All Sorts of Emptiness

What springs to mind when you hear the word empty?  It’s not one of our favourite words is it?  The definition in the dictionary we have in the house goes like this; “void, containing nothing; devoid of, vacant, unoccupied; unloaded, destitute, desolate; meaningless, unsubstantial, shadowy; senseless, inane; without intelligence, ignorant; hungry, unsatisfied.”

If that were not bad enough it goes on to give some ways in which the word is used, in expressions such as empty-handed, which reminds us of someone with nothing to call their own, or, what is worse, empty-headed.  I guess we’ve all had to deal with people we could apply that to!  Even worse would be to describe somebody as empty-hearted.

As we look at the world around us we see spiritual emptiness.  It is clear that many people have a void at the centre of their life which they vainly try to satisfy with the material things that they can buy in the shops they visit.  Indeed the whole process of materialism seems to depend on such an ‘emptiness’.  Many people who are part of that approach to life often look at Christians and think that we must be empty-headed to believe in an unseen God and live for a crucified Saviour.

But as Christians we have to own up to the fact that our faith is based on something empty!  Right at the heart of the Christian faith there is something wonderfully empty.  It is the grave of the Lord Jesus Christ!  If it were still occupied, Christianity would be truly empty.  It would be futile.  As we celebrate another Easter Day, we rejoice that the fact that the grave is empty means that Christians, of all people, have a ‘fullness’ that the world will never give us.

The emptiness of the tomb of the Lord Jesus is one of the indisputable facts of history.  Unlike Mohammed, or any other great religious figure, there is no corpse and no occupied tomb to visit.  Though men for twenty centuries have advanced other explanations for the emptiness of the tomb, the only one that really stands up to investigation is that the resurrection of Jesus Christ really happened.  Scared, cowardly disciples, absent at the cross and dejected for the next two days, are transformed into fearless preachers of the resurrection, willing to be martyred rather than deny that it happened.  The Apostle Paul staked his life upon the fact and was willing to refer people who doubted it to over 500 people who had met the risen Jesus, in his writings (1 Corinthians 15:6).  Have you examined the evidence for this great event?

 But if Jesus did rise from the dead, everything is changed.  Death has been defeated.  There is a hope that goes beyond the grave.  And if He did rise, He must be who He claimed to be – the Son of God and the Lord of life itself.  We need to worship Him as such, and repent of the empty lives we live.  We need to come in worship to the Lord of the empty tomb and receive the fullness of life that He came to bring.