The Empty Tomb Changes Everything — Live Like You're Alive

In this Easter special edition of the HOTLCast, Cyle, Cody, Ryan, and Mark dive deep into why the empty tomb matters more than most Christians realize — and how living resurrection life looks radically different from a shame-and-guilt cycle. With warmth, humor, and real talk, the guys challenge listeners to stop going back to their old tombs and start walking in the new life Jesus made possible. If you've ever felt stuck in your past, this episode is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Huddlecast. I'm Kyle. I'm Cody. I'm Ryan. And this is uh post-championship edition. Oh yeah. AKA Michigan won the uh national championship in men's basketball. It's been a been a good good good couple well, good couple hours. And I'm Mark. Yeah, it just happened last night. Mark's here too. Oh gosh. Yeah, Mark Mark, you don't get to participate because you don't like sports. So uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:27

Yeah, sports ball. That's fair.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

That's fair. No, but it was a good game last night. Michigan played terrible and still won. So it was it was good.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

So like it's just shows you how good we are.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

It's exciting to be in the Midwest in a time where the Big Ten is dominating everything. So Indiana football, Michigan football, Indiana football, Michigan Big Ten basketball, and you know the championship, and then hockey. Hockey's right around the corner. Two of the two of the top teams are Big Ten teams in the hockey championship, Ryan. So you gotta watch it Thursday. Michigan plays. Top my priority list. Michigan plays, Wisconsin. It might be Michigan Wisconsin Championship. And I mean team USA hockey on February 22nd.

SPEAKER_04 1:06

Yeah, so yeah, we have a good year. I I enjoy watching hockey. Hockey love hockey.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Yeah. Michigan hockey especially is good.

SPEAKER_04 1:13

Is it?

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Yeah. Because they're all the pros. The Red Wings is great. But yeah, that's you know, that's big news. But even bigger news, Jesus rose from the dead. So like what a segue. What a segue. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

I mean, as great as it is that we won the championship. Jesus won the ultimate championship over death.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Amen.

SPEAKER_04 1:33

He is risen indeed. Yeah. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

I love how you changed every time the way you said it. Ryan just learned that he he is risen and he has risen indeed. And every time you said it different, like you messed up. Because I don't know it.

SPEAKER_03 1:47

Not everybody knows that that's what you're supposed to say. So like when you in church, traditionally you say, you'll say he is risen, and the repl the reply is he is risen indeed. And so I said that to Ryan on Sunday morning, and he's doing the announcements. It's great. I didn't know what this is. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Amen to that, brother. Amen, bro. I might just start saying that.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

It was funny to let people respond because you know we have a lot of people that didn't grow up in church too. And so when you said he is risen, the response, guys, is he has risen indeed, and then people are like, No, it's not it. It's he has risen indeed. This is kind of funny. Yeah. I think people left so confused, but also honored at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 2:26

But they'll come back, so it's great.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

And then I was teaching them God is good all the time and all the time God is good. But then I just I messed it up first service and I did I did both parts instead of the call and response part, and then had them do the second two parts as the responses. You know, we get there, yeah. We don't do it a lot, so you know we're we're not we're out of practice.

SPEAKER_04 2:42

So we get the just anyways, right? The spirit, the spirit of saying we have our own.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

It's like we just do you know, alohl, hallelujah. Love God, love people. Yeah. That's our call and response thing. It's kind of the church's just in general. You mean what I knew? Yeah. Love God, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Love people.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

Yeah. Yeah. There you go. But it was Easter and it was great Easter. Um we had a lot of people come. We had a lot of new people come, and it's exciting. So we gotta talk about Christ raising, you know, rising from the dead or raising himself from the dead. But um So what do you think about what do you think about the concept of an empty tomb is for us to see? It's not for Jesus to get out. What do you think about that? The stone being rolled away.

