Easter Sunday — That First Easter... I Was There
Day 28: We Were the Ones the Tomb Was Emptied For
Day 28: We Were the Ones the Tomb Was Emptied For
Matthew 28:1-10; Romans 4:25; 2 Corinthians 5:21
Introduction
The stone was rolled away.
Not to let Jesus out — He had already left. The stone was rolled away so that we could look in. So that the women could step inside and find the folded grave clothes and the two angels and the absence that would change everything. So that Peter could stoop and enter and wonder. So that the whole world, across all the centuries that would follow, could peer into an empty tomb and be confronted with the question that has no comfortable middle ground:
If this is true — what does it change?
Everything. It changes everything!
We have spent twenty-seven days looking into mirrors. We have seen ourselves in the crowd that shouted Hosanna and then crucified Him. In the disciples who slept in the garden and fled at the arrest. In Peter warming himself at the fire, in Judas counting silver, in Pilate washing his hands, in the soldiers casting lots. We have seen our fickleness, our self-protection, our capacity for betrayal dressed up as something more respectable. We have been there at every turn — not as casual observers, but as participants.
And now we are here. Easter morning. The tomb is empty.
And the empty tomb is not despite us. It is for us.
This is the day the whole story was building toward. Not just the resurrection of Jesus — though that alone would be the most significant event in human history. But the resurrection of everything the Jesus accomplished on the cross. The Father’s verdict spoken over the Son. The exchange made complete. The power of sin and death broken at its root. And us — complicit, fickle, beloved us — standing at an open tomb with our names written all over the reason it had to happen.
We were there that first Easter. We are the ones the tomb was emptied for.
Scripture
¹ After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. ² There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³ His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. ⁴ The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
⁵ The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. ⁶ He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. ⁷ Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”
⁸ So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.
— Matthew 28:1-8 (NIV)
He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
— Romans 4:25 (NIV)
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
— 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV)
Reflection
The Father’s Verdict
The cross, taken alone, looks like defeat.
A man executed by the state. Abandoned by his friends. Mocked by the crowd. Buried in a borrowed tomb. If the story ends on Friday, it ends as tragedy — one more prophet silenced, one more flame extinguished by the machinery of empire and religion.
But the Father had the last word. And the last word was the empty tomb.
When Jesus came up out of the water at His baptism, the Father’s voice broke through: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” A declaration of identity. A commissioning for the work ahead. And now, on the other side of everything — the temptation, the ministry, the betrayal, the cross, the death, the three days of silence — the resurrection is the Father speaking again.
Well done. Mission accomplished. This is my beloved Son — and in Him I am well pleased.
Paul puts it precisely in Romans: Jesus “was raised to life for our justification.” The resurrection is not separate from the cross — it is the Father’s public declaration that the cross worked. That the payment was accepted. That the debt has been cleared. That what Jesus said from the cross — “It is finished” — was not the last gasp of a defeated man but the triumphant declaration of a completed mission.
The empty tomb is the Father’s receipt. The transaction is confirmed - Paid in Full. The redemption of creation has begun.
And that redemption is not a small thing. It is not merely the forgiveness of individual sins, though it is that completely. It is the reversal of everything that went wrong at the beginning — the restoration of the relationship between Creator and creation that sin had fractured. Easter Sunday is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of the end of everything broken. The first day of the new creation.
The Exchange
Here is what the cross accomplished that the resurrection confirmed:
Jesus, who had never sinned — not once, not in the garden of temptation, not in thirty-three years of fully human life — took every sin of every person who would ever live and carried it to the cross. Our pride and our cowardice. Our betrayals dressed as wisdom and our denials dressed as self-preservation. The fickleness of the Palm Sunday crowd. The self-absorption of the disciples at the Last Supper. The cold calculation of the religious leaders. The indifference of the soldiers. Everything we have seen in these mirrors over twenty-seven days — He took all of it.
And in exchange, He offers us His righteousness. Not a cleaned-up version of who we already are. His. The righteousness of the Son of God, credited to our account as if it were our own.
This is the exchange: our sin for His righteousness. Our death for His life. Our condemnation for His justification. Paul says it in a single breath — “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
We were there at the cross. Our sin held Him there — every denial, every betrayal, every sleeping in the garden and hand-washing in the courtyard and coin-counting in the temple. We were the reason the nails were necessary. And we were the reason He stayed.
Not because we deserved it. Because He loved us with a love that the cross could not exhaust and the tomb could not contain.
The Victory
The resurrection did not merely confirm what the cross accomplished. It destroyed what sin had built.
Death was the ultimate weapon. The final word that silenced prophets and ended movements and kept humanity imprisoned in the certainty that nothing — not love, not goodness, not God Himself made flesh — could survive its verdict. And then Jesus walked out of the tomb, and death lost its finality, its power forever.
Paul would later write from experience: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Not as a question but as a taunt — the triumphant declaration of someone standing on the other side of the battle, looking back at a defeated enemy. Colossians says Jesus made a public spectacle of the powers and authorities of darkness, triumphing over them by the cross.
This is not just a historical victory. It is a present one.
The resurrection broke the power of sin and death not just at the end of history but in the middle of it — in your life, today, this Easter morning. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the power that is available to everyone who is in Him. Not the promise of a perfect life. Not immunity from suffering or loss or the long, grinding difficulty of being human. But the certain, already-secured, nothing-can-reverse-it victory of a God who has looked death in the face and walked out the other side.
