A VISIT TO THE TOMB – Charles Spurgeon
A Visit to the Tomb
Introduction
“He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” — Matthew 28:6.
The holy women, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, came to the sepulcher, hoping to find there the body of their Lord, which they intended to embalm. Their intention was good, and their will was accepted before God. But, for all that, their desire was not gratified. It was contrary to God’s design. It was at variance with even what Christ had foretold and plainly declared to them: “He is not here; for He is risen, as He said.”
I gather from this that there may be good desires in our hearts as Believers, and we may earnestly try to carry them out, yet we may never succeed in them, because through our ignorance we have not understood, or through our obliviousness we have happened to forget, some Word of Christ that stands in our way. I have known this to be the case in prayer. We have prayed, and we have not received, because we had no warrant in the Word of God to ask the thing we did. Perhaps there was some prohibition in the Scriptures, which ought to have restrained us from offering the prayer.
Good Desires and God’s Design
We have thought in our daily life, amidst the pursuits of business, that if we could gain such-and-such a position, then we would honor God. And though we have sought it vigorously and prayed about it earnestly, we have never gained it. God had never intended that we should. And, had we succeeded in compassing our own project, it might have been evil rather than advantageous, an entail of trouble instead of a heritage of joy. We were seeking great things for ourselves, we forgot that expostulation of the Lord, “Do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not.”
Do not, therefore, expect to realize all those desires which seem to you to be pure and proper. They may not happen to run in the right channel. It may be that there is a Word from the Lord that forbids your ever seeing them brought to pass.
Loss and Gain in God’s Providence
These good women found that they had lost the Presence of Him who had been their greatest delight. “He is not here” must have sounded like a funeral knell to them. They expected to find Him, but He was gone. But then the grief must have been taken out of their hearts when it was added, “He is risen.” I gather from this that if God takes away from me any one good thing, He will be sure to justify Himself in having done so, and that very frequently He will magnify His Grace by giving me something infinitely better!
Did Mary think it would be a good thing to find the dead body of her Lord? Perhaps it would have given her a kind of melancholy satisfaction, or so she thought according to her poor judgment. The Lord took that good thing away, but then Christ was risen, and now to hear of Him, then presently to see Him—was not that an infinitely better thing?
The Value of Loss
Have you lost anything of late around which your heart had twisted all its tendrils? You shall find that there is good cause for the loss; the Lord never takes away a silver blessing without intending to confer on us a golden gain! Depend upon it; for wood He will give iron, and for iron He will give brass, and for brass He will give silver, and for silver He will give gold! All His taking is but preliminary to a larger giving!
God’s Blessings in Loss
Have you lost your child? What if you find your Lord dearer than ever? One smile of your Lord will be better to you than all the cheerful frolics of your child; is He not better to you than 10 sons? Have you lost the familiar companion who once cheered you along the valley of life? You shall now, by that loss, be driven closer to your Savior! His Promises shall be sweeter to you, and the Blessed Spirit shall reveal His Truth more clearly to you; you shall be a gainer by your loss.
There is many a plant that has been protected by a great tree whose spreading branches covered it from the drenching rain and the downfall of hail; but the tree has been cut down by the cruel woodman’s axe, and at the fall of that tree, the little plant has been ready to cry out for fear! Henceforth it will remain unprotected; not so! These sad bodings quickly vanish, for now the sun has come upon it as it never came before, and the dews have fallen more plenteously, and the rain has penetrated to its roots; and the little tender plant springs up to a stature it could never otherwise have known, seeing it was dwarfed by the comfort it enjoyed! You shall find that full many of the comforts taken from you were drawbacks to your high culture, and in the absence of them, you shall get an abundant compensation, a tenfold blessing!
Christ Is Risen: The Comfort of the Resurrection
“He is not here”—that is sorrowful; but, “He is risen”—this is gladsome! Christ, the dead One, you cannot see; you cannot tenderly embalm that blessed body; but Christ, the Living One, you shall see! And at His feet, you shall be able to prostrate yourself, and from His lips, you shall hear the gladsome words, “Go, tell My Brethren that I am risen from the dead!”
That lesson may be worth your remembering! If God applies it to your soul, it may yield you rich comfort! Should the Lord take away one joy from you, He will give you another and a better one; “He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” You never, without intending their real good, deny your children any pure gratification. How many of you have a way, when you put your child into a little self-denial, of making it up to him again so that he is no loser by it? And your heavenly Father will deal quite as gently and tenderly with you, His children!
