Easter
"He is not here, for He has risen"
Reading Time 3 minutes
The feeling of emptiness is a lonely thing.
Just the word itself carries weight. It speaks of something missing, something that once filled a space with life and meaning. Most of us recognize it immediately because we have felt it.
A child dies, and the parents return home to a house that once held laughter. Now it holds silence. The rooms are the same, but everything has changed.
A woman sits across from her attorney as divorce papers are signed. Words are spoken, documents exchanged, but what lingers is not relief—it is an emptiness she cannot quite name.
A friend once described it to me this way: “There is just an empty spot where Bobby used to be.”
Emptiness is not loud. It does not demand attention. It simply settles in—and stays.
And yet, here we are on Easter Sunday, gathered to celebrate…emptiness.
At first, that seems like a contradiction.
On that morning long ago, the crowds had gone home. The noise of the week had faded. The disciples had scattered, unsure and afraid. Only a few women made their way to the tomb, carrying spices, expecting to tend to a body.
Expecting death.
But let me step aside for a moment and tell you where this became real for me.
A few years ago, Holly and I were in Jerusalem. One of the places we visited was the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Tradition holds that this church stands over the very site of the crucifixion and the burial of Jesus.
And then we moved toward the tomb.
There it was.
The stone, the entrance, the setting—so familiar from Scripture, and yet suddenly very real. As we approached, I found myself thinking about those women on that first Easter morning. Their grief. Their confusion. Their quiet determination simply to care for the One they had loved.
They came expecting to find Him there.
Instead, they found emptiness.
And standing there, looking into that same emptiness, I realized something had changed—not just for them, but for me.
Because I did not feel sadness.
I did not feel loss.
I felt joy.
In that moment, the words of Scripture were no longer distant or symbolic. They were alive:
“Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here. He has risen.”
The emptiness of that tomb was not a sign of absence. It was a declaration of victory.
Death had been there—and death had been defeated.
And suddenly, emptiness took on an entirely new meaning.
On this Easter Sunday, we celebrate that the tomb was empty.
Not because something is missing, but because everything has been fulfilled.
Because the grave could not hold Him.
Because the story did not end in silence, but in resurrection.
And because that empty tomb means that our lives do not have to be empty.
Where there was once loss, there can be hope.
Where there was once sorrow, there can be joy.
Where there was once emptiness, there can be life—full, abundant, and eternal.
The tomb is empty.
He is risen.
And because He is risen, we never have to live empty again.
I love this. My child left this Earth. When I visit her grave, I know there is an empty body there, but her spirit lives because He does. Thanks for this.