He is not here, for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
Women come to the grave expecting to care for a body. Instead an angel meets them with news and an invitation. The angel's words are short, but each one lands. The tomb is empty. The rising happened just as He promised. And he invites the women to look at the spot themselves.
Who Raised Him
An angel comes down and rolls the stone away. But one commentator warns that none of this is what brought the Lord out of the grave.
The Lord was not in the tomb on this last occasion, and the angel, coming down and rolling away the stone, had nothing directly to do with the Lord's rising. He needed no such help. God raised Him, and He Himself rose — taking up His life as He had laid it down. Such is the teaching of Scripture about the resurrection. The angel did this to turn people's attention to God's act in raising Jesus. It also swept aside the lies and arguments of His enemies.
So why move the stone at all?
The two disciples reach the tomb and find it empty. An angel had come down and rolled the stone away from the door. To let the Lord out? Far from it! It was to let you and me look in and see an empty tomb. Then we can know that we have a risen, victorious, triumphant Saviour. He has taken the sting from death and robbed the grave of its victory.
As He Said
The angel does not simply report an event. He ties it back to a promise the Lord had already made.
He had told them that He would rise again. He had now done it. That confirmed all His words and proved He was worthy of their fullest confidence. We too can let our fears go and put our confidence in Him again. His own words tell us that not one small stroke of His word will fail. He is risen — that is the pledge. Death mocks what people claim and brings their words and works to nothing. But our Saviour lives as Victor over death. He will bring about everything the prophets said about Him and everything He has said about us.
The same writer takes the angel's sentence apart clause by clause, and finds a portrait of Christ in it.
See how the glorious worth of our Lord comes out in the angel's words. YOU SEEK JESUS — His personal preciousness. WHO WAS CRUCIFIED — His matchless love. HE IS RISEN — His glorious power. AS HE SAID — His absolute trustworthiness.
Come and See
The angel does not ask the women to trust a report from a distance. He brings them right up to the evidence.
I suppose the angel took them by the hand and led them to the door of the tomb. They are to face not death but an empty tomb, the witness of resurrection. How people shrink from this! I have seen believer after believer who, when death came into view, was quite upset. Why? Because they have not stayed with this chapter and heard the words, "Come, see the place where He lay." And what is there to see? Death annulled. That is the point. A risen Christ is to fill the horizon of our souls with peace.
Their looking had a purpose beyond their own comfort, and the stakes of what they saw could not be higher.
They were to be witnesses of this great event to the disciples. So they had to see the empty tomb with their own eyes. At the angel's invitation, they did. One man claimed, with great arrogance, that the Lord did not rise from the dead, and that His body still lies somewhere near Calvary. His own death has since ended his blasphemies. If that is so, the Christian faith is a delusion and a trap, and all those who have fallen asleep in the joy of it have perished. "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20).
Where He Lay
The angel's choice of tense is worth noticing, and it sets the direction for anyone who wants to find Him now.
Notice how the angel speaks: not "where the Lord lies." Do we take in that He is not here? Then we will want to know Him where He is. How good it is to keep company with Mary Magdalene. His absence made her a mourner. It made the world an empty place for her. She wept, "because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him." He was the great Object of her affections, and losing Him left her desolate. Thank God, we feel His absence from the world. But Scripture teaches us that we have not lost Him. We have gained Him in another place.
Summary
- Not here — No one rolled the stone back to release Him. He had already risen. The tomb was opened so that people could look in.
- Risen — God raised Him, and He took up His life again Himself. The angel's part was to point to that act and silence the arguments of enemies.
- As promised — The rising confirms His word. So we can trust everything the prophets said about Him and everything He said about us.
- Come, see — The angel led the women to the evidence so they could be witnesses. There they saw death annulled and a risen Christ filling the horizon with peace.
- Not lost — The past tense sends the heart onward. He is absent from here, but not lost. We seek Him where He now is.