April 7

“Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb” — Mark 16:2

The women did not find the body of Jesus in the grave. Suppose they had found it there, still held in the power of death; suppose that Jesus had never risen; what would have been the consequences? It would have been as if the sun and moon and stars were all to be blotted from the sky, or as if they had all set one day and never risen again.

Paul tells us in his immortal chapter on the resurrection, what our loss would be, should it be found that Christ did not rise. “If Christ has not been raised, then is our preaching vain; your faith also is vain. … You are yet in your sins!” Paul had preached of a Savior who died for men’s sins–and then rose for their justification; but if Christ yet lay in the power of death, his sacrifice for sin had not availed.

If you were imprisoned in some great fortress, and one who loved you went forth to try to rescue you, and fell and died fighting upon the walls, you would cherish the memory of your friend’s valiant effort on your behalf–but you would still remain undelivered. So would it have been with those whom Christ came to save, if he had perished in death and had not risen. He would have been defeated in his great effort, and those for whom he died would have remained without deliverance!