The Empty Tomb Changes Everything

Cover Article

by Michael Jones · Week of April 12, 2026

Picture the scene. The sky is bruised with pre-dawn gray. A handful of women walk toward a borrowed tomb, their arms full of burial spices. They have come to do the only thing left to do for someone you love who is gone—tend to the body. But the stone is moved. The grave cloths are folded. The tomb is empty. And an angel asks the most world-shattering question in human history: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:5). In that moment, everything changes—not just for those women, but for every person who will ever draw breath. As Paul wrote, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). But Christ has been raised. And because he has, everything changes.

Think about the disciples. On Friday evening they were shattered men. Peter had denied the Lord three times and wept bitterly (Luke 22:61–62). The others had scattered like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 26:31). They huddled behind locked doors “for fear of the Jews” (John 20:19). These were not men on the verge of launching a world-changing movement. But then—then—Jesus stood among them. He showed them his hands and his side. He ate broiled fish in front of them (Luke 24:42–43). He was no ghost, no hallucination. He was alive. Bone and flesh and breath, alive. And those broken, terrified men were transformed into bold proclaimers who would turn the world upside down (Acts 17:6). This is the heartbeat of the gospel: Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). The resurrection is God’s thundering “Yes!” to every claim Jesus ever made. He said he was the Son of God—and God declared him “the Son of God in power” by raising him from the dead (Romans 1:4). He promised that those who believe in him would never truly die (John 11:25–26)—and the empty tomb proves it. The resurrection validates his identity, vindicates his sacrifice, and guarantees our future.

And here is where the empty tomb reaches across twenty centuries and takes hold of your life and mine. When we were buried with Christ in baptism, we were united with him in his death—and just as certainly, we were raised to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3–4). That is not poetry. That is reality. The same power that rolled the stone away is at work in every baptized believer. Because he lives, you do not have to be the person you were yesterday. The old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with (Romans 6:6). You are being transformed, day by day, “from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). And the empty tomb does not just change what happens when you die. It changes how you live right now—this ordinary Thursday when the laundry piles up and nothing feels particularly resurrection-shaped. You can face suffering without despair, knowing that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). You can forgive, because you serve a Lord who forgave from a cross. Every Lord’s Day, when we gather around his table and break bread, we proclaim his death until he comes (1 Corinthians 11:26)—and that proclamation is saturated with resurrection hope, because the One whose death we remember is not still in the grave.

The story is not over. The same Jesus who walked out of that tomb has promised to come again. “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). Our hope is not a vague wish for something better. It is a concrete, bodily, guaranteed promise—a new heaven and a new earth where God will dwell with his people and wipe away every tear from their eyes (Revelation 21:3–4). So let the empty tomb do its work in you. Let it drive you to your knees in gratitude and to your feet in service. “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58). The tomb is empty. Christ is risen. And because he lives, everything—everything—changes.

Other congregations are welcome to reprint this. It may be reproduced in another congregation’s bulletin or newsletter without asking permission. An acknowledgement of Orange View Church of Christ is appreciated but not required.

Bible Questions & Answers

What does it mean to worship in spirit and truth?

Most of us have had the experience of sitting in a worship assembly and realizing our minds have drifted somewhere else entirely. Our mouths are moving, but our hearts have checked out. And in that gap between presence and absence lies one of the most important questions we can ask: what does God actually want when his people worship him? In John 4:23–24, Jesus gives us the definitive answer. Speaking to a Samaritan woman who wanted to debate the proper location of worship, Jesus redirected the conversation toward the nature of worship itself: “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). Two things demand our attention. First, the Father is actively seeking true worshipers—he is not indifferent about how he is worshiped. Second, the word “must” (Greek dei) indicates divine necessity. This is the only kind of worship God will accept.

To worship “in spirit” means that acceptable worship engages the inner person—mind, affections, and will—not merely the outward actions. This stands in contrast to the worship God condemned through Isaiah: “This people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me” (Isaiah 29:13; cf. Matthew 15:8). The Pharisees perfected the external mechanics of religion while neglecting justice, mercy, and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23). God has never been impressed by ritual divorced from the heart. David understood this: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17). When we pray, we must actually be speaking to God. When we sing, we must be “making melody to the Lord with your heart” (Ephesians 5:19), not simply going through motions.

To worship “in truth” means our worship must conform to what God has revealed in his word. Sincerity without truth is not enough. Nadab and Abihu offered fire “which he had not commanded them,” and the consequences were fatal (Leviticus 10:1–2). Jesus warned that some worship is rendered vain because it substitutes human invention for divine instruction, “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:9). The principle is consistent: God determines how he is to be worshiped, not man. This is why the New Testament pattern matters so deeply. The early church devoted themselves to “the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). They sang “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart” (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16)—the New Testament consistently prescribes vocal music from the heart without the addition of mechanical instruments. They gathered on the first day of the week to break bread (Acts 20:7) and gave as they had been prospered (1 Corinthians 16:1–2). These are not arbitrary traditions. They are the apostolic pattern, delivered by men guided into “all the truth” by the Holy Spirit himself (John 16:13).

What Jesus calls for is not spirit or truth but both in an unbreakable union. Some emphasize the heart so heavily that doctrine becomes secondary—but zeal without knowledge is what Paul lamented about Israel (Romans 10:2). Others emphasize correctness so heavily that worship becomes cold and mechanical—the Pharisaic error. The solution is to pursue both. This is why the greatest commandment engages every faculty: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). Paul captures this when he calls believers to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1)—the whole person offered through the forms God himself has ordained. And we do not do this alone. The Hebrew writer commands us not to neglect “the assembling of ourselves together” (Hebrews 10:25). When the church gathers, we become one body with many members (1 Corinthians 12:12–27). When we sing, we “address one another” in song (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16). When we gather around the Lord’s table, we proclaim his death until he comes (1 Corinthians 11:26). The brother whose voice cracks on the hymn is doing something profoundly important for your soul, and you for his. Worship in spirit and truth is not a checklist to complete. It is the transforming work of becoming the kind of people who approach God the way he deserves—with hearts that are fully his and practices that are fully his. - MJ