Too often, we experience the empty tomb as a disappointment, a loss or a tragic ending
Most of us interpret the empty tomb as a sign of great news, a sign of a resurrection, but it wasn’t that way on the first Easter morning. An empty tomb meant different things to different people.
To the guards who were assigned to make sure that nobody stole His body to fake a resurrection, they knew that their lives were at stake and they must’ve been incredibly terrified.
To some of the disciples, they saw things at the empty tomb that made them run for their lives. They couldn’t wait to get back to the locked room and tell their fellow disciples that they had seen no trace of the body of Jesus. Some experienced angels inside or outside of the tomb. Some noticed that the burial cloths had been moved and put away very neatly. Some brought spices to anoint His body and were disappointed that they didn’t find His body there. Some were so disappointed they wandered down the road back to their village. One of them was so distraught that she took a walk through the garden near the tomb and cried her eyes out.
Her encounter with Jesus was clouded by her sorrow. She couldn’t recognize the man that she had grown so close to. He had opened up for her the possibility of God’s love and gave her a sense of direction for her life. What disappointment she must’ve felt when Jesus died and later when His body disappeared.
When she encountered Jesus in the garden, it took a very special conversation to break through the grief. Jesus had to speak her name. She recognized His voice and the way He said her name, and she immediately recognized who He was. She was given the test to go back to the locked room and share with the others what she had seen and heard.
For the several weeks that follow our Easter celebration, we will hear of the post-resurrection encounters that Jesus has with many of His disciples. To prepare ourselves to be able to take those Scriptures in, we should ask ourselves how the empty tomb affects us, going beyond the story and the ending we know. Go beyond all the religiously correct answers to the meaning of the empty tomb and dive deeply into the empty tombs that we experience in our lives. Living, dying and rising happen to us over and over again, and it is important for us to recognize that we encounter empty tombs on a regular basis. When we see them, our assumption is not automatically that a resurrection has happened.
We often experience the empty tomb as a disappointment, a loss or a tragic ending. We don’t see the promise behind the emptiness that we experience. We simply feel and see the void. It is difficult at that time to recall the promises that God has made to us and the faith, patience and perseverance it takes to believe before we see.
It helps to remember how faithful God has been to us throughout our entire lives. Life does not go perfectly and sometimes loss and pain seems to carry on forever. But now might be the time to recall what has happened to us in these transitions of life that move from death to life.
If the empty tomb only looks empty, without any hope at all, bring that to Jesus, the one who loves us better and more deeply than anyone else. He wishes to hold our hearts at this time of emptiness. Trust Him. If the empty tomb reminds us of new life, joy and fulfillment, don’t be selfish with that. Look for those who are still looking at the hopeless, empty tomb and be a companion with them in the midst of that darkness. We are given hope so that we can be hope for others.
