If The Tomb Was Empty Then What Changes

An empty tomb is either a footnote in ancient history or the hinge of the world, and it can’t be both. We start with Matthew’s resurrection account where the angel says, “He is not here, he has risen,” then invites the women to verify it for themselves: “Come and see.” That invitation sets the tone for a faith that isn’t built on hype, but on a claim you can actually examine. 

From the Gospel of John, we follow the same words as Jesus calls early disciples and as the Samaritan woman urges her town to test her story firsthand. Along the way, we confront a modern drift where “come and see” becomes a pitch for church programs instead of a doorway to Jesus himself. The goal is not to win an argument, but to get honest about what you’re trusting and why. 

We also spend time on the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, including why many scholars concede the tomb was empty while debating the explanation. We touch on early testimony, Paul’s early writing in 1 Corinthians 15, and why alternative theories like theft, wrong tomb, swoon, or late legend struggle under scrutiny. Then we look at the surprisingly gritty details that ring true, like women as the first witnesses and Thomas asking for proof. 

If the tomb is empty, everything changes: hope, forgiveness, courage, and the calling to “go and tell.” Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who has real questions, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation.

Transcript

Prayer And The Point Of Worship

SPEAKER_01 1:03

For who you are. For everything that you do. God, my prayer always is that I enter into this time humbly. It's not about me. It's not about what I've done. It's not about the things that I say. It's not even about the songs that we sing. It's as important as those things are. The entire reason we're here is because of everything that you did. That's the only reason. Any of this happens. God, as always, I pray you protect the words that are coming out of my mouth, those who are here listening and who might listen later. Protect the hearts of the people that it's attached to. These are your children, your creation. Stir them, God. Move them. Give them what they need this morning. I would love you. Thank you. So let's pray. Amen. My favorite gospel is the Gospel of John, but we're not going to be there today. I like John's account of the resurrection for a couple of reasons. If you've ever read the Gospel of John, he makes sure to let you know that he beat Peter to the tomb. As a middle brother, I can relate to that. Anytime I outdid one of my brothers, I made sure they knew it. John's Gospel captures a lot of details. But Matthew captures a particular phrase that's seen in the book of John, but it's one that actually has a great deal of history in the Old Testament itself. So Matthew 28, verses 1 through 10. It says, After the Sabbath had dawn, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, and going to the tomb, he rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and they became like dead men. I think that's the only appropriate response to an angel. The angel said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, he has risen just as he said. And then the angel says, Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples. He is risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him. Now I have told you. So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid, yet filled with joy. They ran to dis tell his disciples, and suddenly Jesus met them. Greetings, he said. They came to him, clasped his feet, and they worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me. I love this interaction because the angels say, Listen, Jesus is not here. But just in case you don't believe me, come and see where he'd lay. By the way, that graphic on the screen was done by Greg Foster. I asked him to do that, and I appreciated it. And I thought it was an incredible imagery of the moment. The tomb's empty, the cloth is there, the blood, the cross is all of it. But Jesus isn't, right? The angels say, Come and see. John chapter 1, starting in verse 35. So the next day John was there again with two of his disciples, and when he saw Jesus passing by, he said, Look, the Lamb of God. When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, What do you want? They said, Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? Come, he replied, and you will see. Come and see. So they went and they saw where he was staying, and they spent the day with him, and it was about four in the afternoon. Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who had heard what John had said, and he followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, We have found the Messiah. It's the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus, and Jesus looked at him and said, You are Simon, son of John. You will be called Caiaphas, which translated as Peter. Continuing on, John writes, the next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee, and finding Philip, he said to him, Follow me. Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Beseda. Philip found Nathanael and told him, We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law, and about whom the prophets also wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Nazareth, can anything good come from there? Nathanael asked. When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, Here truly is the Israelite in whom there is no deceit. How do you know me? Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you. And Nathanael declared, Rabbi, you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel. You sin, uh Jesus said, You believe, because I told you, I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that. He then added, Very truly I tell you, you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. It's an invitation. Come and see. You hear of this, this Jesus, you hear this Messiah, but you don't necessarily believe. And come and see. Come and see who he is. John chapter 4, 27 through 42. Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, What do you want? Or why are you talking with her? Then leaving her water jar, the woman uh went back to the town and said to the people, Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. This be the Messiah. This woman encounters Jesus and she goes back to her town and she tells them all these incredible things, and they're skeptical, and she says to them, Come and see. You know, for the longest time, this idea of come and see in the church is has sometimes had a different connotation to it. Come and see our worship team. Come and see our children's ministry. Come and see our preacher. Come and see our lights. Come and see what we have to offer you. From a biblical understanding, this statement has so much weight to it because we see in the Old Testament, come and see what God has done. God continues to remind and call his people in the Old Testament, look at what I can do, look at what I've done. Jesus says, come and see, find out who I am. So when the angel says to Mary and Mary Magdalene, the tomb is empty, come and see. He's inviting them to check for themselves, to make sure that what he has said is true. Jesus does the same thing. Come and see who I am. He doesn't get mad at Thomas for doubting. Instead, he shows up, and again, John chapter 20, he shows up and and he shows Thomas exactly what he needs. Following Christ isn't just about blind faith. It's about a real moment in the history of the world when after he was crucified, after he was dead, after he was buried, after they guarded the tomb so nothing would happen, after three days, they found the tomb empty. One of my favorite parts about the empty tomb, and I'm very logical in the way my brain works, is almost every scholar, even those who are critics of Christianity, will tell you the tomb was empty. Historically, almost every scholar will tell you that the tomb was empty. Now, they debate why. There's different ideas behind it. One of my favorite quotes, and I've said this before, by Charles Coulson, he says, I know the resurrection is fact. And he said, Watergate proved it to me. How? Because twelve men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Everyone was beaten, tortured, stoned, and put in prison. They would have not endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled twelve of the most powerful men in the world, and they couldn't keep alive for three weeks. You mean to tell me twelve apostles could continue to lie for 40 years? It's impossible. The four Gospels capture the empty tomb. Mark's is the earliest account, Mark 16, 1 through 8. So this is AD 60, 70. The Gospel of Matthew, 80 70 to 85 speaks of it. The Gospel of Luke AD, 80 to 90, speaks of the empty tomb. The Gospel of John, which I talked about. There's multiple accounts, and these are biblical resources. Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 15, 3, that he was buried, he was raised, and he appeared. And Paul wrote this three to five years within the crucifixion. So there were still plenty of people who were alive. Now, if you read the gospel accounts, the Roman guards are quick to explain what happened. Remember what they said? The body was stolen. Listen, if I was a Roman guard and Jesus walked out of the tomb, I'd be making up some kind of story too. They swear that the body was stolen. Yet it was never found. Tacitus, A.D. 116, confirms that Jesus was executed under Pontius Pilate. So we know he died historically. But he doesn't mention the tomb directly, but he talks about how fast the spread of Christianity happened after the empty tomb, after the resurrection. Josephus was a Roman historian. He mentions Jesus and the claim that he appeared alive again. Even in debated passages, he confirms Jesus existed, was crucified, and followers claim resurrection. Celsus, this is a second-century critic of Christianity, he claims that the resurrection story came from a hysterical woman. The body was stolen. But notice he never argues that the tomb wasn't empty. He directly engages the stolen body theory. He talks about how the Jewish leaders spread it intentionally. Teturian, A.D. 200. He defends bodily resurrection. An empty tomb is historical. Across history, there is no debate as to whether or not the tomb was empty. The debate is why. Was the body stolen? There's no evidence that it was. Was it the wrong tomb? It's not possible. Joseph of Arimathea's tomb was very well known. Some say that it was a swoon. Jesus didn't really die. He just kind of passed out. But the Romans were really good at execution. They're the ones who set the stage for it. So that makes them look bad. Some say that it was a legend, but it was way too early for that kind of legend to affirm. Almost all historians agree that Christ was crucified. The tomb was found empty. The disciples genuinely believed that they saw the risen Jesus, and Christianity exploded rapidly in Jerusalem at the same time. The angel, Matthew 28, 6, 7, says, He is not here, he has risen, just as he said, Come and see the place where he lay. And quickly, and go quickly and tell the disciples. There you will see him. I have told you this.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

So the tomb was empty.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

There's a ton of evidence for it. You know, it's interesting that then Matthew captures the first two people to see the empty tomb as two women. That matters. Because historically back then, women were not considered uh considered reliable witnesses. If any of you laughed at that, you have to go home to your wife. But they weren't considered reliable witnesses. There was a very male-centric culture. Women weren't considered reliable, children weren't considered reliable. If you were going to fabricate a story of an empty tomb, you definitely wouldn't put women at the head of it. Unless God knew what he was doing. The very first two people to see the empty tomb to come see where he lay were two women. And then they were told to go to disciples and tell them everything they had seen. Can you imagine in the moment as the disciples sit and they're cowering at this point? They're terrified because they don't know what's gonna happen, who's coming for them. Jesus was crucified. Everything that they've known, everything that they've done, it has disappeared.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

And Mary and Mary show up and say, We have seen the tomb, and he's not there. He's not there. John and Peter take off running.

