The Empty Sepulchre

John 20.1-10 (KJV)

20:1 The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
20:2 Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.
20:3 Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre.
20:4 So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.
20:5 And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in.
20:6 Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,
20:7 And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
20:8 Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed.
20:9 For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.
20:10 Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.

Dulverton Sermon

The Easter Gospel according to John in this KJ version retains the old word 'sepulchre' and uses it 7 times in 10 verses. Other translations use 'tomb' or 'grave'.

As Lent began this year I was reading a novel by Kate Mosse called 'Sepulchre'. The chapters flip back and forth between 1891 and 2007. In 2007 a young woman has a Tarot card reading in Paris which leads her to an hotel on the edge of a wood outside a town in southern France. There she makes connection with a young woman of 1891 when the hotel was a private residence. The contemporary Meredith begins to find links between hereself and Leone who was staying at the house more than a century earlier. In the woods is a ruined sepulchre which links both their lives back another hundred years to dark events which occurred there. It is a mystery of murder, revenge, and obsession which continues to affect their connected lives across the centuries. It is a story of influences from beyond the grave but it is no gospel story.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands in Jerusalem, built over the traditional sites where our Lord was crucified and his body laid. As a pilgrim I have knelt at the place of the cross and crept inside the sepulchre the venerate the marble slab where the body was laid. From this sepulchre, for more than 2000 years, resurrection life has reverberated across the centuries in countless Christian lives. From beyond death this is a gospel story.

On 16th February 1977, Archbishop Janani Luwum of Uganda had a meeting with President Idi Amin, whose murderous regime he had opposed outspokenly. After the meeting, the Archbishop was driven away, along with two government ministers. Uganda Radio announced that the three of them had been arrested, and the following morning it was stated that they had died in a car accident. In fact, they had been shot on the orders of Amin. A funeral service planned for the following Sunday was forbidden by the government, and the Archbishop's body was not released. Nevertheless, thousands gathered at the cathedral and the service went ahead around an open grave. Standing over the empty grave, Luwum's successor, Archbishop Wani, repeated the message of the angel that was spoken on the first Easter day: "He is not here. He is risen." Yet another empty sepulchre speaking of resurrection life and power in the name of Jesus.

"The disciple whom Jesus loved.....went into the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed." So the love of God has drawn us too to the Lord's risen presence in places and people where he is not to be seen physically, but he is to be seen spiritually by those who believe. We have seen and we have believed. Christ is risen, he is risen indeed!

Our testimony to this faith and experience is in our baptism into his death and resurrection. We too are an Easter people. So today we replace the recitation of the creed with the renewal of our baptismal vows.