Easter Sunday

“He - probably John, The Beloved disciples of Jesus Christ.- saw and believed.”

Signifying His resurrection, victory over death, and fulfilment of prophecy, the empty tomb of Jesus is central to our Christian faith.

The empty tomb on Easter Sunday turns the grotesque events on Good Friday on their head. It symbolizes the victory over death and the promise of eternal life. The empty tomb is evidence of Jesus'resurrection, and his divinity.

That divinity does not punish those who condemned him to his agony and death. He leaves all that behind.  He forgives. He returns to life with a simple word: ‘peace’.
The Risen Christ says"peace" four times: three times in John20:19-29, and once in Luke 24, 36. A powerful lesson for you and me when someone has been nasty to us.

Thanks to the Resurrection, I know that my death will be birth into divine eternity. That fact stops me worrying about the future and motivates me to keep on keeping on helping God make this world a better place.

Though, for all too many people, life on earth is, as Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) put it, “Nasty, Brutish, and Short”, it is not all there is. Thanks to the empty tomb I look forward to being dead and born into divine eternity.

The fact – the conviction – that at death, life is changed, not ended is hugely comforting when someone I love dies. Looking outwards, thinking, “lucky you, to be with God,” assuages my pain of loss.

Looking outwards, rather than the contents of my own heart is, I have discovered, one of the best ways to live my life.