A Tomb with a View!

 

There is a tomb with a view at the centre of the Easter story. A place of cold grief and bitter tears. A real tomb for a really dead man, not just somewhere for a swooned imposter to await rescue by his fellow conspirators. This is God's tomb, where God the Son tasted death for me. This is the devil's best, an attempt to wipe out the catalogue of miracles and mercy that Jesus wrote in Galilee and substitute his own pathetic offering of "always look on the bright side" and "did God really say..?" doubt.

It doesn't really surprise me that Jesus rose from the dead. He is the Lord of life after all, the creator of all that lives. What is amazing is that the broken body of Jesus lay shattered in this grave for as long as it did. There are all kinds of ideas as to what Jesus might have been doing during those days and nights, but for me the great miracle of Easter is that God entered human broken-ness at its lowest and darkest. Smashed by evil men, bloodied, crushed and discarded, - "this is my body, broken for you".

And the view from the tomb of Jesus is magnificent. Its light casts a quick flicker of hope over a place of suffering and pain, Golgotha or Calvary, and slowly expands towards the brilliant dawn that is already starting to change the colours we see only through our tears. Yes, this is God's tomb, but much more than that - it is MY tomb as well. For, in the words of the Apostle Paul, "I have been crucified with Christ" (Galatians 2:20). The old me is dead and buried, and just as Jesus breaks forth from the tomb outside Jerusalem, so I am set free by Christ from self, from having to impress others, even from the fear of death itself.

I am grateful that God knows what it feels like to suffer and die, and be laid in a tomb by weeping loved ones. I am glad that he understands my pain, and yours, and that he comes to us on our 'silent Saturdays' and dark nights of the soul. But I'm also rejoicing that the tomb is no longer in use as a grave. The Lord of life and glory could not be held by those chains of death. 

And here's an offer you won't see in many catalogues - it can be YOUR tomb as well! "Oh thanks Eric" I can hear you say "that's all I need on top of everything else I am suffering". But that's the whole point, this tomb is the place where you can lay your sufferings down, and your achievements, and stop trying to impress God and others. You can be identified with Jesus in His death also, and rise with Him to a completely new life! It may be Easter Saturday, but hey - Sunday's coming!

Crowned with Thorns

Why did Jesus wear a crown of thorns? This cruel form of punishment was inflicted on him by the crowds of Roman soldiers gathered in the Praetorium or barracks in Jerusalem at the time of Christ.

In Britain the Coronation of the new king is coming on the 6th May 2023 , when a crown of gold, containing nearly 3,000 diamonds, over 270 pearls, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds and 5 rubies, lined with velvet and weighing more than 2lbs will be lifted up on to King Charles' head. The day will focus on him – but the crowning of Jesus as king was focussed on us. On the first Good Friday, Jesus bore a crown of thorns. Why?

1. To Reverse the Curse. There is a curse in creation - there has been since the beginning of time, when sin and rebellion entered the human race. Thorns were a sign of that curse on the earth due to sin. ‘To Adam he said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, “You must not eat from it”, cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field’. (Gen. 3:17-18). Due to mankind’s rebellion & sin Jesus now bore the effects of the curse, and its sign, upon himself. The crown of thorns was a sign of victory.
   
2. To Take our Place. King Charles will be crowned to take his own place, but King Jesus was crowned to take yours and mine. In Genesis 22 is the story of the ram caught in the thornbush that was sacrificed in place of Abraham's son. Isaac lived because the ram took his place. Barabbas was a terrorist killer, but on Good Friday the cross that was prepared for him was occupied by Jesus. John Stott wrote: ‘How then could God express simultaneously his holiness in judgement and his love in pardon?  Only by providing a divine substitute for the sinner, so that the substitute would receive the judgement and the sinner the pardon’ (The Cross of Christ).
3. To Set us Free from our Thorns! We all face stuff that we can’t sort out on our own. Thorns of hate, of pride, of betrayal, of failure, of binding habits that we can’t break. Some folks are in the grip of addictions – to smoking, to pornography, to gambling, to dangerous sex, all these are reasons why thorns were placed onto Jesus head. It is at the cross that we can be set free. Romans 6:14 reads‘For sin shall no longer be your master’. When King Jesus rules in our lives the thorns can no longer hold us back. He wore that crown of thorns for you and me. That's the point of Good Friday!