The book of Matthew tells how Jesus’ body was placed in a borrowed tomb. For the first time in my life I thought about the tomb being borrowed. I often reflected on how much Joseph of Arimathaea must have loved Jesus to go to Pilate and beg for His body, so it could have a proper burial. But I never thought about the grave being borrowed. When one borrows something it is temporary. You borrow a book from the library and then you return it. You borrow a tool from a friend and you return it when you no longer have a need for it. (At least most of us do.) God knew that Jesus would rise from the dead on the third day. So a borrowed tomb was all that was needed!

The point here is that we do serve a risen, living Lord who intercedes for us. The grave was only temporary. Death was defeated through the resurrection.

The grave is temporary for all of us. One day our bodies may go into a grave, but our souls are not bound by the grave. One must ask, “What will happen to my soul? Where will I spend eternity?” Heaven and hell are real places. Just as we cannot understand how wonderful heaven is neither can we imagine how horrible hell is.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 16th, 2006 at 1:51 pm and is filed under eLife. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.