Easter gives license to celebrate mtytomb

By Norman Jameson

BR Editor

Baptist editors approach the empty tomb at "Gordon's Calvary" just outside Jerusalem in January. While it is unlikely this is Jesus' burial spot, it is close enough to the biblical descriptions to be inspiring still.

Photo by Norman Jameson

Biblical Recorder

I used to have a vanity plate on my car that read "mtytomb."

Its message "empty tomb," was not always instantly clear. Some misread it as "mighty tomb." I don't know why I didn't go with the eighth letter allowed and use a clarifying "e" to call it "emtytomb" or even add a "p" for "mptytomb" so it would be easier to discern. But I didn't.

Had I gone with the "e" my daughter might have avoided a wreck.

While waiting to make a left turn she was rear ended by a driver so intent on figuring out what the plate said he didn't notice her car had stopped. He totaled it. But it doesn't take much to total the cars we drive.

In choosing wording for a personalized license plate, I sought a single message that would summarize - in eight letters or less - a meaningful element of my faith, a word to those behind me that would stand out like a dry rock in a quick stream.

Consequently, I needed to concentrate on the single most important element of Christian faith. It couldn't be "meryXmas" or "gitsaved" or "repent" or "Jesusdyd" or even "godluvsU." The single most significant element of the Christian faith, the element that sets it apart from all others and upon which all other truths are stacked is not that Jesus was born, or that He suffered or that He died. It's not that He lived a sinless life, or was born of a virgin or did miracles or gathered about him a small band of convinced followers who gave their lives to spread His gospel across an increasingly encompassing geography that one day included even us.

Historians verify much of that and legendary, central figures of other religions claim some similar attributes. But it is a risen Lord and empty tomb to which none other can lay claim that sets Christianity apart. The Apostle Paul advocates for the resurrection in 1 Cor. 15:13-19 and says, "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men."

The simple, definitive truth of the Christian life is that the tomb in which Jesus was buried could not hold Him. Death proved powerless to prevail. The tomb in which He lay was emptied hours later and remains empty today. The Bible testifies that hundreds of people saw Jesus after He was risen. (1 Cor. 15:5-6)

He walked among His disciples, ate with them, encouraged them, charged them and laid before them a goal and task that Christ followers today still consider our mandate: Go and make disciples of all nations.

I stood again in January inside what many want to believe is Jesus' tomb. Known today as "Gordon's Calvary," this garden burial ground bears many of the qualifications of such a tomb: cut into the rock, proximity to Jerusalem, size and surroundings. It was buried for centuries until 1867 when a farmer, digging test holes for water so he could irrigate the garden he had planted over the site, discovered the tomb. The current site has been excavated and 2,000 years of dirt, stone and detritus removed to reveal this tomb.

You can see in the picture it has been repaired with stone blocks on the right. The small line of stone in the front, with a stopper on the right end, is actually a track inside which a large, round stone would be rolled to cover the tomb opening. Such a stone was not recovered at the site, although a smaller one is there for people to see and imagine. It is not unusual for such elements to be missing because stones were building materials and used over and over again through the centuries as cities were built on top of each other.

There is another potential site of Jesus' burial in Jerusalem and a magnificent church is built over it; the same church that covers a potential site of crucifixion. Pilgrims from around the world enter this Church of the Holy Sepulcher with reverence and awe. It is difficult to imagine, to put yourself historically into the mindset that this could be the site where Jesus bore our sin; and here, a few yards off, could be the site where he spent parts of three days waiting to shatter the relentless and universal law of death.

A constant parade of pilgrims and priests in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher scratch like fingernails on the chalkboard of a holy moment. Whether or not that is the actual site, no one knows. Gordon's Calvary may not be any more likely than the first. But your spirit almost yearns for the Garden tomb to be the place. It fits the pictures you grew up with in Sunday School. It is quiet, uncovered and not draped in carpet and dripped in candle wax.

It is attended by reverent volunteers and often Christians are singing hymns in one of the garden alcoves. When you duck through the opening, it is possible to be awash with awe in the possibility that the Savior was carried through this very hole and when the time was fully come, simply ... left.

We celebrate the leaving at Easter.

We don't normally celebrate empty things as Christians. We don't want empty churches, empty offering plates, empty classrooms, empty buses, empty hearts. The single greatest symbol of our faith would not look good as a piece of jewelry and would be hard to picture as dramatic art draped with purple raiment.

But when you celebrate the risen Lord this Easter Sunday, remember the leaving. Rejoice in the mtytomb.