What does First B Jackson teach about empty tomb?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First Baptist Jackson, the teaching on the empty tomb starts with why the fact itself matters. The resurrection is not one detail among many in the Christian story. Pastor Carl has described it as the hinge on which the entire gospel turns. God created human beings for relationship with himself, sin fractured that relationship, and no human effort or religious system could repair it permanently. The empty tomb is the evidence that God's answer actually worked: Jesus died as the perfect, once-for-all sacrifice and rose again, which is why the promise in John 14:19 holds for anyone who believes.
Carl pays close attention to the people who came to the tomb and what they found there. Mary Magdalene arrived while it was still dark, driven by devoted love and with no plan for moving the stone. Peter went straight inside, consistent with everything we know about his character. John looked in, then entered, and when he saw the undisturbed grave cloths lying there, he believed. Carl has pointed to those grave cloths as meaningful evidence: grave robbers would have had no reason to unwrap a body and every reason to hurry, and John included the detail deliberately, because the whole purpose of his gospel is to bring readers to belief.
Pastor Steve, preaching on the same passage on an earlier Easter, pressed on what the empty tomb did to the people who encountered it. Mary the mourner became Mary the missionary. Peter, whose last face-to-face moment with Jesus before the resurrection was the night he denied Him, was turned from a penitent into a preacher. The disciples hiding behind locked doors became the people who spread the gospel across the world. Thomas, whom we call the doubter, made what Pastor Steve called the strongest confession of Jesus' deity in the entire New Testament: 'My Lord and my God.' The empty tomb, in the teaching at this church, is not a point to be argued and set aside. It is something that changes who a person is and what they are sent to do.
Taught from John 20:1-18 · 1 Corinthians 15 · John 14:19 · John 20:30-31 · Matthew 28
The passage taught · 1 Corinthians 15
1 Now I declare to you, brothers, the Good News which I preached to you, which also you received, in which you also stand,
2 by which also you are saved, if you hold firmly the word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- April 20, 2025 He Is Not Here: The Tomb Is Empty A Wyoming pastor walks through John 20 on Easter Sunday, tracing Mary Magdalene's grief and joy at the empty tomb and explaining why the resurrection matters for everyone.
- April 20, 2025 He Is Not Here, He Is Risen Carl walks through John 20:1-18 on Resurrection Sunday, showing what the empty tomb, the grave cloths, and Mary hearing her name meant for those first witnesses and means for us.
- March 31, 2013 Easter Sunday, From John 20, Morning Praise (2) Easter sermon from John 20 on the empty tomb, Christ's resurrection, and His mandate to carry God's message of love and forgiveness to the world.