Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
These words of incredible joy and celebration are proclaimed across the world on Easter Sunday. This time each year is set aside to particularly remember the empty tomb and the hope that is found in Jesus Christ. In his resurrection, we are given certainty about our future. Every person who puts their life into the hands of Jesus will find themselves sharing in his risen and immortal life.
Central to the joy of Easter is the astonishing wonder of the empty tomb. Consider the graves that we see, perhaps as part of the regular pattern of ancestral remembrance and visitation of graves that happens in Hong Kong. What do we find but the reality that graves remain as they are, a permanent fixture, holding the remains of those who have gone before us and whose bodies remain lifeless in the ground. Year after year, even as the elements and relentless wilderness leave their mark, the cold, grey stone remains unchanged.
death is no longer our master
Yet there is a grave that stands empty; the stone is rolled away and fresh air and warm light have driven away the shadows of despair. Death has been defeated. United to Christ and sharing in his life, death will no longer have the final word. As it says in Romans 6, ‘if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.
Seeing as the tomb is empty, death is no longer our master. We are free to pursue generous love towards others, no longer held captive by the deceitfulness of sin that drives us to anxiousness and selfish desire. We can live an altogether different way, shaped not by death but life.
So let us rejoice in Christ who walked out of the empty tomb. Christ is risen! Death is defeated! Alleluia!
