“The Stone Is Rolled Away; The Tomb Is Empty!”

“The Stone Is Rolled Away; The Tomb Is Empty!”(Jn.20:1-10).
On Good Friday, a lady greeted me by saying, “The gender that betrayed Jesus, how have you invested the money?” I answered like a typical African with another question: “the gender that used her seductive and manipulative skills to drag us into sin, are you satisfied with the pain that you caused all humanity, precipitating the betrayal and crucifixion of Jesus?”
The truth in these jokes is quite profound! However, grace teaches us to avoid blameshifting and embrace grace because grace is love, ignoring blame!
Let us, therefore, learn a lesson from the first person to find the open tomb – Mary Magdalene:
Mary Magdalene(she came from Magdala) is mentioned by all four gospels to have been present in the crucifixion and resurrection story. The little that is further known of her is that she is the woman “from whom seven demons had come out”(Lk.8:2).
We can learn by Mary Magdalene’s story that an individual’s intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ depends on the depth of the person’s recognition of God’s grace received through Christ.
There is a common joke as to why Jesus did not call female apostles. We miss the point when we expect that there would’ve been women apostles while failing to appreciate that, some women were there who “followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs”(Mt.27:55). The bottom line is that women played a significant role in the ministry of Jesus.
The story of the first person to believe in the resurrection only demonstrates how patriarchalism and make chauvinism dominate even in religion! Otherwise, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb when it is still dark. She is the first person to see that the stone had been removed from the entrance. With half judgment, she doesn’t look further. Rather, “she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved.”
It was Simon Peter who first entered the tomb and was able to appreciate what had transpired. Jésus was not there. But it is the disciple whom Jesus loved who when he went inside “saw and believed.”
John in his usual way of pointing out the low IQ of the disciples comments in parenthesis that despite all these, “(they still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)”
My friend, yesterday we said we were waiting to learn whether the resurrection was a truth or deception. If the disciples fully understood from Scripture that Jesus had to rise, the story would have been that they masterminded a deception based on Scripture. But since they still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead, that is evidence of the surprise element in the understanding of the resurrection.
The empty tomb led them to peruse Scripture with meticulous diligence to be able to learn from the prophets and in remembering what Jesus had said! Hallelujah!
The truth from those three is compelling: Mary saw the stone rolled away, and Peter and John, when told, came and saw. Peter entered the tomb first and saw the linen but no dead body. John came in next, saw the same things, and believed.
Now that we know and believe, what next?
Paul advises that we should get rid of the old yeast so that we can become bread without yeast that we are. “For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.” Therefore, let us become bread that is made, not with the old bread that have the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the “bread of sincerity and truth” (I Cor.5:7-8).
So to say, Christ is risen so that we should walk away from malice and wickedness and embrace sincerity and truth!
Easter prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, teach me your kind of obedience that has won the victory over death and the grave. Amen!
Have a blessed Easter! Peace be with you!
The Lord is risen!
Rev Babila Fochang.
05/04/2026.