An Empty Cross and an Empty Tomb Change Everything

Many will be aware of the protests of parents outside a grammar school in Yorkshire. It is over an image shown in a classroom setting in which racism and blasphemy were being addressed. Feelings have been so strong, voices so strident and demanding, that a teacher has had to go into hiding, fearing for their safety. Students of the school have now signed an online petition asking for the teacher to be reinstated, insisting he is not racist.

Clearly, the sacred is important to people of faith, important enough for the voices of the faithful to be raised when they believe what they regard as sacred is being desecrated. As Christians we honour what is sacred to us and understand when people of other faiths might raise their voices in protest when what is sacred to them appears to have been abused.

People may wonder then why Christians don't normally react in such strident and intimidating ways when the name of Jesus is traduced, mocked, and used as a blasphemy. We are jealous for his name, we revere it, glorify it, and worship him as Lord. But we don't react like this because, 2,000 years ago, they put him on a cross, nailed him there, and believed him as shamed and humiliated as a man could possibly be.

This Pasch (Easter) weekend Christians all over the world, followers of the humble carpenter from Nazareth, now the Lord of glory, mark again that terrible day, but more than that, on Sunday we celebrate his victory over that day, and over all the days of shame and rejection suffered by his followers, experienced by those who have bowed the knee and confessed him Lord.

The worst has happened and we are the other side of it, victors because of him. Whatever this dying world says and does now is hollow, empty, and no threat to him or to us. We pity the world, call out to the world to repent, to come join us in his victory, but the world's actions don't affect us as it might affect others.

Nobody needs to go into hiding because of us. People sometimes mistake this for weakness, timid surrender. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have strength on which to draw that this world cannot possibly know or understand. We are called now to follow the one who said:

‘Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ Matthew 11:28-30

Our Saviour said the kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor in spirit, who recognise their own spiritual poverty, that those who mourn because of their poverty will be comforted, that the earth will be inherited by the meek, who know that our own hearts are the issue not the hearts of others, and that a consequent hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied without drawing a sword, or throwing a stone. He has said that it is the merciful who will receive mercy, the pure in heart who will see God, and the peacemakers who are the sons of God. Matthew 5:2-10

We are not silent, but led by a different light, and simply choose to use our voice to warn the world, even as it insults us, of the coming day when the one they hung on a cross will sit on the seat of judgement and all will stand before him. Will we be among those who mourn because of spiritual poverty, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness? Will we be found to have been merciful, pure-hearted, peacemakers? This is his yoke and burden.

The Christian message to the world is never clearer than at this Easter weekend. A Saviour hung on a cross crying 'it is finished,' declaring his work of atonement was complete, our sins can be forgiven, and we can be complete at last too. Those who hunger for these things know there is yet a work of healing, fulfilling, completing to be done and it is only by faith in the finished work of the man on the cross, the man who walked away from an empty tomb, that we find ourselves at last all that God always intended us to be.

In light of this:

'I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.' Romans 8:38-39

Have a Blessed Easter

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