Fw: empty or risen

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Rob Smith <toanosmith@yahoo.com>
To: Rob Smith <rsmith@mycwa.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 20, 2017 8:06 AM
Subject: empty or risen

The tomb was empty.  [Jesus' tomb, that is.]  That much is accepted by all.  When Mary Magdalene went to visit the tomb early in the morning the stone had been rolled away and she saw that Jesus' body was gone.  Clearly the tomb was empty.  But she thought the body had been taken away by someone.  She ran and told Peter and John about this and they ran to the tomb and found the linen cloths that had wrapped around his body and head folded neatly.  John believed at that point that Jesus had raised from the dead but Mary was still troubled that the body had been moved by others and as she sat weeping angels tried to address the situation.  They sat in the tomb at the place where Jesus' head and feet had been and asked Mary why she was weeping.  Despite the fact that she was talking with angels she had not grasped the reality of the resurrection.  So then Jesus, himself, appeared and also asked Mary why she was weeping.  But, at first, Mary thought this was a gardener working around the tombs.  She asked the "gardener" to tell her if he'd moved the body and then Jesus called her by name and Mary recognized Jesus.

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Mary had to move from "empty" to "risen" in her concept of the tomb.  When that took place her life moved also from empty to risen.

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In a sense our lives are empty until we grasp that One has risen from the dead to fill us with life...eternal life.  When we realize, on a personal level...one at a time...that Jesus was resurrected from death and that He who had been buried was now alive...then we also leave a "tomb" of an incomplete life and are also raised to eternal life.

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It all turns on our view of the tomb.  Was it only "empty" or was He "risen"?

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John 20:

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, "Mary!"

She turned and said to Him,^[a] "Rabboni!" (which is to say, Teacher).

¹⁷ Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, 'I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.'"

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Believe and be risen...let the empty tomb become the place of resurrection for you as well!

Rob Smith