Charles Spurgeon on the Resurrection

“To the women [who came to the tomb] there were three difficulties. The stone of itself was huge; it was stamped with the seal of the law; it was guarded by the representatives of power. To mankind there were the same three difficulties. Death itself was a huge stone not to be moved by any strength known to mortals. That death was evidently sent of God as a penalty for offences against his law - how could it therefore be averted, how removed? The red seal of God's vengeance was set upon that sepulcher’s mouth - how should that seal be broken? Who could roll the stone away? Moreover, demon forces, and powers of death, were watching the sepulcher to prevent escape - who could encounter these and bear departed souls like a prey from between the lion's teeth? It was a dreary question, ‘Who shall roll us away the stone from the sepulcher? Can these dry bones live (Ezek. 37:3)? Shall our departed ones be restored to us? Can the multitudes of our race who have gone down to Hades ever return from the land of midnight and confusion?’ So asked all heathendom, ‘Who?’ and echo answered, ‘Who?’

“No answer was given to sages and kings, but the women who loved the Savior found an answer. They came to the tomb of Christ, but it was empty, for Jesus had risen. Here is the answer to the world's enquiry - there is another life; bodies will live again, for Jesus lives. O mourning Rachel, refusing to be comforted (Matt. 2:18), ‘Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy’ (Jer. 31:16). Sorrow no longer, ye mourners, around the grave, as those that are without hope; for since Jesus Christ is risen, the dead in Christ shall rise also. Wipe away those tears, for the believer's grave is no longer the place for lamentations, it is but the passage to immortality; it is but the robing-room in which the spirit shall put aside for awhile her garments, travel-worn with her earthly journey, to put them on again on a brighter morrow, when they shall be fair and white as no fuller on earth could make them.”