Two thousand years on, an empty tomb in Jerusalem still demands an explanation. We revisit the evidence, the theories, and the reason this single historical claim continues to shape billions of lives around the world.
01Why an Empty Tomb Changed the World
Every Easter, billions of people celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. But strip away the chocolate eggs and the bank holiday, and you're left with a claim that sounds outrageous: a dead man walked out of his grave. Matt Edmundson explores why that claim matters so much, what it meant for the first people who encountered it, and why the empty tomb is still the central question of the Christian faith.
02Two Women Who Went Anyway
The Easter story in the Gospels begins not with triumph but with grief. Two women — both called Mary — go to the tomb on Sunday morning to anoint Jesus's body. This was the custom at the time. They weren't expecting a miracle. They were expecting a corpse.
Matt highlights something about these women that's easy to miss: they went anyway. Their hero had been executed. Everything they'd hoped for had died with him. Their expectations of what Jesus would do had been completely shattered. But they still showed up to care for him.
"Despite everything around them now being hopeless and seemingly destroyed, they still went to minister to Jesus," Matt says. "Even though Jesus at that point was not meeting their expectations."
Then everything changes. There's an earthquake. An angel appears — face shining like lightning, clothes white as snow. The Roman guards stationed at the tomb faint on the spot. And the angel delivers the most world-altering news in human history: "He isn't here. He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen."
03Why the Stone Was Rolled Away
Matt asks a question that sounds simple but reveals something important: why did the angel roll away the stone?
It wasn't to let Jesus out. As the rest of the story makes clear, the risen Jesus doesn't need stones moved for him — he appears and disappears wherever he likes. The stone was rolled away so that the women could see in. So they could verify for themselves that the tomb was empty.
"The angel is both telling them that Christ has risen and showing them that Christ has risen," Matt explains. "Come see where his body was lying."
This matters because the empty tomb is the foundation everything else rests on. As Matt puts it bluntly: "If Christ just died but wasn't raised from the dead, then Christianity has a huge problem." He quotes 1 Corinthians: "If Christ has not been raised, then all of our preaching is useless and your faith is useless." The Bible itself says that without the resurrection, the whole thing falls apart.
04The Most Unlikely Witnesses
Here's something about the Easter story that historians find genuinely interesting. The first witnesses to the resurrection were women.
In first-century Jewish culture, women's testimony wasn't considered credible. They couldn't serve as legal witnesses. If you were inventing a story and wanted people to believe it, you would never choose women as your primary witnesses. It would undermine your credibility from the start.
And yet that's exactly what happened. God entrusted the most important news in human history to the people society considered least trustworthy.
Matt draws out the significance: "When the world, the culture, the society — even the women themselves — had told them that their voice was not as important, God sent an angel to talk to them and let them know that their voice did count and that they were worth something."
The disciples, when they heard the news from the women, didn't believe them. Which is exactly what you'd expect from that culture. But the women were right, and the men were wrong. It's a pattern that runs through the whole Gospel — God choosing the unlikely, the overlooked, the underestimated.
05The Most Understated Greeting in History
Matt saves what he calls "perhaps the most understated part of scripture" for the emotional high point of his talk. After the women leave the tomb, Jesus meets them. And the text simply says: "Jesus met them and greeted them."
"Imagine it," Matt says. "You meet the risen Christ for the first time. Angels are around. The stone has been rolled away. The tomb is empty because the guy who was dead — you saw him die — is now stood in front of you. And the first thing he says is... hi."
The women run to him, grasp his feet, and worship him. It's the only reasonable response. And it's why Christians still worship him two thousand years later — not because they're following a tradition, but because when you encounter the risen Jesus, worship is the natural reaction.
06A Before and After Story
During the service, Chris Kent shares his personal story. Raised in a chaotic home with violence and addiction, expelled from boarding school, arrested for breaking into a shop — his life was falling apart by age fifteen. Then his mum became a Christian, and the change in her was undeniable. Chris gave his life to Jesus and describes the difference it's made: "I live with a sense of peace and knowledge that I'm loved by God, that I'm his child, and that he's for me and he's always with me."
Sally reflects on this in the conversation: every Christian has a before and after. Whatever the circumstances, there's the person you were before you encountered the risen Jesus, and the person you became afterwards. That transformation is the ongoing evidence of the resurrection.
07Grace — When You Have Nothing to Give
Sally shares a definition of grace that she finds particularly powerful: "Love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return."
She admits that accepting grace is harder than it sounds, especially in a culture where everything feels transactional. "Sometimes you just don't think we're worthy of this sacrifice. It feels a bit too big, a bit too much. But that's the whole point — and that's okay."
Matt agrees that grace is something Christians can spend years getting their heads around. But at its heart, it's simple: grace isn't about what you do. It's about what he did.
08Things You Can Do This Week
Face the empty tomb question honestly. If you're exploring Christianity, the resurrection is the claim to investigate. Look at the evidence — the empty tomb, the eyewitnesses, the transformation of the disciples from terrified deserters to people willing to die for what they'd seen. Make up your own mind.
Show up anyway. Mary and Mary went to the tomb even when everything seemed hopeless. If you're in a season where faith feels pointless or God feels distant, keep showing up. Sometimes the breakthrough comes when you least expect it.
Tell someone your story. Chris Kent's testimony is powerful because it's real. If you have a before-and-after story with God, share it with someone this week. You don't need to be polished. Just be honest.
Sit with the greeting. The risen Jesus didn't deliver a lecture or a list of instructions. He said hello. If your picture of God is stern and demanding, consider that the first thing he did after conquering death was warmly greet two grieving women. What does that tell you about his character?
09The Invitation Still Stands
The empty tomb isn't just a historical event. It's an ongoing invitation. Matt traces the journey of Mary and Mary — from hearing about the resurrection to being invited to see it for themselves, to meeting the risen Jesus face to face. That same journey is available to anyone.
