One gets concerned with all the baskets, eggs, and candy displayed before the eyes of our children this time of year. Long ago I tired of this blatant attempt to dishonor and discredit the most important day in the Christian church year, so my children and I used an old shoebox to make a replica of an Easter tomb. After the children had done some earth-tone painting on the box, I would painstakingly cut an opening in one side and then reseal the opening.
My children would wake up to see that during the night “miraculously” the tomb’s door would be open and the insides found EMPTY!
It helped teach them a great lesson. Our Lord’s PHYSICAL resurrection is the crowning proof and assurance from the Father that all Jesus came to accomplish has been accepted as payment in full for the sins of the world. Therefore our salvation is certain. Our children were not confused about the Easter Bunny playing any part in our salvation.
Now, the Christian faith is lacking something that almost every other religion in the world has: a dead man’s bones! Whereas other religions have a grave or a tomb containing the bones of its “saint,” the tomb of Jesus Christ is empty! Other graves are filled with the bones of dead men, false prophets, and fools who knew not the Savior, while the tomb of Christ stands empty! Our Redeemer lives!
It has been rightly said that the Christian faith stands or falls depending on whether or not Christ’s tomb was empty on that first Easter morning. Fellow Christians, rejoice, dry your tears, chase away any unbelieving fears, for our Savior lives!
Since Jesus is alive, the victory is won, and He tells us, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine!” (Isaiah 43:1) The devil and all his demons have been defeated by the King of Glory! Our Savior has conquered death and hell; we are unconditionally forgiven, and we stand holy and blameless before our physically resurrected Savior. Because Jesus lives, salvation is ours!
When some in the Corinthian congregation doubted this historical fact, the apostle Paul countered: “Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.” If physical resurrection is impossible, then Jesus did not rise physically, then He would be a fake, and we are blind fools to believe in Jesus as our Savior.
“But now Christ is risen from the dead.” Rejoice; He lives! “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:12-20).
We boldly confess the certainty of Easter’s fulfilled promise: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27)