You do not fight toward victory. You fight from it. The tomb is already empty.
We Were the Ones the Tomb Was Emptied For
Every “we were there” in this series has named our guilt. Today names our belovedness.
We were there in the 400 years of silence, filling the quiet with our own noise. We were there in the Palm Sunday crowd, fickle and expectant. We were there in the upper room, arguing about greatness while Jesus broke the bread. We were there in the garden, asleep while he anguished. We were there in the courtyard, denying. We were there at Golgotha — in the crowd, at the cross, casting lots, walking away, while the King of Glory died.
And we were there in the purpose behind all of it. We were the object. We were the reason. The beloved, broken, complicit, irreplaceable reason that God did not stay in heaven but came down. Did not stay celestial, unearthly but became flesh and lived among us. Did not enforce His divine prerogatives but went obediently to the cross and paid a debt we could not pay and bridge a chasm we could never traverse.
The mirrors we have been looking into for twenty-seven days were never meant to condemn us. They were meant to show us how completely and specifically we are loved — not a generic, distant, abstract love, but a love that knew exactly what it was getting into when it came for us, and came anyway.
That first Easter, Jesus rose for every person who would ever look into the mirror of the gospel and recognize themselves. For every Peter who went back to fishing. For every Thomas drawing conditions around a breaking heart. For every Mary weeping outside a tomb. For every criminal with empty hands and a simple request. For every secret disciple who finally stepped into the light too late and found that grace had been waiting there all along.
For you. Specifically. By name.
We were there that first Easter. We were the crowd and the disciples and the deniers and the doubters and the grieving and the lost. And we were the ones the tomb was emptied for.
The stone has been rolled away. Come and see the place where He lay.
He is not here. He has risen.
Just as He said.
Grace Note
“And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.” — Romans 8:11 (NIV)
The power that emptied the tomb is not a historical force locked in the first century. It is a present, living, indwelling reality for everyone who belongs to Christ. The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you — not just as a comfort, but as a power. The resurrection is not just something that happened. It is something that is happening, in you, right now, on this Easter morning and every morning that follows. - This is The Way
Prayer Prompt
Jesus,
I have spent twenty-seven days looking into the mirrors. I have seen myself clearly — more clearly, perhaps, than I have in a long time. The fickleness and the self-protection. The sleeping in gardens and the denying at fires. The ways I have traded You for less, kept faith private, walked in the wrong direction, gone back to the boat.
And now I am here. Easter morning. The tomb is empty.
Thank You. For staying on the cross when You could have come down. For taking everything the mirrors showed us — all of it, every specific, named, recognized failure — and carrying it there so we wouldn’t have to carry it anymore. For the exchange that is almost too good to believe: my sin for Your righteousness. My death for Your life.
Thank You that the Father’s verdict is in. That the receipt has been stamped, Paid in Full. That what You declared finished on Friday the empty tomb confirmed on Sunday.
I receive it today. Not as a theological proposition but as a living reality — for me, specifically, by name, in the particular shape of my particular life. The tomb was emptied for me. The power that raised You is living in me. The call You spoke to Peter on the beach You are speaking again now.
You are risen. You have risen for me. Amen.
Response
1. Receive the Exchange: Today, do one thing differently than you have for twenty-seven days — instead of looking in the mirror, look at the cross. Take the specific failure or pattern you have been most convicted by in this series and consciously hand it over. Not as a transaction you have to complete correctly, but as the simple act of open hands: This is mine. You already took it. I receive what You offer in return. The exchange is already complete. Receive it.
2. Declare the Victory: The resurrection is not just a belief to hold — it is a reality to proclaim. Today, say it out loud. To yourself, to your family, to someone who needs to hear it. Not as a religious formality but as the most important fact in human history: He is risen. Speak it into whatever your Friday looks like right now — the grief, the uncertainty, the unanswered prayer, the tomb that still feels sealed. The declaration is not dependent on your circumstances. It is the ground beneath them.
3. Carry the Fire Forward: The women left the tomb afraid yet filled with joy, and ran. That is the posture this series ends on — not arrived, not resolved, not having figured everything out, but moving. Carrying something too good and too urgent to keep to yourself. Who in your life needs to hear what you have encountered in these twenty-eight days? Not a summary of the devotionals — but the living reality underneath them in you. A God who knew exactly who you were and came anyway. A tomb that was emptied for you. A risen Christ who is still speaking names into grief, still cooking breakfast for the ones who went back to fishing, still walking through locked doors for the ones who couldn’t get there yet. Go and tell someone.
To read all the posts in this devotional series, visit: That First Easter... I Was There
One last thing — Please
If this series has meant something to you over these twenty-eight days — if you’ve seen yourself in these stories, received grace you needed, or found the Easter story feeling less familiar and more alive — I’d love to hear about it.
Leave a comment below. It doesn’t have to be long. Just tell me: where did you find yourself in the story? Which mirror was hardest to look into? Where did grace land?
And if someone in your life needs to walk this road — a friend carrying a burden, someone who has drifted, someone who has never heard it told this way — share it with them. Restack it. Pass it on. The journey is worth taking from the beginning, and it will be here whenever they’re ready.
He is risen. Go and tell someone.
© Steve Peschke / This Is The Way