O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Psalm 107
All that remains is an empty tomb; gaping open with grace…bulging with hope…spilling over with promise. It is the one in which they laid our Lord. It is empty, yet it is full. It is full of love and compassion, the depths of which we cannot comprehend. Noone, including Satan, can undo what God, through Jesus Christ, has done. The empty tomb stands pregnant with the promise of final victory.
That empty tomb also represents Christ emptying himself of everything He was sent here to do; it was the total and perfect completion of His earthly ministry. Nothing was left undone. He taught us everything we would ever need to know about love, humility and sacrifice. He taught us how to live. Nothing could have prevented nor contained His finished work–not a Roman torture device, and certainly not a grave. Allelujah! He is risen!
Let us leave the imprisonment of our own tombs that prevent us from being all that we were made to be and to become. May we leave the darkness of a world that only seeks to destroy, and continue walking ever closer to the Light. Let us “empty” ourselves of all that causes us to stray from our Great Shepherd’s teachings; be it timidity or pride, bitterness or resentment, or whatever our current struggles may be.
It is Easter…our faith is alive! It lives in the promise of redemption through forgiveness of acknowledged sin, and in the promise of resurrection that holds the restoration of our souls. Jesus came that we may have life and have it more abundantly. He died for that as well. This is why He came and this is why He left, to go and prepare a place…for us. We refer to our earthly span of life as “cradle to grave”. The Eternal stooped to dwell from stable to cave, and He arose to go before us in order to receive us unto Himself.
As Galatians teaches us, it was for freedom itself that Christ has set us free. But this freedom is not meant for self-indulgence, rather, it is the freedom to love and to work for one another as slaves. Pouring out our all, just as Christ poured himself out for all who would partake in His grace-filled offering.
I encourage you to find this beautiful Easter hymn online: Keith Green’s There is a Redeemer
Easter blessings everyone!