Empty Cross, Empty Tomb, Empty World

[HKHaugan]

The religious, political and cultural authorities executed Jesus. They gave His body to His friends who took Him down from the Cross, laid Him in a tomb and removed from the world the greatest threat mankind faced in its attempt to keep God out of the human mind, heart and spirit. Man’s religious systems couldn’t accommodate the One God who became man while remaining God in Jesus, who faced down the devil, exposing him as the author of sin and evil and offering a relationship with Him in place of empty religion. Man’s political systems couldn’t handle His honest confrontation of rule through fear. Man’s educational systems couldn’t handle His challenge to their intellectual conclusions. Man’s economic systems couldn’t handle the idea of relying on His approach to providing balance through trust. Man’s social systems couldn’t handle His concept of morality that brought equality, dignity, significance and meaning for every individual regardless of his cultural background and status. The greatest threat He posed was the spiritual freedom He gave the individual mind, heart and spirit to function through faith in Him.

The world’s systems ruled through fear and in fear demanded conformity by using compromise, manipulation, conspiracy, military might, political intrigue and economic leverage to maintain their power. There was no room for a heart that lived without restrictive fear, no room for questions about individuality, about opportunity to be your own person or why there couldn’t be open differences of opinion and ideas. No room for free minds, free hearts and free spirits.

When Jesus came it wasn’t governments, politics, economics or any system He stood up against. It was the human heart in every person He challenged. He by His very nature was a living confrontation of the heart separated from God and the evil one whose spirit of sin captivated it, the ‘father of lies’ that victimized it and the ‘prince of this world’ who seduced it. Hearts had been lured by pagan religion to worship what could be seen, touched and felt. Before Jesus came the devil had a field day manipulating every heart in the unseen dimension with the spirits of fear and pride. The human heart was the prize sought by the devil.

While the devil ruled from the hidden kingdom of darkness by fear the true King of Heaven limited Himself to a human body and brought a new kingdom for the heart that was open for all to see. It was a kingdom of love through faith freely given to any heart that would receive Him and openly share it with anyone they cared to. It was the revelation that grace, the spiritual sustenance of all existence, was God’s motivation and Jesus embodied it in His faithful life on earth.

This new Kingdom was one of a kind with a new kind of King, a spiritual, personal and relational King. It was a Kingdom from the unseen spiritual dimension designed for every individual heart guaranteeing a direct relationship with the King. It was Jesus the King of Heaven, King over every heart and King of the universe.

This new Kingdom from God was planted to change and transform the hearts of all people everywhere by grace through faith. No wonder He had to be killed, buried and forgotten. And that should have been an easy task considering He was born out of wedlock to a low class couple from an obscure village in an obscure province among an obscure people. But God’s chosen lowly social circumstances for His earthly beginning could not obscure Him, who He was, who He claimed to be, what He taught and the miracles He performed. Even after His death the grandeur and self-importance that was Rome ho-hummed His effect and influence in spite of which He grew in the hearts of mankind while Rome and nations since have come and gone. Yet He remains while three negatives became three positives and reminders:

First, the empty Cross has become the eternal symbol of the only way of life that lasts forever, life in Jesus, life in the Holy Spirit, life given and restored by the eternal God from whom it came originally. It stands for the truth of the Resurrection, Jesus rising from the dead.

Second, the empty grave remains empty never to hold that perfect Son of God again. It is the symbol of every tomb and every grave a believer enters at death and there no longer remains. It stands for the futility in placing all meaning in personal achievement, worldly success, wealth and social status. The grave is death materialized. It is lifeless, foreboding and the specter of fear and aloneness.

Third, the empty world remains empty, trapped in the coffin of time, caught in a web of momentary recognition, reward and success that only store up false hope in fading trophies and an empty ego-driven existence that knows only loneliness and death at the end. As long as there is a sin-driven world as we know it, the pains of mind, heart and spirit will continue to experience their frustrating turbulence, imbalance, corruption and self-destructive inclinations.

The empty Cross, the empty tomb, the empty world point to their opposite, a fulfilled person with Jesus as Lord and King, an eternal fulfilling life in an eternal interpersonal Kingdom of fulfilling relational love in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The Lord is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah, Hallelujah, hallelujah. Amen