SPEAKER_03 3:29

The idea that I I personally have always felt like I grew up in church and I felt like the focus and the emphasis was always on the cross. And which is great. And I love I love the idea that we remember the cross. But the idea that the empty tomb is the thing that we celebrate that brings us to celebration has always been the heart of Easter for me. I actually have had I mean we've we've talked about it. I think we've even talked about this on the podcast. I think the cross can sometimes dare I say it, become a false idol for people where all they do is focus on the the torment and they forget that the r the reason the endgame was always the resurrection. Like the the the tomb means nothing unless it's empty, right? Like it just it just doesn't. So so when we talk about that, the significance of what happened is good for us to understand, but it's so much more important for us to understand the new life that comes from the resurrection.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

What do you think about when we talked about Sunday hell? When the tomb was opened and the stone was rolled away, it was really for us to see in, not necessarily for Jesus to escape, because Jesus could you know go through walls. He doesn't you know, he appears in a room full of people with locked doors, so he didn't really need a stone to be rolled away.

SPEAKER_04 4:48

Yeah, well, I I don't checks out, you know. I mean, that's why I say checks out. I mean, most of how uh in my limited understanding, how I understand Jesus and my relationship with Jesus is Jesus can be everywhere he wants, whenever he wants to be there, all at the same time or nothing at all. And so what he chooses for me to see is in fact for me. Right. And and so because if he didn't want me to know anything, he'd just be like, Yeah, I'm just gonna go do it because why waste my time? Like, why put that effort into it? So I feel like it's all designed, like like Jesus so intentional to show us the way, right? Because when we had the list, we couldn't do it right either. And so Jesus for me is that perfect example of right down to the point, like you gotta you gotta die to to of all of it, and you gotta let it all go in order to you know move beyond and and become who you're meant to be.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

I think that's the the you know, we connected to baptism Sunday. Like the powerful thing about baptism is we die. I mean, when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, it's it's a symbol of our death, our burial, and our resurrection. We we are born new into new life in Jesus Christ. And so we all go into the grave and we all come out of the tomb. Like, and so that's I think the the powerful thing we talked about Sunday was it's like stop going back to the tomb where your life was broken, you know, all the shame, guilt, frustration, grief, sorrow, sadness. I think a lot of people like drama. They go back to their old lives, their old ways over and over again. That's the see that's the my prop my problem with the cross. People keep like the like to pin their sins on the cross. Well, I'll just keep sinning, you know, just keep taking to the cross. But like the cross was Jesus defeating sin so he could give us life everlasting. And that's the that's the where he proves he can conquer death. I think we need to focus more on living for Jesus and not living to, you know, from sin to sin, you know, asking him for forgiveness. But we're we're called into new life that's transformative. And I think the problem is not everybody who follows Jesus is transformed. They keep doing the same broken things, hoping for different results. What we call that the definition of insanity. You know, it's you know trying to repeat the same mistake over and over again and wondering why this the results don't change. That's that's insanity. We need to live for Jesus, which is living our new life, our new direction, our new passions in Him.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

I think that the reason sometimes that we can get stuck in that with the cross is because a penalty makes us feel like we've paid, like we don't like we can we can just pay, we can cash in on that credit every time. Right. And but the empty tomb makes us take action, right? Like that means I have to actually do something. I can't just sin and keep going back, like oh Jesus, you did like or I feel bad, and then it's like the self-whipping monk, like right. Like I can't just keep going like oh I'm so bad, I'm so bad. It's like no, you can't live like you're dead anymore. You have to live like you're alive. And I love the action orientation of the the empty tomb because it's like it's unde you can't deny the empty tomb. That's the other thing. Like you can try to act like okay, the cross was final, it's a thing, but the empty tomb makes it undeniable. It's like if the tomb stayed closed and Jesus just popped up somewhere, people could have been like, Oh yeah, it was just a trick, and like it was like he who do need to be. He escaped, it's still sealed. But the fact that it was open, it was empty, there was like there's no way to deny what had happened, and like that you can't just go, oh, it was just the cross. You have to acknowledge the empty tomb, yeah, and you have to acknowledge what new life looks like now because everything changed after that. It wasn't just Jesus died and he was buried, it was Jesus died, he was buried, and rose again. So everything changes, and the same is true for our life. I I love the parallel to our life when we understand that we need to die to ourselves and acknowledge, submit, make Jesus our Lord and Savior. We're acknowledging what happened on the cross. But we it's so important in scripture because it doesn't just say acknowledge that Jesus died on the cross, it says, and then we also have to acknowledge that he rose from the grave. Right, that's important, right? Because then we're partaking in that new life with him. That's like whole like the communion we did, you know. The communion we do is do this in remembrance of me, this is my body, you know, this is my blood, which was spilled, right? Do this in remembrance of me, you know, that we're partaking of the same cup, meaning that we're doing the same thing Jesus did. We're dying to ourselves, we're living, like we're coming into new life. So the symbolism is really, really good too.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

