How do we deal with that empty tomb? There is no getting around it. We can choose to deny it, ignore it, or accept it as God’s promise to us. But we cannot pretend that it is of little consequence. It sits in front of us, demanding a response. Thomas is not the only person to have doubted the reality of the resurrection, and he won’t be the last.
It is easy to deny the resurrection. It defies normal human experience. Dead people stay dead. They don’t come back and share meals with those who grieve their loss. Human logic invites us to find other explanations. Non-Christians can easily ignore the empty tomb. What happened there is of no consequence to them. It is only those who claim relationship with Jesus that have to come to grips with what happened that first Easter morning. If we claim to follow Jesus, we cannot deny or ignore; we have to find a way to accept it and live with it. The early Church in Corinth struggled with this issue. Some rejoiced in the promise of the resurrection, while others treated it as disinformation that only small-minded folks would embrace. Paul pointed out that without the resurrection, our faith is meaningless. If Christ did not rise from the dead, we never will either. If Christ is not alive, then we are lost. C.S. Lewis said the same thing in a different way. We can either affirm Jesus as God incarnate, or we have to reject him as a liar. There is no middle ground. We cannot accept Jesus as a good teacher, or his teachings as a moral code to live by, but not accept the resurrection as the axiom for living our lives. And, in the end, that is the question.
How does the Easter message challenge us to live? Does it affect us at all? We aren’t called to convince others of the reality of the empty tomb, but we are expected to live in that reality. We are called to change the way we think and act in the light of God’s gift of eternal life. If we leave that empty tomb without being changed, something is wrong. Think about it. Pass it on.