I have visited my tomb and seen my resurrection
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Food for Thought by Rev Sandy Sutherland
It was just before Easter 2004 that my brother phoned to tell me he had bought a plot. I asked if he was planning building a house, but it turned out he was talking about a grave lair.
We had often spoken about doing the same thing, but kept putting it off. Spurred on by the conversation with my brother, I rang the council offices at Dornoch to find out if we could purchase the lair next to him.
I told the helpful lady at the other end of the phone that my brother had purchased lair number 18 at Clyne New Cemetery and asked if the lair next to it was still available.
She replied, rather gravely, that it was and would cost £215.
Actually, it has been money well spent because that Easter I did what “the ancients” (such as Abraham and Moses) were commended for.
What did they do? They, by faith in the promises of God, saw in the eye of the mind the reality of those things that cannot yet be discerned by the eye of the body.
In other words, I visited our grave-in-waiting and saw, by faith, my/our resurrection from the dead!
Had I taken leave of my senses?
Isn’t it quite ridiculous to believe that 2000 years ago a man came back from the dead and promised all who trust in him that they will share in his victory over the grave?
After all, we today know that the dead do not come back to life. But didn’t they know this 2000 years ago?
In any case, as the apostle Paul once put it: “Why should it be thought an incredible thing that God [the Creator] should raise the dead?” (Acts 26:8).
The certainty of death is, of course, an expected outcome of the laws of nature. But would we not expect the incarnation and the virgin birth to result in the normal laws of nature to give way to a different departure out of this world as well as a different entrance into it?
But what is the evidence for the first Easter message: “He is not here for he has risen!”? A message that is Christianity’s foundational stone and gives the hope that Jesus is the first-born of the great resurrection harvest when the last trumpet is blown?
We have Old Testament prophecies fulfilled, its theology realised, its types now having their Antitype and its shadows have become substance.
Jesus, himself, predicted his resurrection, teaching his disciples that after his sufferings and crucifixion he would rise from the dead on the third day.
Jesus was dead – the Romans were experts at crucifixion. Jesus’ tomb was empty – the tomb guards declared it to be so.
Over a period of 40 days, hundreds of people gave testimony, on different occasions, of having seen Jesus alive after his resurrection.
The sudden transformation of the frightened disciples in the Upper Room into courageous witnesses and martyrs of Christ’s deity and resurrection, begs the question, why?
After all, would you be willing to die for a lie? “Many have done so”, you might say. Yes, but not for a known lie.
Therefore, if I am spared, I will, this Easter, go once again to Lair 19 and stand before it and, armed with the promises of God, see, by faith, my resurrection from the dead.
Sandy Sutherland is a retired Free Church minister living in Brora.
