TOPIC:"The Great Easter Discovery"
"And they found the stone rolled from the sepulchre. And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus" (24:2, 3)
As I was reading the Apostle Luke's account of the Easter message one fundamental truth stood out above all others. It was this: The Easter message of the resurrection of Jesus Christ was not something those early disciples FABRICATED in their imagination, but something they FOUND through their investigation. They did not invent it. It was not an idea they hatched in their own minds. It was something they discovered. It was something they found. Listen again to Luke's twice repeated words from our text: "they found the stone rolled away...they...found not the body of the Lord Jesus."
In this critical hour in which we live the tragedy continues to be that though this Easter message is almost two thousand years old, the vast majority of people living today have never discovered its truth about the living Christ who defeated sin and conquered death. Millions of people have never found its liberating power or experienced its transforming grace. Perhaps that's true of you at this very moment. What a joy it would be on this Easter Sunday if you would make the discovery of a lifetime. The same discovery that those fearful and faithful women found that first Easter morning so many years ago.
Let me now share with you what they discovered.
Let's begin with this: According to Luke they found a STONE that was REMOVED. Think again on those words in verse 2: "And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre." St. Mark gives a little more detail in his account: "And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great" (Mark 16:4).
History seems to conclude that the tomb which contained the body of Jesus was cut out of a hillside. Tombs cut out of rock have been found in abundance in the area in and around the city of Jerusalem.. At the burial of Jesus a large wheel-shaped . . .