Searching

Jesus has risen from the dead, and that has enormous personal implications for each of us.  Romans chapter 6 says this:
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
7 For he who has died has been freed from sin.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him...

Today, we think together about the tomb where the body of Jesus was laid.  He had declared at the tomb of Lazarus that He was the resurrection and the life.  He was raised from the dead by the resurrection power of God, and those who call upon the name of the Lord in salvation can also be raised up.  We were doomed to eternal punishment, but Jesus took that upon Himself; we had dead spirits in need of regeneration, and now our spirits have been made alive in Him.  Because He is alive, we can be confident that we have been raised up with Him and will live with Him forever.

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From a passage in Hebrews, we can gain a sense of the victory that Jesus has won for us through His death and resurrection. This is from the 2nd chapter:
14 Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,
15 and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

Step with me, if you will, into the field of archaeology, to a place where excavations and explorations have been taking place.  An article on the National Geographic website from last October said that:

Researchers have continued their investigation into the site where the body of Jesus Christ is traditionally believed to have been buried, and their preliminary findings appear to confirm that portions of the tomb are still present today, having survived centuries of damage, destruction, and reconstruction of the surrounding Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City.

Fredrik Hiebert, National Geographic's archaeologist-in-residence, is quoted as saying: "I'm absolutely amazed. My knees are shaking a little bit because I wasn't expecting this,” adding,"We can't say 100 percent, but it appears to be visible proof that the location of the tomb has not shifted through time, something that scientists and historians have wondered for decades." We're also told that "researchers confirmed the existence of the original limestone cave walls within the 19th-century Edicule, or shrine, which encloses the tomb. A window has been cut into the southern interior wall of the shrine to expose one of the cave walls."

The article points out that, "Since at least 1555, and most likely centuries earlier, the burial bed has been covered in marble cladding, allegedly to prevent eager pilgrims from removing bits of the original rock as souvenirs."

Of course, we know what's missing here, right?  No bones, no mention of a body.

Just last month, a follow-up story on the National Geographic website indicated that the team, from the National Technical University of Athens "warns that additional work is needed to prevent the shrine and surrounding complex from experiencing significant structural failure." 

The NTUA "now proposes a 10-month, six-million-euro project that will involve removing the fractured stone paving surrounding the Edicule, grouting foundation rubble and degraded mortar, and excavating more than 1,000 square feet of floor to install new sewage and rainwater drainage around the perimeter of the rotunda."  The site has certainly been through its share of upheaval - while it is not certain this is the absolutely burial place, there is evidence consistent with the Biblical account of the burial of Jesus in a tomb in the region owned by a wealthy man.  

A Roman temple was erected on the site in the second century, razed by Constantine in the fourth. He built a shrine around the tomb that was partially destroyed in the seventh century by Persian invaders and destroyed in the eleventh by the Fatimids.  The church was rebuilt later that century, and the edicule was altered and restored in the 16th and 19th centuries.

And, unlike previous claims of the so-called tomb of Jesus, there is no mention of bones in the tomb.

In other news concerning the search for evidence regarding Jesus, last night, the History Channel aired a documentary about a search of significant places for the DNA of Jesus, according to a USA Today article.  Pastor Joe Basile was chosen as the Biblical expert for the documentary...

After being interviewed and chosen as the Biblical expert for the show, he spent 25 days with Busby and a film crew going to holy sites from Spain and Italy to Israel and the shores of the Black Sea.

By extracting and analyzing samples of holy relics at each site, they hoped to retrieve a sample of DNA that possibly belonged to Jesus or a member of his family.

It's fascinating that secular media outlets are continuing to air programs about Jesus - and even though you will have those who adopt a skeptical approach, the very fact that the topic is being discussed indicates that people are curious, and perhaps provides an opportunity for Bible-believing Christians to point to the Jesus whom we see described in the Bible and whom we have experienced in our hearts.

I think there are several takeaways for us today, this day after Easter Sunday.  First of all, the tomb is empty!  The Bible is clear about that - Jesus appeared to hundreds after His resurrection, and there is no plausible explanation why that would be the case, outside of the fact that He rose from the dead. While Thomas would not see unless he saw the nail scars in His hands, we can believe by faith that the Bible is true and the evidence is clear - Jesus is risen!

Now, what does the empty tomb mean for us?  Well, it signifies for us that the redemption process is complete.  Jesus took our sins upon Himself on the cross, and paid the punishment for them.  Then, he defeated the power of sin and death.  Because death has been defeated, we can enter into new life that is eternal, sealed for us for eternity.   The empty tomb communicates to the world that Jesus is alive, and because He lives, everyone can have hope in Him!