I think it's good. I mean, I think when you go to like Romans, I think what is it, Romans 10? Let me see if I'm pulling up here. Uh Romans 10 talks about us confessing with our mouth that Jesus is raised from the dead. You know, that's that's important. I'll have to find the verse, but you know, it's what it's what belief is, right? You know, if we believe in our heart that Jesus is Lord and we confess with our mouth that he was raised from the dead, then the Bible says you will be saved. That that's important. You have to have the tomb, not just the cross. And I think we focus so much on the the wrong part of the story. I think you know, it makes a good story to have Jesus take all this beating and all this pain, all this sorrow on top of, you know, himself for our sin. But like I think the best part of the story is when he walked he's out of the grave. Like he's he's gone, the the tomb's empty. And and we know from other gospels, you know, in the in the tomb where where the folded cloths that he was buried all buried in, neatly folded, kind of left there, like I'm not here, like he's not here. Everything is still in there untouched, other than the fact that like he's gone. So like Jesus, I don't know if Jesus folded him as I would always be fascinating. Did Jesus fold those cloths up or did like an angel fold those cloths up night and leave them neatly for people to see? Like, hey, he's not here, yeah. Just housekeeping, housekeeping. Turn down service. Jesus is like, I'm just gonna hang out in here, I'm just gonna fold these up and then take off.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

Um getting that continental breakfast.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

Yeah, I mean it's so it's just there's so many different things that happened. And the earthquake that moves a stone also releases like the dead who who became witnesses of Jesus' resurrection. I mean, that's I think that's one of my favorite stories that people don't often tell because it's it's weird. But there's basically these like walking dead preachers who were family members and friends of the people in town in Jerusalem who are saying, Hey, by the way, Jesus is the Lord, he's risen from the dead, and you need to know. I mean, that's that's profound. And that honestly, if you know, my dead aunt came back, you're like, hey, by the way, Jesus came out, you know, I wait, we buried you, right? You're back. It's been years, right? And now you're here to tell me that this guy is now risen from the dead. That that's gonna change everything, especially when there's just a lot of people that are sp preaching and teaching. I think that's why we see Christianity just explode and take off. Something profound happened, you know, 2,000 years ago. It changed the world, and we're still talking about today. And I think we need to think through what does that mean for us? What does that mean for Kyle? What does it mean for Ryan? What does it mean for Cody? What does it mean for Mark? What does it really mean for us individually? Because it has to mean something, because it's changed everything.

