There are two distinct sets of stories in the Gospels about the Resurrection of Jesus. The one set, about which I wrote last year, concern the appearance of the risen Christ to the women, the apostles and others; these are what come first, as we see from the Gospel readings of the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday. But before the risen Christ appears, first we must encounter the empty tomb.
In a certain way these two sets of stories are two sides of the same coin. Both are necessary for a genuine Resurrection faith. It is obvious that, without the appearances of the risen Jesus, the empty tomb would prove nothing. We read in St Matthew’s Gospel that it was put about that the disciples of Jesus had stolen his body, and although this would be a slightly odd thing to do, it would certainly be a more plausible explanation than the Resurrection, which is, to say the least, unprecedented.
But the Resurrection appearances without the empty tomb would also be a problem. If the tomb were not empty, those appearances could easily be written off as fantasies, a strange example of mass hysteria on the part of Jesus’s grieving friends. Or, of course, pure invention. If the tomb were not empty, the powers-that-be in Jerusalem, whether Roman or Jewish, would have had a very easy response to the claim that Jesus had been raised from the dead, thus vindicating his claim to be Messiah and Son of God: “No, he hasn’t, look – still dead!” The fact that there is no record of such a rebuttal being offered does not prove the Resurrection, obviously, but it does strongly suggest that the tomb was indeed empty.
Today, even some people who do believe in the Resurrection suggest that this is entirely compatible with his body remaining in the tomb. Surely, they say, the Resurrection is not a matter of a walking corpse?
But these people miss the point: the risen Jesus is indeed as different from the Jesus who was laid in the tomb as an oak tree is different from an acorn. But if an oak tree has grown up, only a fool will search for the acorn. It is not there – it has grown up.
Two thousand years ago, people knew that if someone has – though it seems impossible – been raised from the dead, then their tomb must be empty. And as a matter of historical fact, it seems likely that Jesus’s tomb was empty, because otherwise the story that his disciples stole his body would have been unnecessary and pointless. Incidentally, it is noteworthy that the chief priests don’t actually care to find out the real truth about the empty tomb: they are only interested in hiding the truth to protect their own position.
So the Gospels’ insistence that the body of Jesus was gone ensures that our belief in the Resurrection is an authentic one, that we recognise that his body truly has been brought to life: not “back” to life, as Lazarus’s body was, to die once more, but “forwards” into a new kind of life – but a bodily life nonetheless.
Why, then, the question mark in the title of this article? Because, although we speak of the empty tomb, we do so mistakenly. While the Gospels are not consistent – I leave this as an exercise for the reader to check – there are definitely one or two men or angels in the tomb when the women go in. The man (or men!) are described as dressed in dazzling white, which along with the fact that they have news from God suggests that we are to understand him as an angel too. Why the difference as to number I cannot say, except to point out that it makes it less likely that we have an invention here, but rather the confused recollections of genuine eyewitnesses to something extraordinary.
And this is precisely the point: to encounter an angel with an explanation that no human being could figure out is to have an apocalyptic vision. Normally in the Jewish tradition, to meet an angel like this is something that takes place in the heavenly realm, the experience of a seer or prophet. But now the vision of the higher realities of heaven takes place in this otherwise empty tomb, a vision granted not to a great prophet but to those who loved Jesus best and most humbly. The truth of the Resurrection is the greatest and most extraordinary news from heaven, and it is granted to us also as we come to the sepulchre to love and to serve our risen Lord.
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