Witnesses From Women To Thomas

SPEAKER_01 17:55

They probably don't believe him. And they get there and they arrive, and Peter is the first one to go in. And I love that moment in the gospel of John because even though John was the first one there, he let Peter go first. And I like to think that's because he understood that Peter needed a moment of restoration. The one who had denied Christ. Peter needed to see with his own eyes that the tomb was empty. And they see that the tomb is empty and they immediately run back. And they tell everyone, you guys are not going to believe this. He is not there. He is arisen. I don't know where he is yet, but he's not there. And then along the way, as the gospels unfold, you see that Jesus starts to reveal himself to the women and then to the disciples. And then my favorite is Thomas. You know, Thomas is a bad rap. We call him doubting Thomas. I think he's practical Thomas. Thomas says, I believe when I see the holes in his hands and the holes in his side. And what does Jesus do? He shows up where they are behind locked doors. And Thomas says, I believe. And Jesus reveals himself to conservatively about 550 people. The resurrected Savior is walking around out of the tomb. And when the gospels are written, when Paul wrote his letters, all of the witnesses of these events were still alive. And still, no one refutes that the tomb was empty. The early church, these men who were in this room who were cowering behind closed doors, all of a sudden, they took the message of the gospel and they ran with it. Changed the face of the world. Most of them died, most of them were beaten. Most of them were tortured.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

What insane person would die for a lie? The tomb was empty.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

There's nobody.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

This man who thought he was doing the world a favor by killing early Christians encounters Christ and changes his entire life. He goes from being the biggest opposition to the biggest champion for the cross. Paul talks about how his life has been changed and altered, how God turned him from his ways. Paul would go on to suffer and die for the case of Jesus.

What If The Tomb Is Empty

SPEAKER_00 21:40

What sane person would die for a lie? So it begs the question. What if it's all true? What if the tomb's really empty?

SPEAKER_01 22:08

What if Jesus really did appear to five hundred plus people in a resurrected body? What if Jesus came out of the grave, overcame death, conquered sin, saved humanity? What if what if everything they said and everything they did and every action they took after the tomb was based on fact.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

What do we do with that? I know what they did.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

They changed the world. They spread the gospel. They told anyone who would listen. They stood in the face of oppressive kings and tormentors. All throughout history, we we've seen it over and over and over again that people go to their Death for the sake of Christ. Martyrs after martyrs. His men were the same. They were willing to die, and most of them did, because they believed and they saw that Jesus did exactly what he promised to do. He overcame hell for them. He died for them. He broke the chain. He brought them back into relationship with God. He did everything that he said he would do. And so their only response was to live a life dedicated to him.

Come And See Then Go Tell

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Come and see. Come and see where he laid. And then go and tell someone about it.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

You know, for the longest time, and again, I said it earlier, but church has really been focused on this idea of come and see what we have to offer. Come and see what we've done. And it's not all wrong. It's not. The addicts who are set free. The marriages that are restored. The broken relationships.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

The wandering child who has found his way home.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Come and see who Jesus is. Come and see what he's doing. Come and see what he's done. Come and see what he has offered you. Come and see the life change that comes. Come and see when Saul becomes Paul. Come and see these men and women who are willing to die for their faith. Come and see a world that continues to struggle to find peace and hope and joy. And come and see and find it here in this place, knowing who Christ is. Come and see everything God has to offer you. Because He's the only one who can offer you salvation. He's the only one that can offer you peace and hope and joy and strength in time of need.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Come and see a church full of broken people who have found a perfect savior.

Closing Challenge And Final Question

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Because if the tomb is empty, Jesus really rose from the grave. This isn't just a story. It's not just a legend. It's not just something that brings us together on a Sunday morning. It's the reality of knowing and trusting and believing in the God, Alice at a best, the God who came to earth as a baby to serve, who lived a life of perfection for 33 years, who was did nothing wrong, completely innocent in every way, who stood before Pilate and took the place of someone like Barabbas who deserved it, who was spit on, who was mocked, who was tortured. His greatest friends abandoned him. He lived his life and died his death. So that three days later the tomb would be empty. The empty tomb is everything. Everyone agrees it was empty. The question you have to wrestle with is why.