First Day Of The Week

This is a photograph in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, believed by some to be the location of Christ’s tomb. Others turn to the Garden Tomb:

Doesn’t matter to me which is correct – He’s not there. He is risen.

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. (Matthew 28:1)

Such a journey could not be made on the Sabbath, for many reasons. On that first day, those who loved Him came to the tomb.

He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. (Matthew 28:6)

That is the center of Christianity. He is risen.

Paul put it very plainly:

But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. (1 Corinthians 15:13-14)

If Christ be not risen, our faith is in vain. There is no message, if Christ is not risen. Understand that, because it is a black and white message. He either rose from the grave, or He did not.  If not, the New Testament is a waste of words.

All of Jesus’ doctrines – the ones which astonished listeners in Matthew 7:28 and 22:33 – are invalid, if He is not risen. If He is risen, His words are truth.

But after that I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee. (Mark 14:28)

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6)

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:17-18)

Travel to Jerusalem and see more than one tomb – but both are empty. There are no remains to venerate. He completed the work John testified to when he pointed to Him and said:

The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. (John 1:29)

When that was accomplished, He appeared to many who would continue His message:

The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: (Acts 1:1-3)

Now, go the world what you’ve heard.

All because HE IS RISEN!  HE IS RISEN INDEED!