The Assurance of Resurrection
With these two preliminary remarks, we proceed to our Text itself. And it may be well to say that some of us have been, this afternoon, to the funeral of a dear friend and deacon of this Church; and as such, the thoughts that stir in our breasts, and the words that will flow from our lips this evening would be more appropriate if the open grave were before us. Let us stand there in imagination, and conceive, if you will, even yonder bell—though it often hinders our devotions so that I wonder why any Christian people need annoy other Christian people with it—to be a funeral knell for us. Let it help to bear us on the wings of sound to the grave, so that we may the better realize the position in which these meditations will be congruous to the occasion.
The Text contains, first of all, an assurance; and secondly, an invitation. First, an assurance: “He is not here, for He is risen”; secondly, an invitation: “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”
The Assurance: “He is Not Here”
The assurance—“He is not here, for He is risen.” Jesus Christ has really RISEN FROM THE DEAD. Though superficial scholars have tried to prove that this well-attested fact is but a fabulous myth, there is not one Doctrine of Holy Writ which has not been, in like manner, spirited away. At first, they denied outright that such things ever happened, and said that they were a pure invention; but afterwards, when abundant evidence was brought to prove a Resurrection, this gross incredulity gave place to a more refined skepticism. Yet beyond a doubt, it can be shown that there is as much evidence for the Resurrection of Christ as for any fact in history! There is probably no fact in history which is so fully proven and corroborated as the fact that Jesus of Nazareth, who was nailed to the Cross and died, and was buried, did rise again!
As we believe the histories of Julius Caesar; as we accept the statements of Tacitus, we are bound on the same grounds, even as historical documents, to accept the testimony of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and of those persons who were eyewitnesses of His death, and who saw Him after He had risen from the dead. That Jesus Christ rose from the dead is not an allegory and a symbol, but a reality! There He lay dead—friend or foe to witness; a corpse fit to be committed to the grave. Handle Him and see.
The Evidence of the Resurrection
It is the very Christ you knew in life. It is the very same! Look into those eyes; were there ever such eyes in any other human form? Behold Him! You can see the impress of sorrow on His face; was there ever any visage so marred as His, any sorrow so real in its effects? That is the Emperor of misery, the Prince of all mourners, the King of sorrow! There He lies, unmistakably the same. Now, mark the nail prints; there went the iron through those blessed hands, and there His feet were pierced; and there is the gash that found out the pericardium, and divided the heart; and brought forth the marvelous blood and water from His side! It is He, the same Christ!
And the holy women lifted limb by limb, and wrapped Him in linen, and put the spices about Him, such as they had brought in their haste. And they lay Him down in that place—in that new tomb. Now, let it be known and understood that our faith is that those very limbs that lay stiff and cold in death, became warm with life again; that the very body with its bones, and blood, and flesh which lay there, became again instinct with life, and came forth into a glorious existence!
Those hands broke the piece of honeycomb, and the fish in the presence of the disciples; and those lips partook of the same. And He held out those wounds, and said, “Reach here your finger, and put it into the print of the nails.” And He bared His side, the same side, and said, “Reach here your hand, and thrust it into My side and be not faithless, but believing.” He was no phantom, no spectra! As He Himself said, “A spirit has not flesh and bones as you see I have.” He was a real Man as much after the Resurrection as He had been before! And He is real Man in Glory now, even as He was when here below! He has gone up—the cloud has received Him out of our sight. The same Christ who asked Peter, “Do you love Me?”—the same Jesus who said to all His disciples, “Come and dine”—a real Man has really risen from a real death into a real life!
The Power of Christ’s Resurrection for Us
Now we always need to have that Doctrine stated to us plainly, for though we believe it, we do not always realize it, and even if we have realized it, it is good to hear it again so as to let our minds be confirmed about it. The Resurrection is as literal a fact as any other fact stated in history, and is so to be believed among us. “He is not here: for He has risen.”
The Promise of Our Resurrection
Pursue the narrative, Beloved, and you will see that when our Lord Jesus Christ had risen on that occasion, being quickened from the slumbers of death, it was not only true that He had really risen from the sepulcher, but He had risen in order to His being further raised up in His ascension into the Glory which He now possesses at the right hand of the Father! When He had burst the iron bonds of the grave, the disciples had this for their consolation—that He was now beyond the reach of His enemies.
