WHY I BELIEVE IN THE EMPTY GRAVE

By Nana Yaw Aidoo

The first stanza of Kristin Chenoweth’s “Because He Lives” ends thusly; “An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives.” This writer dares any man who denies the truth in these lyrics to try thinking of a more attested event in history. That there was a man of history named Jesus who died on a cross in the days of Tiberius Caesar and was buried in a rich man’s tomb that was found empty three days later is admitted by the most credible of historians, believers and unbelievers alike.

So influential was the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth that his few years on earth shaped the course of history. A war-torn Palestine is called “the holy land” because Jesus Christ walked its paths. The system, “Anno Domini (AD)” (which means “in the year of our Lord”) is used today because of this very man. Of Jesus Christ, renowned historian Will Durant who was no Christian wrote;

…Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus’ arrest, Peter’s denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospel… (The Story of Civilization, Vol III: Caesar and Christ; accessed from: www.frankviola.org/2012/09/10/willdurant/)

Whereas to the believer in Christ, the empty grave is intertwined with the resurrection and like Chenoweth sang, is proof that the “Savior lives,” there are some who nonetheless believe that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a legend that grew overtime and thus, to believe in the resuscitation of a corpse is nothing but a blind leap of faith. As a believer in Christ who denies that my faith is blind, I propose to give some reasons why I believe in the empty grave. 

Firstly, I believe in the empty grave because the enemies of Jesus Christ could not deny it. In Matthew 28:11-15, there is a record of a conspiracy by the chief priests, the elders of the Jews and the Roman guards to lie that the disciples of Christ had stolen the body of Christ whiles the guards slept at night. Unless these “cowardly” disciples were super world-class thieves, the ridiculousness of this story is readily apparent. However, what does this lie prove but that the grave of Christ was empty? If the grave was not empty, then there was no need for this lie. That they felt the need to tell this lie, proves beyond all reasonable doubt that indeed the grave of my Lord was empty. The enemies of Christ did not deny that His grave was empty. Rather, they gave a “reason” why it was.

Secondly, I believe in the empty grave because women were the first to discover it. Despite its teaching that men and women have different roles, the Bible is unequivocal in its position that men and women are of equal worth (Gen.2:20; 1 Cor.11:11-12; 1 Pet.3:7). However, first century Jewish culture had so degraded women to the point that the testimony of a woman was considered worthless. It was considered worthless because women were regarded as “unreliable sources of information.” Yet, all four of the gospel accounts record that women were the first to discover the empty grave of Christ. Now, if these men wanted their story to be accepted in such a time, this was a really foolish way of going about it. Why jeopardize belief in your story by including a fact this “embarrassing” to the first century Jew and one that went against a long-held tradition? The only explanation is that the writers recorded the truth and that there was indeed an empty grave that was discovered by women. Like one so aptly wrote; “If the story of the empty tomb had been fabricated, men would have certainly been the ones noted as discovering it.” (www.compellingtruth.org/empty-tomb.html).

Finally, I believe in the empty grave because no one challenged Peter when he preached it. Peter preached an empty grave just fifty days after it was said to have happened. Certainly, the majority of his audience were alive in this period? Also, he preached it in Jerusalem, the same city that Christ was buried in. Filled with the Holy Spirit, the apostle proclaimed; “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses” (Acts 2:32). Peter could not have preached this message in Jerusalem, fifty days after the grave of Christ was alleged to be empty, if it wasn’t indeed empty. But he did! And when he did, no one challenged his claim. If any group of men could have challenged Peter’s claim, it was this assembly of Jews to whom he preached in Acts 2. Rather, it is written; “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?’” (Acts 2:37). There hasn’t been a stranger reaction, if the empty grave of Christ was not an established fact in Jerusalem.

These should be enough for all who would follow the evidence where it leads. The empty grave authenticates the fact that Jesus Christ returned to life after three days, “…having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.” Chenoweth was right! “An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives.”