From: Francis Harper
wbfrmsup@iowatelecom.net
Francis Harper Message for 4/10/2020
The Empty Tomb
From the beginning of time men have asked, “If a man die shall he live again?” (Job 14:14). Then one morning a little less than two thousand years ago, some women came to the tomb of their loved one and found it empty. At first they feared that He had been carried away, but they were told to fear not, for he had risen. This empty tomb belonged to Jesus Christ.
No longer do people need to wonder and question about death and beyond. The resurrection of Jesus Christ answers the age-old questions about the mysteries of death and life eternal. By using his life as a pattern, we have the key to life everlasting. “For God so loved the world that he gave his Only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish; but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:21-22).
Being human, some may question the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ but the fact of His resurrection is real. It is not “a cunningly devised fable” (2 Peter 1:16). Historians, in explaining the origin of the Christian Church find that if Jesus Christ had not risen from the dead the church would have died with Him. The resurrection gave the disciples proof they could not deny, that Jesus was indeed the Son of God and all that he had taught them was of God. Paul said Jesus was declared the Son of God with power, by the Spirit according to the truth through the resurrection of the dead” (Romans 1:4).
The Lord’s resurrection gives us proof of our own! As Paul said, we can say, “Thanks be to God,” for “the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? (1 Corinthians 15:54-57).
The disciples of Jesus were very discouraged. They had already gone back to fishing, although Jesus had been dead only a few days. “Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a-fishing. They say unto him, we also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing” (John 21:3).
The rest of John’s account is that the disciple’s boat was about two cubits from shore [100 yards, the length of a football field]. They could see a person standing on the shore. It was Jesus, but they could not identify him at that distance. The stranger shouted: Have you caught anything? After they answered “No,” they were told, with a voice of authority, to cast their nets on the right side of their boat. Immediately their nets were filled with some of the largest fish they had ever caught on this lake.
Most of these men were professional fishermen. They knew they had just witnessed another miracle, similar to the one they had experienced before (Luke 5:4-10). John said to Peter, “It is the Lord. Now when Simon heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher’s coat unto him, and did cast himself into the sea” (John 21:7).
Peter did not wait for the ship to reach the shore. Can you imagine the meeting of this sinner with the Savior? This sacred meeting is depicted by two statues at the place called Saint Peter’s Landing on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee near Capernaum. Peter is kneeling at the feet of Jesus. Twice I have visited there. Each time I could identify with the feelings of this disciple who denied the Lord Jesus three times. On my knees, I heard the inaudible voice speaking again, “. . . lovest thou me more than these?” (John 21:15).
“This is now the third time that Jesus showed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead” (John 21:14). His tomb is still empty! He still lives and we too shall live – eternally!
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Dear Ones,
The Lord arranged tour guide service for us during our visit to Israel in January of 1990. A week or so before our departure a neighbor, Ralph Tucker, asked if he could do some gleaning in our popcorn fields. In our conversation I told him of our plans to visit the Holy Land. He told me of his friend, Merlin Hunter, who had served as pastor of the Church of the Nazarene in Nazareth for five years and would be returning in January. Ralph said he would inform Merlin of our visit. It was becoming obvious that the Lord was going to be our travel agent during this journey.
When we arrived at Jerusalem’s Holyland West Hotel, we learned that Merlin had left his telephone number for us. Our plan was to spend one week in Jerusalem and the second week in other parts of the country, including Nazareth. It was Merlin who gave us a wonderful two day tour of the area surrounding the Sea of Galilee during our second week in Israel. In addition to Nazareth, we visited Cana, Capernaum, Mount Tabor and other points of interest such as St. Peter’s Landing. Now back to the first week of our visit in Israel.
Shortly after our arrival at the hotel in Jerusalem, a young man approached us and asked if we were from the “Mid-West”? I answered “Yes, we’re from Iowa.” He smiled as he said, “My name is Kent Sahlstrom, I graduated from the University of Iowa Medical School. Then he offered to serve as our tour guide to visit some of the most significant Holy places in Jerusalem. He spent two days with us. The two most memorable sites we visited were Hezekiah’s Tunnel and the Garden Tomb, near Golgotha. Hezekiah was king during the days of Isaiah. His tunnel was a water conduit, constructed to supply water to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. In times of war their water supply would still be available. We walked in the tunnel which had been chiseled through solid rock more than 1,000 years ago, without the pneumatic hammer-chisels, workmen use today!
The most memorable site of all that we visited is described in John 19:41-42. “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulcher . . . there laid they Jesus . . . for the sepulcher was nigh at hand.” The place of the crucifixion [the skull shaped hill] and the resurrection [the Garden Tomb] of Jesus Christ; the most significant events in all of the history of man, are located side by side, separated by only a few yards.
At our first glimpse of the Garden Tomb, Randy Killpack and I looked at one another and without a word being spoken, we knew each other’s thoughts. Immediately, at the same moment, we felt the Holy Spirit’s confirmation that we were in the place where Jesus was brought for his burial and the place of his Resurrection.
I had often wondered about the question asked by the women as they walked toward the sepulcher at the rising of the sun: “Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulcher?” (Mark 16:2 IV; 16:3 KJV). One glance at the tomb and I understood. I noticed that a 1’ x 2’ grove had been hewn as a part of the sepulcher to serve as a trough for a large stone wheel that could be rolled back and forth to open and close the opening into the tomb. The trough is sufficiently deep to keep the gigantic stone from tipping.
A few months after we had returned from Israel, I met the Biblical Archaeologist Ronald Wyatt. I asked him, “Do you believe the Garden Tomb, located near the Damascus Gate, and immediately outside of the wall of the old city of Jerusalem is the tomb in which Jesus was buried and from which he was resurrected?” He answered, “I know it is.”
He explained that to the left and a little above the opening into the tomb, he had discovered the end of an iron rod which he was confident had been driven through the large wheel stone and into the rock wall of the tomb, thus sealing it. No man could enter in, or exit from the tomb. I was an eye-witness of a portion of the sheared rod still embedded in the rock wall of the tomb during my 1991 visit in Jerusalem.
Eighteen to twenty feet below the present base of the hill called Golgotha [the place of the skull] Wyatt found, and partially uncovered, an immense hewn stone that measured thirteen feet in diameter and about two feet in thickness. It was the correct width to fit the trough directly in front of the Garden Tomb! This was the conclusive piece of evidence proving that the sepulcher known as the Garden Tomb is the empty tomb of Jesus Christ. The same power that raised Lazarus and Jesus from the dead, rolled the stone away for the women who came seeking the living among the dead: The angels asked, “Why seek ye the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:4).
My Love to All,
High Priest Francis Harper
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