By Obinna Ejianya (9News Nigeria – Melbourne, Australia)

Mark 16:6 — “He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.”

They thought they had ended Him.

They beat Him, they mocked Him, they crucified Him, and they stood there until He gave up the ghost, and when they were satisfied that life had left Him, they took His body, laid Him in the tomb, sealed it, secured it, and placed guards over it, not just to protect a grave, but to make a statement — that it was over, that the One who called Himself the Son of God, the King of Kings, the Saviour of the world, had come to an end.

Even when He told them that no man takes His life from Him, but that He lays it down and will take it again, they did not understand Him, because they underestimated Him, and they did not know that everything that was happening was already written, that He was pierced for our transgressions, that the iniquity of us all was laid upon Him, that He became the sacrifice, He became the curse, so that through Him redemption will come.

Because the plan of God was already settled, that just as sin came into this world through one man, salvation will also come through one man, and so when they lifted Him on that cross, they thought they were ending His life, but they were fulfilling purpose, and when they buried Him, they thought they had silenced Him, but they were only setting the stage for what no man can stop.

Because the power of God cannot be buried.

And so on the third day, what no man expected happened — the stone was rolled away, the tomb was empty, death could not hold Him, the grave could not keep Him, hell could not retain Him, because it was impossible for death to hold Him captive.

He rose.

Not as a victim, but as the head of all principalities and powers, having taken the keys from the powers of hell and death, and from that moment, everything changed.

And this is where it concerns us.

Because the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not just about Him rising from the dead, it is about what His rising means for us, because the same Spirit that raised Him from the dead now lives in us, and if that Spirit lives in us, then our lives cannot remain the same, because just as the tomb is empty, our lives also must become empty of everything that represents death.

Empty of troubles, empty of fears, empty of worries, empty of oppression, empty of confusion, empty of delay, empty of stagnation, empty of repeated disappointment, because anything that carries the signature of death cannot remain where resurrection life is at work.

And not just our lives, even our bodies.

Because the word of God says that He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies, and so our body becomes empty of sickness, empty of disease, empty of affliction, empty of pain, empty of cancer, empty of high blood pressure, empty of diabetes, empty of kidney failure, empty of liver diseases, empty of blood-related sicknesses, empty of every hidden infirmity, empty of every plague and every pestilence, because the power that raised Christ from the dead does not coexist with decay, it overrides it.

And so everything that once troubled the body loses its hold.

Everything that once troubled the life loses its place.

Everything that once looked like an end loses its authority.

Because if death could not hold Him, then nothing that represents death in our life will hold.

And so our destiny becomes empty of failure, empty of backwardness, empty of fruitless labour, our marriages become empty of strife, our business becomes empty of loss and disappointment, every opportunity that once looked buried begins to come back to life, because we have resurrected with Him.

And this is why the scripture says, from henceforth let no man trouble me, because when a man understands what the resurrection has done, he stops giving room to what has already been defeated.

Jesus has risen because there was no way death could hold Him, and in the same way, our lives have risen in Him, because in Him we live, in Him we move, and in Him we have our being, and because we are in Him, we are a new creation, the old is gone, and the new has come.

So when we say the tomb is empty, we are not just talking about where He was laid, we are declaring what our lives have become.

Empty of troubles.
Empty of sickness.
Empty of anything that resembles death.

Because He lives forever; And so do we.

Thank God for Jesus.