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Luke 24:1–3
“On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.”
Many people in our world today think that all religions are basically the same. Often the people who hold this belief have very little knowledge about the world’s religions, so they are genuinely unaware of the substantive differences between religious systems. Others look to the fact that there are places where the ethical teachings of different religions overlap. For example, murder, theft, and adultery are typically condemned in the major world religions. Some individuals therefore conclude that all religions basically teach the same things and that each offers a valid path to God.
Besides being insulting to committed members of every religion, the idea that all religions teach essentially the same thing is demonstrably false. All religions do not believe the same things. One place where this is clearest is in what the various world religions say about the fate of their central figure. Unlike the other major world faiths, Christianity teaches that its founder—the Lord Jesus Christ—did not remain dead. Instead, He rose again bodily on the third day after His death, and salvation comes only to those who believe that He was indeed raised from the dead (Rom. 10:9). In other words, the empty tomb of Jesus is at the heart of the Christian faith.
The Gospels tell us that the women who followed Jesus were the first to discover that His tomb was empty. As we see in today’s passage, on the first day of the week after our Lord’s crucifixion, the women came to the tomb with their spices to complete the burial process that had to be paused because of the Sabbath (Luke 24:1; see 23:54–56). When they arrived, however, the tomb was not closed as they expected. Ancient tombs that were cut into the rock, such as the one in which Jesus was laid, typically had a rectangular entrance. A large stone disc was set in a channel in the rock so that the stone could be rolled to open or close the entrance. Matthew 28:2 indicates that an angel had rolled the stone away from the grave. Overcome by their curiosity, the women went into the open tomb, but Jesus’ body was not there (Luke 24:2–3).
Soon the women would learn that the tomb was empty because Jesus has been resurrected from the dead. Today that tomb remains empty, for Jesus was raised bodily and granted an indestructible life for the eternal salvation of His people (Rom. 4:25; Heb. 7:16).
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
The empty tomb is not something indifferent, but it is absolutely essential to our salvation. If Christ has not been raised, our faith is futile and we are still in our sins (1 Cor. 15:17). It is not enough merely to esteem Jesus as a good ethical teacher. We must believe that He died and rose again, and we must call others to believe this as well. The empty tomb is our only hope for eternal life.
For further study
- Psalm 16:10
- Hosea 6:1–3
- Mark 16:1–8
- Acts 13:13–43
The bible in a year
- Amos 1–3
- Revelation 5