During the few days that our Lord lingered, none of His enemies attempted to do Him harm; against Him not a dog dare move his tongue! We can scarcely tell why, but so it was; there seemed to be a remarkable acquiescence in the minds of all His foes during the time in which He sojourned among His people below. He was beyond the reach of His enemies; they could hurt Him no more. And it is so now! He is not here, in another sense, and He is now beyond the reach of all His malignant adversaries. Does not this cheer you? It does me. Now no Judas can betray the Master to be seized by Roman guards; no Pilate can now take Him, and bribe justice, and give Him over to be crucified though he knows Him to be innocent! No Herod can now mock Him with his men of war; no soldiers can now spit in His dear face; now none can buffet Him, or blindfold Him, and say to Him, “Prophesy who it is that struck You!”
The head, the dear majestic head of Jesus can never be crowned with thorns again, and the busy feet that ran on errands of mercy can never be pierced by the nails any more! Men shall no longer strip Him naked, and stand and exult over His agonies; He is gone beyond their reach! Now they may rail and seek to spite Him through His people who are the members of His body; now they may rage, but God has set Him at His own right hand, and He is inaccessible to their malice!
Christ, Our Advocate and Protector
It comforts me, just as I think it would comfort the soldier in the day of battle when he saw the fight going very hard, to feel that the commander whom he loved was out of bullets’ range. “There,” he would say, “you may strike us as you will; the bullets may rain red death through our ranks, but our commander-in-chief, upon whom all the conflict hangs, is safe.”
Oh, blessed are those words, and blessed was the pen that wrote them, and blessed was the Spirit who dictated them—“Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in Heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father”!
It matters not, dear Brothers and Sisters, what becomes of us poor common soldiers; we feel as if our being slandered, our being disgraced, our being persecuted, our being put to death would not matter the turn of a straw in view of the momentous issues, as long as our beloved Master that once was crowned with thorns is crowned now with Glory! And so long as He who stood at Pilate’s bar to be condemned now sits on His Father’s Throne, waiting till He shall come to judge the princes and kings of the earth, it matters not what we suffer for Him!
Christ’s Resurrection: Our Guarantee of Eternal Life
With regard to our Lord’s not being here, but having risen, it should console us to think that He is now beyond all pain, as well as beyond all personal attack. I comforted myself in thus reflecting of our friend who is lately deceased. He was struck, as many of you know, with sudden paralysis, and he had lain so some six weeks. If it had pleased God, he might have lain six years, or 16 years, and it would have been a very painful thing to see him with life still in the body, but with a mind sorely darkened. We are thankful—I feel personally grateful to God, that our friend has fallen asleep; that he has escaped from the miseries of this present evil life.
But how much more grateful ought we to be concerning our dear Lord, whom our soul loves! Oh, can you bear to think of Him, that He had not where to lay His head? Who among us would not have left his couch to give Him a night’s rest? Yes, and have forsworn the bed forever if we might have given Him soft repose! Would we not, ourselves, have fallen to the hillside, and been there all night till our head was wet with dew, if we might have gained rest for Him?
He is worth 10,000 times 10,000 of us, and did it not seem as if it were too much for Him to have to suffer—to be homeless and houseless? He was hungry, Brothers and Sisters! He was thirsty! He was weary! He was faint! He suffered our sicknesses; we are told that He took them upon Himself. Often had He heartache; He knew what “cold mountains and the midnight air” were to chill the body, and He knew what the bleak atmosphere and bitter privation were to freeze the soul! He passed through innumerable griefs and woes; from the first blood-shedding at His birth, down to the last blood-shedding at His death, it seemed as if sorrow had marked Him as her peculiar Child. Always was He troubled, tempted, vexed, assailed, assaulted, molested by Satan, by wicked men, and by the evils that are without! Now there is no more of that for Him, and we are glad that He is not here for that reason.
Christ’s Glory: The Joy of His People
He is no Child of poverty now! There is no carpenter’s shop for Him now! No longer for Him is the smock frock of the peasant, woven from the top throughout; no longer the mountainside and heather for His resting place; no more jeering crowds around Him, now! No stones to stone Him, now! No sitting at the well, weary and saying, “Give Me a drink.” There is no longer a need that He should be supplied with food when He is hungry. No more, Brothers and Sisters, scourging and flagellations! No more will He give “His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.” No piercing His hands and His feet, now! No burning thirst upon the bloody tree—no cry of, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!”
