If the tomb is empty, anything is possible.
Not just spiritually possible. Personally possible. Relationally possible. Eternally possible.
We all have questions. What about anxiety — why are we stressed all the time? What about suffering — if God is good, why is the world so broken? What about success — why do we get the thing we wanted and still feel empty inside? What about purpose?
Those are not church questions. Those are the questions you ask at 2 a.m. In a hospital. On deployment. In silence. In pain.
But before any of them get answered, one question has to go first. What about the resurrection? Because if Jesus did not rise, none of the others have good answers. And if he did, then the resurrection doesn't just change history. It changes everything.
So we start where Christianity starts. Not with advice. Not with religion. Not with try harder, do better, do more. With an event.
Early, and on purpose
Right out of the gate in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says: what I received I delivered to you as of first importance. That's creed language. This was already circulating before the Gospels were written — scholars date it no later than three to five years after the resurrection. Christianity didn't slowly evolve. It exploded.
And what the earliest Christians said was this: Christ died for our sins. Christ was buried. Christ was raised.
Twice in those verses Paul says in accordance with the Scriptures. Genesis 22 shows you why. God asks Abraham for Isaac — the promised son, the one he waited his whole life for. They travel three days to Mount Moriah, the region of Jerusalem, the same ground where Solomon later built the temple. Isaac carries the wood up the hill himself. At the last second God stops the knife and provides a ram to die in his place.
An only son, loved by his father, carrying wood up a hill outside Jerusalem, spared because a substitute was provided. Two thousand years later, on that same ground, Jesus was the substitute. You can't make this stuff up. The cross was not plan B. It was the plan all along.
The tomb doesn't look like a crime scene
In John 20, Peter goes into the tomb and John slows the whole story down to tell you what he saw: the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth — the one that had been on Jesus' head — not with the others, but folded up in a place by itself.
That might not land for you. It landed for Peter. Grave robbers do not unwrap a body first, and they do not take the time to fold a face cloth. They grab and go. Nobody commits grand theft Messiah and then tidies up on the way out. Nobody steals a body and then folds the laundry.
This is not theft. This is what victory looks like. The tomb doesn't look like a crime scene. It looks like a departure.
The case, briefly
No single piece of what follows is airtight. Together it is hard to walk away from.
One. Women were the primary witnesses. In the first century their testimony wasn't accepted in court. If you're inventing a story to convince people, this is a terrible way to start it. You'd say a respected religious leader saw him. A Roman official. Somebody credible. All four Gospels say women got there first. It doesn't read like something they invented. It reads like something they recorded.
Two. The tomb was empty. Jesus was executed and buried publicly. Everybody knew the address. The disciples were preaching he is risen — and all the authorities had to do was open the tomb and produce a body. You don't need an argument if you have a body. They never produced one.
Three. Nobody expected this. They were waiting for a conquering king, not a crucified one. Dead Messiahs don't get followings. Thomas flat out said he wouldn't believe without seeing it himself. These were not gullible men. They were skeptical witnesses.
Four. The lives changed. Before, they were afraid, hiding, scattered. After, they were preaching in public and willing to die for it. Peter crucified upside down. Paul beheaded. Thomas speared. They didn't get rich or famous. They lost everything. People die for what they think is true. Nobody dies for what they know is a lie.
Five. Five hundred witnesses, most of them still alive when Paul wrote it. Translation: if you don't believe me, go ask them. Hallucinations don't happen in groups of five hundred.
Six. Two men who did not want to believe. James was Jesus' half-brother. What would it take for your own brother to convince you he's the Son of God? It took a resurrection. James went from skeptic to leading the church in Jerusalem to martyr. And Paul wasn't a seeker; he was hunting Christians. Legal scholars will tell you the two hardest facts to explain away are the empty tomb and the conversion of Paul.
In 2015, twenty-one Christian men were executed on a beach in Libya — construction workers, given the choice to deny Jesus and live. Many were heard saying Lord Jesus as they died. Paul started that story on the other side. He was one of the men in black. He ended as one of the men in orange. You don't make that turn unless you are convinced Jesus is alive.
What we do with it
Christianity isn't finally about proving something happened. It's about meeting a person. In verse 10 Paul says, by the grace of God I am what I am. Grace means you don't earn it and can't work your way up to it. You don't clean up your life and then come to God. You come to God, and he starts cleaning you up from the inside out. Sometimes the best evidence that Jesus is alive isn't an empty tomb. It's a changed life.
Paul finishes by saying he doesn't care who gets the credit. The gospel is advancing. It went from a tomb to a city to the world, and now it's with you.
So what are we going to do with the empty tomb?
If Jesus is dead, none of this matters. If the tomb is empty, everything changes. Your sins can be forgiven. Your shame is lifted. Your past can be redeemed. Not because you try harder. Because he is alive.
You don't have to have every answer today. But you do have to decide what you're going to do with Jesus.
