One of my least favorite things is reaching for something only to find it empty. Toilet paper is high on the list and so is laundry detergent.
Empty means used up, no more, gone. Empty is almost never a good thing.
Imagine the women coming to anoint Jesus and finding the tomb empty. What were their first thoughts? “Someone has taken him away!” Grave robbers were a common thing at that time. Tombs were typically only for the wealthy who were buried with symbols of their wealth like coins or jewels. Since Jesus was laid in the tomb of wealthy Joseph of Arimathea’s, the assumption could have been made that it, being recently closed was for a person of means and probably had some good stuff in it.
And in fact, for a while the grave did have some good in it. It held Jesus’ earthly body. Until it didn’t.
Like everything else he touched, Jesus even changed the way to look at the concept of empty. Not only the tomb that held him for a very little while, but He emptied people too. Of demon possession, of illnesses and deformities, of a craving for wealth, of loneliness and exclusion.
The difference with Jesus is that he didn’t leave things empty. He filled the empty spaces with Himself, especially the empty spaces in us.
Jesus began filling people with himself that Easter morning over 2000 years ago and continues today. That’s what I think of when hear the phrase “eternal life”, being filled with Christ forever. Never empty again.
Sr Kathy Curtis