God’s waves and billows went over Him once, but no more can they assail Him! He was brought into the dust of death, and His Soul was once exceedingly sorrowful—now He is beyond all that! The sea is passed, and He has come to the Fair Havens where no storms can beat upon Him; He has reached His joy! He has entered into His rest, and He has received His reward! Brothers and Sisters, let us be glad about this! Let us enter into the joy of our Lord! Let us be glad because He is glad; happy because He is happy! Oh that we might feel our hearts leaping within us though we, for a little while longer, are on the field of battle, because He is clean gone from it, and now is acknowledged and adored King of kings, and Lord of lords!
Get Up and Let All Your Sweetest Incense Go Towards Him Who “Is Not Here, For He Is Risen”
Introduction
I must leave that point and come, with a few words, to speak upon the second point, which is an invitation: “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”
Not, Beloved, that I am going to take you to Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb; about that I shall not speak much. But I think any tomb might suffice to point to the same sacred moral. I felt this afternoon, while I stood by the open grave in Norwood Cemetery, as though I heard a voice saying, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” It does not matter much to us about the precise spot. He lay in the grave—that is the prominent fact that preaches to us a pithy sermon. Any grave may well suit our purpose. In the little town of Campodolcino, I once realized the tomb of Christ very vividly in an affair which had been built for Catholic pilgrims. I was upon the hillside, and I saw written upon a wall, these words, “And there was a garden.” It was written in Latin. I pushed open the door of this garden; it was like any other garden, but the moment I entered, there was a sign with the words, “And in the garden there was a new tomb.” Then I saw a tomb which had been newly painted, and when I came up to it, I read on it, “A new tomb wherein never man lay.” I then stooped down to look inside the tomb, and I read in Latin the inscription, “Stooping down, he looked, yet went he not in.” But there were the words written, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”
I went in, and I saw there, engraved in stone, the napkin and the linen clothes laid by themselves; I was all alone, and I read the words, “He is not here, for He is risen,” engraved on the floor of the tomb. Though I dread anything scenic and histrionic and popish, yet certainly I realized very much the reality of the scene—as I have this afternoon in standing before the open tomb. I felt that Jesus Christ was really buried, really laid in the earth, and has really gone out of it. And it is good for us to come and see the place where Jesus lay.
The Call to See
Why should we see it? Well, first, that we may see how condescending He was that ever He should lay in the grave. He who made Heaven and earth lay in the grave! He who gave light to angels‘ eyes lay in the darkness for three days! He slept in the darkness there. He, without whom was not anything made that was made, was given up to death, and lay a Victim of death there! Oh, wonder of wonders! Marvel of marvels! He who had Immortality and Life within Himself, yields Himself up to the place of death! “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”
Weeping Over Sin
In the next place, come to see how we ought to weep over the sin that laid Him there. Did I make the Savior lie in the grave? Was it necessary that before my sin could be put away, my sweet Prince, whose beauties enchant all Heaven, must be chill and cold in death, and actually be laid in the tomb? Must it be so? O you murderous sins! You murderous sins! You cruel and cursed sins! Did you slay my Savior? Did you tear apart that tender heart? Could you never be content until you had led Him to His death, and laid Him there? Oh, come and weep as you see the place where the Lord lay!
A Sobering Reflection on Mortality
“Come, see the place where the Lord lay,” that you may see where you will have to lie unless the Lord should come on a sudden. You may take the measure of that tomb, for that is where you will have to repose; it does us good to remember, if we have great estates, that six feet of earth is all that will ever be our permanent freehold. We shall have to come to it; that solitary mound with two spears’ length of level ground— “Princes, this clay must be your bed, In spite of all your towers! The tall, the wise, the reverent head Must lie as low as ours.” There is no discharge in this war. To the dust, we must return. So, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay” to see that you must lie there, too.
Good Company in Death
And then, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay,” to see what good company you will have there! That is where Jesus lay—doesn’t that comfort you?— “Why should the Christian fear the day That lands him in the tomb? There the dear flesh of Jesus lay, And left a long perfume.” What more appropriate chamber for a Prince’s son to go to sleep in than the Prince’s own tomb? There slept Emmanuel! There, my body, you may be well content to sleep, too! What more royal couch can you desire than the bosom of that same Mother Earth where the Savior was laid to rest for a while?
