On the last day, we – and all of our loved ones who have already died in Christ – will be raised from the dead, and we will joyfully join our risen Lord in His kingdom that has no end.
The “so what” of Easter is that the empty tomb on Easter morning is a fact – an absolute, verifiable fact. Christ is risen. And that’s why in the words of the Nicene Creed that we confessed a few minutes ago, we can proudly and confidently confess and proclaim: “I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.”
Note: This sermon was freely adapted from source material originally included in Concordia Pulpit Resources.
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