Emptiness.  Not nothingness, emptiness.  The lack of finding what one expects or looks for in a particular place.  In a glass it would be a lack of liquid, there is something there, air, just not what you want or expect to find.  One might say their bank account is empty because they have no money left in it, yet in reality it isn’t a container, so it can’t really “hold” anything.  Yet that emptiness is rather significant to that person.

A person might say they feel empty inside.  A person is never empty, they are filled with all sorts of things, from blood to bones.  What they are conveying is a feeling, an abstract thought, something we can all comprehend despite knowing this emptiness is not a physical state.  Emptiness means a lot to them in that moment.

There was an emptiness that was discovered by two woman one day.  They had gone to a tomb, only to discover upon entering it that it was empty. While wondering “suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” (Luke 24:4-7)

The woman returned to the others, and upon telling them, the others did not believe because it sounded like nonsense.  (Luke 24:11) Yet Peter went to the Tomb with them.  He discovered it was not completely empty, for in it they found strips of linen lying by themselves. (Luke 24:12)  They did not however find what they expected to find.  They did not find the body of Jesus Christ, who had been laid there after His crucifixion.  He was dead, so they thought, yet his body was gone!  The tomb was empty.  Where was it?  Emptiness meant everything in those moments!!  Peter went away wondering to himself what had happened.

Peter’s questions were answered when Christ first appeared to the 2 men on the road to Emmaus, and then to the Eleven Disciples.  That Emptiness in the tomb meant everything because Christ was alive, He was Risen!  Emptiness means a lot sometimes, but in this case it means everything.  The prophecies they had been taught just came true.  Jesus Christ had just fulfilled them.  His resurrection completed the requirement for us to have life.  Emptiness was no longer something for them to wonder about, it was something for them to praise God for, and be marveled by.  The same is true today, we ought to marvel over that emptiness, because it means everything!  We should praise God for His marvelous power that made death nothing so that the emptiness could be possible, so that we could have life.