SPEAKER_03 11:50

I think it's cool that there's it I love the idea that our interaction, like our experiences in our own walk of faith, draw us to the same place, even though they're different experiences. It's like, can you imagine your great aunt that you just buried a year ago popping out out of nowhere? That's an experience gonna rock you to core, but it's gonna be different than the experience that the disciples had, or say Mary Magdalene, or like like there's so many different experiences, but they all just pointed back to Jesus. It's like all these little snapshots, right? And I think it's it's cool because I think we have uh we have a sliver of that in our you know, in our faith. It's like we have these we have all these different things that have brought us to the to the foot of the cross and to the empty tomb. And all these different experiences that have led us to this moment, they all bring us back to Jesus and to new life. And they're all this this push, like you know, whether you had a near-death experience or you almost lost a child, or you you had you were broken by grief, or your doubt led you there. Like how many, how many atheists, you know, how many atheists have tried to try to disprove Jesus and end up on you know the winning team? You know, like I like it just that's what I so I just think it's cool because it even back then it was all these different experiences that led people to Jesus and to the resurrection.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

And you know, well, two thousand years people have been trying to disprove Christ and have failed because there's too much evidence that Jesus the tomb was empty, too many, too much evidence that Jesus went to the cross. They just agree about his him being Lord and him being king, him being God. But that outside of that, we have so much historical evidence that exists to prove that this these moments happened. What does it mean? Is like a personal decision, though. What do you believe it means based on how the world has been transformed? I mean, Ryan, how does it speak to you, just in your own personal life, that Jesus, you know, conquered death?

SPEAKER_04 13:46

Well, I'm grateful. Um, you know, I mean, I I think I don't know. I I I can't say I could have lots of lots of different thoughts when it comes to this. I I think that you know I think it's easy to focus on the cross because that's God's part. Um that's Jesus' part, that's the hard part. That's the overwhelming majority of everything. Like actually coming out of the tomb and and accepting what is is my what has been willed to me through Christ. That's the that's the hard part. That's the that's the part I have to do. Um, I mean, that's kind of how I see it. I and I think maybe all those years keep going back to that grave, keep going back, keep going back to that tomb. Yeah, probably because parts of me wanted to be God.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

Right.

SPEAKER_04 14:27

Parts of me want to have that, and that's why I don't know. I that probably doesn't answer your question.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

No, I think that's that's so true. I mean I mean, Jesus did so we could do. I mean, honestly, he gave us forgiveness of sin, showed us the path forward so then we could go love people like he did. I mean, that that's the challenge is we don't always want to be like Jesus. You know, we will like we like to beat ourselves up, and that's what you're talking about. Which is the my one of my favorite Bible words is self-flagellation, where they beat themselves with whips to try to make them feel the pain of Jesus on the cross. They wanted to they wanted to feel the pain so they knew that they were you know sacrificing. And I think sometimes the sacrifice is harder is giving up our time to go and love like Jesus. I think it's easy to beat yourself up. I think it's easy to whip yourself and tell yourself how horrible and awful you are because you're broken. I think that's when people go back in the tomb. They they go hide back in their tomb and say, Oh, my life, my old life, my old shame, my old guilt. We feel comfortable there. The hard part is recognizing I'm not supposed to be in that tomb. I'm supposed to go live my life new for Jesus. I'd be reborn into a new creation, and I gotta serve and live like he did. That's I think it's the harder challenge for people. I think that's what people have to realize that that's where sacrifice really comes in. Not beating ourselves up, but loving people in a way that's profound and transformative, like Jesus did.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

How about like loving people even when you kind of stink at life? Right? Like I mean, you don't have to have it all together to start. That's I think that's the frustration. I I mean, I I think that's the frustration is like the people who do, they're the self-flagellating, like the self-whipping monks, like, oh, I'm just not ready, and I don't know enough scripture. And I like I Jesus didn't tell you that you had to have all that. He just said, Go love people. Like they'll know you're my disciples by how you love one another. Like, go go actively, passionately, exceptionally outside of what the world would say, like, go serve and love people that you nobody else would think deserve your love. Like, and go do it in a way that I would have done it. You know, that's basically what Jesus is saying, like, go do it in a way I would have done it. And I think I think that like to your point, I think I do think the idea of like I think people allow like the feeling that shame gives them that like I'm a bad person because it gives you an excuse to do nothing. Right. Like it gives you this excuse to not fix anything or to not start doing the right things because you go, Well, I feel this way. Who cares how you feel? Go do it anyways. You feel crappy, go do it anyways. Like it's the whole idea, like you, oh, you're depressed. I get it, yeah. Okay, go do it anyways. Like, walk through your depression, go do it anyways. Like, you're not feeling up to it. I don't think Jesus really felt it up to it. Like, you know, like go do it anyways, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:09

You gotta take that manual away from him the last minute. It's like, uh you sure you want me to do this? Right. Yeah. He knew how hard it would be.

