676
TH E KING’S BUSINESS
First of all, there is The Empty Tomb. There can be no question but what that tomb in Joseph’s garden was empty on drat first Easter morn of our age twenty cen turies ago. I sat down last year in front of the tomb. I came down from Calvary, and looked through the little window of the tomb through which Peter looked. I entered the tomb and sat there. I thought, and this great question came to my mind, “Do you know that the greatest evidence of your re ligion lies just here where you are sitting, in the empty tomb?” Now that that tomb was empty on that third day there was no question, that the body was gone there was no denial. How did the tomb become empty? There were only two ways: either as the soldiers said, Christ’s friends stole His body. His enemies would not steal it, because they asked for a guard to make the tomb safe, lest that body should be removed. If they had taken it away, then when the disciples stood up and preached the Resurrection of the Christ, and said, “We saw Him going to heaven,” don’t you suppose these people would have said, “We know where the body of Christ is” ? How did the enemies of Christ account for the empty grave? What did they say ? They paid the soldiers to say, “While we slept His disciples came and stole His body.” Now look at that statement for a moment. “The disciples stole His body!” In the first place, not one of the disciples believed that Jesus would ever come out of that grave until the great resurrection day in the future. The women who believed in Him so ardently brought their spices that they might anoint His dead body; they did not expect to see a living Christ. When they did see Him and told the disciples, “We have seen the Lord,” they adjudged the wo men insane; they said it is an hallucina tion. The disciples did not believe in the great Easter fact that Christ had risen tri umphant over death and the grave. The two disciples on the way to Emmaus, as they walked, were sad, and said, “We trusted that it should have been. He that should have redeemed Israel, but no, it’s all over, we have made a mistake. They did not believe
in the Resurrection, ' Then how many dis ciples were there? Where were the eleven? Fled, every one of them; at .Gethsemane they had left Him alone, even Peter following afar off. HE HAD RISEN. The disciples stole the body ? Where were they ? Away off there in a room with barred doors and windows for fear of the mob— a little handful of trembling men and wo men. What could they do against the great Roman guard marching up and down in front of the tomb? Can you think of a few men and women like that taking the body of Christ from a Roman guard? Then it says, “While the soldiers slept Hi's disciples came and stole His body.” How did the soldiers know what happened if they were asleep ? When the disciples went into the tomb, what did they find ? The linen cloths lying by themselves, the cloth that was wound around the head lying by itself, the cloth that was wound around the body by itself, and the cloth that was wound around the feet by itself. I saw the mummies of some of the old Egyptian kings that had corrupted ■ and fallen away but the cloth around the head was there, the cloth around the body was there, the cloth around the feet was there, but nothing in between. On that Resurrection Morning, when two dis ciples went into the tomb three days only "after its burial, the body had gone, but the linen cloths were there. They saw them— the cloths, the very ones that had been wound around Him. Did you ever have burglars enter your house and go through the drawers ? Did they put everything back in order for you? If the disciples had stolen His body, they would have taken the cloths. Oh, what a foolish story—that the: disciples stole Christ’s body! No, on that third day God raised up Jesus Christ from the dead. Renan, that witty French skeptic, was right when he said, “You Christians live on the fragrance of an empty vase.” It is true, we live on the great truth .that on that third day, according to the Scriptures, that tomb in Joseph’s garden was empty. God had raised Christ from the dead. The empty
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker