June 20

" B ut the angel answered and said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”"

Matthew 28:5-6

T he empty tomb of Jesus is the silent yet effective witness to the fact of His resurrection. Had it been possible to find His body, His disciples would have received it and given it careful burial again. And if His enemies could have produced it, they would have displayed it in fiendish glee as a positive proof that His prediction that He would rise again the third day had been utterly falsified. But neither friend nor foe could locate it, for God had raised His Son from the dead in token of His perfect satisfaction in the work of the cross. The tomb was empty on that first Lord’s Day morning, not because the disciples had come by night and stolen the body while the soldiers slept (an unheard of proceeding), nor yet because the chief priests and their emissaries had dared to break the Roman seal upon the stone that covered the entrance to that rock hewn grave. The tomb was empty because Jesus had fulfilled His words when He declared that if they destroyed the temple of His body, He would raise it again in three days. The resurrection is attributed to the Father (Hebrews 13:20), to the Son (John 2:19-21; John 10:17-18), and to the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:11). The entire trinity had part in that glorious event, the supreme miracle of the ages, when He who died for our sins rose again for our justification. Joseph of Arimathea little thought of the honor that was to be his, when preparing the new tomb which was to be the dwelling-place for a few hours of the dead body of Him who is now alive forevermore.

The Lord is risen; the Red Sea’s judgment flood

Is passed, in Him who bought us with His blood.

The Lord is risen: we stand beyond the doom

Of all our sin, through Jesus’ empty tomb.

—W. P. Mackay