He is not here. Mark 16:6

             The words above were spoken to a group of women who had come to the tomb of Jesus to give the body of dead Jesus a special anointing.  When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. (Mark 16:1) They wanted to show their love and devotion to Jesus.

             The body was not there!  Where was it?  What had happened to the dead Jesus? Why was the tomb where Jesus had been buried now empty?  It had been only three days and the grave was guarded by trained solders who would watch carefully that nothing happened to that body.

The chief priests and Pharisees were afraid that his disciples may come and steal the body. After the body went missing, they paid the soldiers large sums of money to say His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.

Now when I am asleep it is difficult to identify people who come and go during the night.  These soldiers can identify the disciples, and testify that they stole the body of Jesus while they are asleep.  Quiet a testimony for the day.  Certainly answers all the questions about why the tomb is empty.

If he is not in the tomb, where is he?  If the disciples have not stolen the body maybe his enemies did?  When Jesus was proclaimed as risen from the dead would not his enemies bring the body and say “you believe a lie”.

If he is not in the tomb, where is he?  Maybe the angel was right when he declared, “He is risen from the dead.” But go, tell his disciples and Peter, He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.

If Jesus is no longer in the tomb, he is alive and working to get us to the place where he is now.  He is not here, he is alive and working all things out for His people to come and be with him forever in our new resurrection body.