Easter Monday  -  LIVING AN EMPTY TOMB LIFE

by Brian Smith
Young Adult and Teaching Pastor

One of my wife’s and my favorite Easter traditions is making “resurrection rolls” with our kids. If you’ve never done them, it’s super simple. You take a marshmallow, wrap it in crescent dough, roll it in butter and cinnamon sugar, and then bake it. Before it goes in the oven, it’s full, but when it comes out and you open it up, it’s empty (and very tasty).

Now, the first time we made them with the kids, they were shocked. Where did the marshmallow go? It was an awesome, easy opportunity to remind them what Easter was all about.

Because that’s the story of Easter. Not just that the stone was rolled away, not just that the tomb was opened, but that it was empty. In Luke 24, the women show up to the tomb expecting to find Jesus, and instead they are asked a question: “Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here, but he has risen.”

Now, like I said, the first time we made the rolls, they worked exactly like we wanted them to. But after doing it for so many years, the kids are no longer shocked by the empty rolls. They have just become commonplace Easter desserts in the Smith house.

Truthfully, I think sometimes we treat the real empty tomb the same way.  We celebrate Easter on Sunday, but by Tuesday, we are right back to living like the tomb is still full. We go back to the same fears, the same guilt, and the same patterns of our lives as if Jesus never walked out of that tomb. We start believing things like, “Nothing’s really changed,” “I’m still stuck,” and “This is just who I am.”

But if the tomb is empty, that is not true. If the tomb is empty, you are not who you used to be. Your sin does not get the final word. Your past is not your identity, and your future is not stuck on repeat.

I think one of the easiest things to do as a follower of Jesus is to believe in the resurrection but not live in the reality of it. We say, “Yeah, Jesus rose from the dead,” but still carry around things He already walked out of the grave to defeat.

So here is the question I want you to ask yourself this week. Am I living like the tomb is still full, or like it is actually empty? Because the empty tomb is not just something we celebrate once a year. It is something we wake up to every single day. You can walk in freedom today. You can fight sin differently today. You can have hope today. Not because life is easy, but because Jesus is alive.

And maybe the most practical thing you can do today is this. Name the thing that makes you feel stuck. The fear. The habit. The lie you keep believing. Then remind yourself that the tomb is empty. And that means you do not have to stay where you have been.