Rolling Stone

The backdrop of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a spiritual spectacular that fuels our imaginations but empties our human capacity to properly articulate or even understand.  The heavenly forces set in motion by the power of the Holy Spirit of God on that first Easter Sunday are equal to the power unleashed in the creation of the universe: "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive...has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand —with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him" (1 Pet 3:18-22).

Books could and have been written on the backdrop of the Resurrection.  The finest minds and the greatest artists could collaborate and produce a masterpiece that would only the hem of the garment of the Resurrection reality in its fullness.  But there are two facts, witnessed by humans, understood by humans and easily communicated by humans:

1.  Jesus' lifeless body was placed in a tomb and a stone was rolled in front of the opening to seal and secure his dead body.  The disciples bore witness to this, the Romans bore witness to this, the crowds bore witness to this and the Jewish leaders responsible for for the mock trial and unjust execution also bore witness to this rolling stone coming to rest over an inhabited tomb.

2.  That same stone was not sealing that same tomb on the third day.  The rolling stone that came to rest over the entrance of an inhabited tomb began rolling again and exposed an empty tomb.  The grave cloths were there but the body around which they were wrapped was not.  To this day, that once filled tomb remains empty of the Savior's body.

We could say that his disciples moved it during the night but they would have to have gotten by a detachment of Roman soldiers whose very lives were on the line if they allowed their charge to be taken.  We could say Jesus only swooned on the cross and awoke in the grave but the Romans were experts at such things and he was pierced in his side with a spear to insure death.  Besides, how would someone so weakened by a crucifixion roll the stone away from the inside?

Really there is only one reasonable answer to the empty tomb: By the power of the Living God, He overcame death, rising from its clutches, causing the stone to roll away, not so that he could exit as no power and no thing could hold him, but that others could enter to see that he was not in the tomb, that he was not in the grip of death, that he had risen!  "The angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay'" (Matt 28:5-6).  Jus' Say'n