More Than A Full Basket… How The Empty Tomb Leads to Fullness of Life

This is a guest post by one of our team members – Marcia Hartman. We love her insights into what Easter means.

The students in an ESL class that I teach have been learning opposite word pairs:  short and tall, hot and cold, empty and full. We decided that given the choice, we’d all choose full over empty, especially when it comes to our wallets and gas tanks!

As opposites, it’s rare for “full” and “empty” to converge, except in Christ. Colossians 2:9 declares that all the fullness of God was literally embodied in Christ, yet it was in the emptying of Himself, the giving up of divine privilege, that this fullness was made manifest.  As the very lifeblood was emptied from that human vessel of divinity, Jesus poured out full forgiveness, full salvation, full access to God, and life to the full for all who choose it.

There will be full baskets this Easter. There will be overflow seating in churches, lawns full of eggs to hunt, and dinner tables filled with food and family. But eventually all of those things will empty, and they may even lead to emptiness.

In contrast, the true celebration of Easter comes from the fulfillment of the promised resurrection evidenced in the empty tomb. Because of what Christ has done for us, God is able to “fill until full” the empty places in our lives that we give to Him. Easter celebrates the choice of full over empty, and it’s a choice that we’ve all been given.

This Easter, take a moment to consider this awe-inspiring choice we were given. How can remembering the connection between the full and the empty change the way you live?

^“Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Because of his great mercy he gave us new life by raising Jesus Christ from death. This fills us with a living hope, and so we look forward to possessing the rich blessings that God keeps for his people. He keeps them for you in heaven, where they cannot decay or spoil or fade away.”

1 Peter 1:3-4 Good News Translation (GNT)

If you’d like to read more about the fullness of life in Christ, one of these CLC Publications may be the life-changing resource that you’re looking: 

The Calvary Road:  “Roy Hession teaches that through brokenness, humility, and confession, we can prepare our hearts to receive the fullness God wants for us.”

Victory in Christ:  Charles Trumbull “reveals insights into the full reality of our victory in Christ, who has achieved by the power of His work on the cross, the freedom that every believer desires.”

The Two Covenants:  “In a series of eighteen meditations contrasting the Old Covenant with the New Covenant, Andrew Murray shows us the blessings God has given us, along with the conditions necessary for the full and continual experiences of those blessings.”

The Seven Wounds of Christ:  “Fred Hartley shares how Christ’s wounds on the cross represent the fullness of His atonement and how, individually, each wound corresponds to distinct healing for us.”