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 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! 

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!

Have a very happy Easter!

A Garden without Easter bunnies?

There may be a few Israeli rabbits nesting nearby, but there are no Easter Bunnies here! This is the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, believed by many to be the actual site, or very similar to it, of the grave where Jesus' body lay on the first Easter Saturday.There is a tomb 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.


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.

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!


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. It may be Easter Saturday, but hey - Sunday's coming!

A Tomb with a View

There is a tomb 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!

Have a very happy Easter!

Easter Saturday - a place of comfort and strength!

"It's Friday - thank God Sunday's coming!" is an attitude to Easter that I can understand. But Saturday seems to have fallen off the Christian radar as an irrelevant day. Jesus died on Friday - so that dreadful day becomes Good Friday for those who realise that he died to obtain our salvation, the forgiveness of our sins. Sunday is self-evidently the highlight of the Easter story. Jesus did not remain dead, he rose again and destroyed the power of death over our lives. But hey - don't forget Saturday!

At the heart of the amazing achievements of the first Easter is a day of disappointment. The great teacher and prophet is dead. Hope lies discarded in a Middle Eastern tomb. Despair and sorrow are the emotions filling the hearts of all those who loved Jesus. Except perhaps for one. Joseph of Arimathea was the one who asked Pilate for the broken body of Jesus. It was he who pulled out those cruel nails and laid the frail frame down, wrapping him in a clean linen cloth. Then he carried the bloodstained mess to his own garden and laid it in the grave that he had prepared beforehand. I reckon that Joseph had heard and understood the prophecies Jesus made about his coming death and resurrection. He welcomed Saturday as a vital part of the Easter story. He knew that for the power of the Easter message to work there had to be a pit of despair and death in his spring garden. In a miracle much more profound than Christmas Joseph carried the Lord of Glory as a broken corpse and welcomed mystery into the heart of his faith.

As I face my own twentieth Easter with the appalling pain of chronic and recurring acute pancreatitis I find comfort waiting in the garden belonging to Joseph of Arimathea. I find the "now but not yet" message of the Kingdom of God becomes clearer sitting and waiting outside this cold tomb. My Jesus is Lord of Easter Saturday with all its pain and disappointment even if it does not look like it. His broken body did not stay that way but the fact that it was even laid in a cold stone tomb gives me hope.  Of course I can't stay here - because he is not here now He is risen! My own body will one day be like his resurrected body and until that day I choose to embrace the mystery of as-yet unanswered prayer and trust that God knows what he is doing. But for today I take comfort from my Saviour's tomb. "It's Saturday - but thank God Sunday's coming!"