The Heart of Faith

‘I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised’ Matthew 28:5

These words were addressed to the sorrowing women who had come to the tomb of Jesus on Sunday  morning. They are for Matthew, Mark and Luke the absolute heart of the story of the resurrection - ‘He is not here’. That’s why the empty tomb is such an integral element in the narrative. ‘He is not here’ – the angel in Luke’s version adds, almost as a rebuke, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead?’ They had come to anoint a corpse, but instead they were to celebrate a new life. Nothing could more powerfully encapsulate the Easter message, which echoes through the church readings throughout this month, ‘Not here.’

And that’s true not only of Jesus, but of all who have died in faith. We go to the graveyard or the crematorium to leave some flowers and perhaps say a prayer, but the Christian knows that the one we remember or grieve for is not there. Perhaps the very best biblical text for the gate of a churchyard would be these simple words: ‘He is not here. He is risen’.

I remember reading a book by a father whose young son had died of an asthma attack. He went to the chapel of rest to see the boy lying in his coffin. As he looked at the still figure, he felt he was looking at a perfect model or sculpture of his son, but not the boy himself. He had ‘gone’ – but, the father asked himself, ‘Gone where?’ Our Christian faith is well expressed in St Paul’s phrase, ‘to depart and be with Christ’ – when we die we ‘go’, but not to nowhere ... and not alone.

‘He is not here, he is risen’. There, in seven words, is the heart of the Easter faith, for what was true of Jesus is true for all those whose faith is in the risen Lord.