The Comfort of Christ’s Resurrection
Think, Beloved, of the 10,000s of saints that have gone that way to Heaven! Who shall dread to go where all the flock have gone? You one poor timid sheep, if you, alone, had to go through this dark valley, you might well be afraid, but oh, in addition to your Shepherd who marches at the head of all the flock, listen to the footsteps of the innumerable sheep that follow Him! And some were very dear to you, and fed in the same pasture with you; do you dread to go where they have gone? No, see the place where Jesus lay to see what good company is to be had, though it may seem to be in a dark chamber.
The Assurance of Resurrection
“Come, see the place where the Lord lay,” to see that you cannot lie there long. It is not the place where Jesus is! He is gone, and you are to be with Him where He is! Come and look at this tomb. There is no door to it; there was one—it was a huge rock, a monstrous stone, and none could move it. It was sealed. Can you see how they have set the stamp of the Sanhedrim, the stamp of the Law upon the seal to make it sure that none should move it? But now, if you will go to the place where Jesus lay, the seal is broken, the guards are fled, the stone is gone!
Such will your tomb be! It is true they will cover you up, and lay on the sods of green turf, but if you are wise you will prefer these things to the heavy slabs of stone they sometimes lay upon the dead. That sweet mound, with here and there a daisy like the eye of earth looking up to Heaven asking mercy, or smiling in joy of expectation—there, there will you sleep! But just as in the morning you do but open your eyes, and the curtains are opened, and you come forth, none standing in your way, to do the labor of the day, so when the trumpet of the Resurrection sounds, you will rise out of your bed in perfect liberty, none hindering you, to see the light of the day that shall go no more down forever! You have nothing to confine you! Bolt and bar there are none! Guard and watchman none! Stone and seal none!
The Freedom of the Resurrection
“Come, see the place where Jesus lay.” I would not care to go to bed in a prison where there stood a guard with his iron key to fasten me in; but I am not afraid to go to sleep in the chamber out of which I can come at the morning’s call a perfectly free man! And such are you, Beloved, if you be a Believer! You come to lie in a place that is open and free; a fit slumbering place for the Lord’s free men!
Celebrating the Triumph Over Death
“Come, see the place where the Lord lay,” in order to celebrate the triumph over death. If Miriam sang at the Red Sea, we also may sing at Jesus’ tomb; if she said, “Sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously,” shall not we say the same? If all the hosts of Israel went out with her; the women with dances, and the strong men with their voices in the song, so let all Israel go forth this day and bless and praise the Lord, saying, “O Death, where is your sting? O Grave, where is your victory?”
The place where Jesus lay has told us that— “Vain the watch, the stone, the seal! Christ has burst the gates of Hell.” Now let us sing unto Him, and give Him all the praise.
The Path to Resurrection Life
I was thinking to say to you, Beloved, let us come and see the place where Jesus lay to weep there for our sins. Let us come and see the place where Jesus lay to die there to our sins. Let us come and see the place where Jesus lay to be buried there with Him. Let us come and see the place where Jesus lay to rise from that place to newness of life, and find our way through resurrection-life into the ascension-life in which we shall sit in the heavenly places, and look down upon the things of earth with joyous contempt, knowing that He has lifted us up far above them, and made us to be partakers of brighter bliss than this earth can ever know! But I will forbear.
Conclusion
I am finished. I would to God that all here present had some share in this! You all have a share in dying! There is a tree growing out of which your coffin will be made, or perhaps it is already cut down and seasoning against the time when it shall make you a timber suit—the last suit that you shall ever need! There is a spot of earth that must be shoveled out for you to be laid into to fill up the vacuum; but your soul shall live—your soul shall never die!
Let not those who tell you of annihilation be believed for a moment! It must exist. Put it to yourself whether it shall be with the worm that never dies, and the fire that never shall be quenched, or with Christ who lives in His Glory, and who shall come a second time to give Glory to His people and raise their bodies like His own! Oh, it will all hinge on this—“Do you believe in Jesus?” If you do, you may welcome life, and welcome death, and welcome resurrection, and welcome immortality! But if you believe not, then a blast has come upon you, and to you it is terrible to die! It is terrible, even, to live—but more terrible to die! It will be terrible to rise again! It will be terrible to be damned, and that forever! God save you from it, for Christ’s sake! Amen.