SPEAKER_03 17:15

So just like, what's what's easier? Yeah, well, it's easier just to beat yourself up and act like you don't like because that doesn't require anything. It doesn't require any sacrifice, it's just you feeling bad about yourself. Go fix things, like go do things. Your heart learns best through your hands, like not your shame or your guilt. Like your heart learns best when you go do stuff. So teach your heart how to do something different, I think.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

A transformed life is busy serving like Jesus served. It's not beating yourself up for your failures and past and sins. It's going out and loving people. And I think that's the that's what I think people struggle with, embracing. I think that's the whole call of the gospels and call of Paul's letters, calling us into that life of loving each other. That's why our churches love God, the people. That that's the goal. Not beat yourself up and you know, beat other people up. It's it's that's not an excuse either.

SPEAKER_03 18:05

Like, that's not an excuse to not work on the things you need to work on. Like, it's not like you get to just pass because you know, oh, I'm just going and doing it. So, like, no, you also have to figure yourself out, but like going and doing is a really helpful tool in that process because you're gonna figure out how not to do it too, really quickly, right? You're gonna figure out good and bad.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

So because I mean what you're talking about is something I've spent a lot of time like digging myself into, where truthfully, like it it it sounds tough to hear, but it's the truth of it is we can dig ourselves out of it if we work and we take those steps, take one small step at a time. I've got a buddy of mine who's um working on stuff and trying to fix his life and is like is sober for the first time in a while, and he's looking at his life, he's like, Oh man, I've messed up so much, and I've done something. Like, listen, this is the beautiful thing. You have an opportunity right now to grow, to take those things and one step at a time try and work on them. Whatever the problems that happened, yeah, you're you're having to eat the crow of that. But like, I know you told me a saying that was, how do you eat an elephant? And it made me I didn't like it at first because I'm like, well, you can't eat an elephant all at once. There's too much to eat. And it's like, no. You eat an elephant one bite at a time. You slowly work through it, you take it, and you live differently. You don't let it hold you down. You don't live like Jesus is still buried in the dirt, you live like he's been born again, that he has defeated all that has happened, and that you can move forward with that joy. And so I know I've worked to try and make sure I don't let myself keep putting myself in a place where I'm like, well, just I just I screwed up and that's just what's gonna happen every time, all the time. You kind of like almost pin yourself into that position if you the shame spiral. Yeah, where it's you just and you do it to yourself and you you don't even realize it until you look back, you're like, oh yeah, I'm in my own head right now.

unknown 20:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Like if I would have just taken these twenty steps in this direction instead of these twenty steps in that direction, I would be in a much better place right now. So your headspace has a lot to do with it and how you see things.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Well, good, thanks. I think the thing to remember and to take away from just this Easter season, if you if you listen to our message, go you know, great. If not, go back and listen to it. Because I think we really tried to change perspective of people, of what we focus on. We're focusing on the tomb is empty. And the tomb is empty for us to see the miracle, the power of Jesus, his resurrection, that he can conquer death and give us life, and that we can have life in him. And if you're struggling, because life isn't great because you're stuck in shame, stuck in guilt, stuck in sorrow, you're just living in a tomb, hoping for different. You can see out, but you need to get out of the tomb and go live for Jesus and let him let him lead you on the way so you can love God, love people, and really understand what it looks like to be transformed and be born again. So we hope this helps. We hope you have a great Easter. And again, we have to say it, and then all those Michigan fans listening go blue. It's gonna be a great week. Watch the hockey. Michigan hockey. That's it. Peace.