welcome home.

During our annual church Easter picnic, as always, it was a great time of fellowship.  Lots of food.  Lots of fun.  I brought a souvenir home.  It’s an Easter egg.  A little colorful plastic one that you can open and put a little surprise inside for the one who found it during the egg hunt.  I opened this one, and it was empty.  That’s the image I want to convey to you today—“Empty.”

The world is full of empty promises. We watch TV, and the advertisements tell us that we can be happy, sexy, rich, or famous, if we only purchase a certain product. It doesn’t take long before we have been fooled enough to know that the world’s promises are full of emptiness. But God is different. Instead of promises full of emptiness; on Easter, God gave us emptiness that is full of promise.

1. The Empty Cross.

In Matthew 27:57-60 we read, “When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus’ disciple: he went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus.  Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered.  And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock, and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, and departed.”

The body he had taken from the cross was the dead body of Jesus.  Why did Jesus die on the cross?

In Romans 4:25, it says of Jesus Christ, “Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.”

Under the Law of Moses, the penalty for sin was death.  There was no remediation of sin.  The only way for sin to be dealt with was that either the person who committed the sin died, or an animal died in their place and the blood provide a temporal covering for the sin.  According to Hebrews 10, animal sacrifices could never take sin away.  If they could, then they only had to have been offered once.  But in their continual offering year after year was a continual reminder of how sinful man was.  Jesus was delivered for our offences.

Isaiah 53:5, “But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities. . .”

Ever heard of John Summerfield Staples?  Unless you’re a history buff, you probably haven’t.  Yet Mr. Staples served in one of the most critical roles in the history of this nation.  His service is poignantly reflected on his tombstone in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.  Under his name and army regimental information are these words:  “Substitute for Abraham Lincoln.”  During the Civil War it was not uncommon for people to hire “stand-ins” or “substitutes” to take their place of service in the Army.  Because Abraham Lincoln was president and commander-in-chief, he was not permitted to serve in a combat role.  Thus, for $500, he paid Staples to be his substitute.  John Summerfield Staples honorably fulfilled his role.  

Greater, though, than the noble service of Mr. Staples, is One who became the epitome of a “substitute.”  It was not for His own transgressions or His own iniquities that He suffered and ultimately died, but it was for those for whom He “stood in”—you and me.  In addition to the superscription nailed over the head of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, the Roman soldiers could have easily portrayed these words:  “Substitute for Johnie Akers.”  Now you go ahead and place your name there:  “Substitute for ___________.”  It should have been Abraham Lincoln wearing the uniform, standing in the ranks of soldiers, serving alongside the thousands who faithfully executed their duty during the bloody years of the American Civil War—instead it was John Summerfield Staples.  It should have been me. . .it should have been you . . .with the crown of thorns cutting into the brow, the deep wounds that laid bare the flesh, the nails piercing the hands and feet, and the excruciating burden of becoming sin itself.  It should have been us, but it wasn’t.  He became our substitute; and because He did, the Father accepted His service as payment in full for our obligations!

II. The Empty Tomb.

Matthew 28:6, the angel said, “He is not here, for He is risen, as He said.  Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”

Not only was Jesus taken down from the cross and placed in the tomb, but on the first day of the week, He arose from the dead.

Look again at Romans 4:25, “Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.”

Romans 3:24-26 says, “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”

We are not made righteous by our good works, we are made righteous by God, in His grace and mercy, imputing to us the perfect, sinless righteousness of Jesus Christ and declaring us to be justified.  2 Corinthians 5:21 says “For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

Justification is the act whereby God declares sinners “just” or “innocent,” as though they have never sinned.  It is more than a pardon: for a pardon frees people merely from the penalty of the sin they have committed, but not from its guilt.  Justification takes away all guilt and all blame entirely

It would have been one thing for Jesus to die for our sin, but without the resurrection, there is no justification.  The resurrection was the final seal of approval on the finished work of Jesus Christ.  He was raised for our justification.

III. The Empty Grave Clothes.

John 20:6, 7, “Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulcher, and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.”  When Peter and John enter the tomb they see the grave clothes of Jesus lying, not tossed about.  They also note the napkin that covered his head was folded neatly lying by itself.

Here we have an ancient oriental custom of the napkin. When a man with servants was eating a meal, he would often use his napkin to signal them during the course of the meal. If he left the table and wadded his napkin up, it meant that he was finished and would not be back. If, however, he neatly folded the napkin, it told his servants that he was stepping away for a moment, but he would be back! Jesus was telling His disciples, “I may be out of your sight right now, but I’ll be back!”

The cross is empty.  The tomb is empty.  The grave clothes are empty; so you and I never have to be empty again!