"UP From The Grave He Arose" ?

A few years ago, a letter appeared in the national news that was sent to a deceased person by the Indiana Department of Social Services. It read as follows: "Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances." Well, except for an occasional Lazarus, there haven’t been too many who have seen a change in those circumstances! I got a chuckle when I read that letter. We know what we want to say, but sometimes in our haste or a lack of knowledge, it just doesn’t come out right. Growing up in the church there was one song we sang allot before communion and always sang on Easter. Bass singers loved it. Can you guess what it was? Yep, "Up From The Grave He Arose". Our heritage, for the most part, has been to put the dead in the ground. But we know today that Jesus and many in the first century, were put in tombs that where holes in the side of a hill. Sure does ruin a good song, but at the same time it helps us understand, "rolling the stone away". I would never want to take anything away from the death of Jesus on the Cross, but without a resurrection, His death would have been just that, another death on a cross. A Moslem said to a Christian, "We Moslems have one thing you Christians do not have. When we go to Medina (Saudi Arabia), we find a coffin and know that that Mohammed lived because his body is in it. But when, you Christians go to Jerusalem, you find nothing but an empty tomb." "Thank you!" exclaimed the Christian. "What you say is absolutely true, and that makes the eternal difference. The reason we find an empty tomb is because we serve a risen Christ." The most beautiful words in scripture to me are, "He is not here, for He has risen" Matt. 28:6a. From that point on, nothing would ever be the same.