Two thousand years later, the tomb is still empty. The question is still the same. And the greeting — that simple, understated, life-changing "hello" — is still being offered.
What would it look like to accept it?
View Full Transcript
so hmm ah uh my oh do well good afternoon welcome to great how's your easter sunday going so far yeah really good thank you we've had a brilliant day so far we've done uh easter egg hunting in the garden you're never too old for that let me tell you girls will tell you that um my 18 year old said to me are we going to have an easter egg hunt this year like please can we have an easter egg hunt this year yeah of course you know let's put some chocolates in the garden definitely like i've missed a trick there so i feel yeah and uh we've also we've watched my nephew be baptized this morning from his church down in bath which is as absolutely amazing fantastic yeah yeah congratulations seb that's awesome getting baptized on issa sunday is particularly special i feel like if you're gonna get baptized do it on easter sunday it makes a lot of sense so well done seb well so we definitely did not have the easter egg hunt uh i feel like we've grown out of that and maybe we should go back in you never grow out of it come on surely you would even be happy running around the garden you have no idea i'm all for it that's that's not that's not a problem for me i'm definitely excited and chocolate at the same time [Laughter] absolutely speaking of easter eggs out i've got one for you i'll have you yeah it's right here it's right here do you think we could do that thing the christmas magic thing do you think we could try that easter do you think it works at easter go on let's give it a go have you got the special button oh oh oh oh oh oh he hasn't got the special bunnies look at that thank you as if i would buy you the cheap stuff cell as if well i hope you know better than that matt absolutely well listen everybody of you watching welcome to crowd church live stream it's great to have you here happy happy easter easter is the best day in the christian calendar so we're very excited about it it's great that you could join us wherever you are in the world watching us uh it's brilliant you can join with us as we do this live stream please do say hi in the comments uh be great to connect with you great to hear from you matt crew here has put excellent so we're going to get all the easter puns coming along loving it thank you matt yeah we just really want to give you a warm welcome today and hope that you feel really at home with us on this easter sunday afternoon let's just say hello to a few people that are in the comments already hi nicola and sharon great to see you patrick great to have you with us this afternoon matt james you are all very welcome and if you're watching this later on as well we hope that you get loads out of it and feel really welcome too but you know what i am loving this week matt uh i'm against the sunshine i am loving the sunshine but more than that there's no echo on the livestream there is no echo there is no echo on the livestream right i got ready for the sunshine sorry i was going to be excited no no it wasn't the sunshine map was that it was the echo right yeah but you know tell the 80s they can have their glasses back no i worked hard to get these glasses i tell you i'll have you know these are these okay write in the comments if you like my sunglasses yes or no i just i think they're cool but then maybe it's just me maybe it's just me see how brilliant it is about the echo when i can say say whatever when you can riff i'm gonna bring that echo back if you get too cheeky i just want you to know i'm not at the bottom okay okay matt i think that you should share before we carry on a little bit more i think you should share your t-shirt with us that looks pretty special special t-shirt you've got on today i just need to queue something up here to show you my t-shirt because okay we need a bit of background music ready everybody is oh yes welcome to easter and you'll congratu congratulations to me by the way putting that song in everybody's head yeah that'll be it now for the rest of the day won't it we'll all be we'll be coming back to that song thinking where where have i heard that today you heard it here so should we tell everybody what's coming up today then matt absolutely so if you are new to crowd let me let me just explain a little bit about what's going on so sal and i are going to host the service today we're going to be going live till probably around 4 50 i'm guessing somewhere in there five o'clock uh we usually go less than an hour and during this hour we are going to have uh a talk um with me and my bunny t-shirt we're going to look at what the easter story is we've got some worship and reflection time coming up which will last about five minutes and then we've got the q a time sale where you and i get to have a lovely conversation about all things to do with the easter story i hope you're prepared absolutely yeah really prepared for that ready to go but also we want to know what you want us to discuss so if you've got a question about easter or something to do with what matt says in his talk or anything really then please pop it in the comments and we will do our best to get to your question during our question and answer time so definitely or we've got the whatsapp number haven't we met we have we make them well done so there we go i just can't do it i don't want to do it not by the comments another way then please feel free to use the whatsapp number we'd also love to pray for you if you've got anything that needs praying for we'd love to do that so please get in touch with us any way you like we'd love to hear from you yeah absolutely it'd be great to pray for you especially if you're sick and you need healing just let us know uh we would definitely love to pray for you there or if you like sal and can't actually point down and have issues it's not that everything's everything's reversed oh watching south trying to point to the whatsapp number is really funny it's because everything does get back to front on the cameras i i do have to explain to people why you're struggling with this but it's just really funny watching you trying to point to that number go on one last time i won't point to it anymore i'll just i'll just kind of there you go we can move swiftly on indeed so let me just explain to you a bit about crowd if you're new to crowd we are an online church for those that might not see the point of church i want to know more about jesus and how he can help us live a meaningful life everybody is welcome here uh regardless of where you're at on your christian journey you know on the um on the post that we put explaining that we've got the easter service coming up there are some really interesting questions and comments going on and it was great to see those you know just really fascinating so thank you for joining those conversations uh keep them coming in the comments during this live stream it'll be great to connect with you and hear from you absolutely and you know if you've got a question then then probably lots of other people have got that same question as well so do feel free to pop that in and we will do our best to certainly chat about it and bring up some different answers that you might not have thought about before so should we get straight into it then matt i think we should now let me give a little bit of a background into this now again if you're new to crowd what we have been doing is we have been working our way through mark's gospel which is in fact the oldest gospel in the new testament and it was written by a chap called mark who was in effect described for peter one of the disciples of jesus and we've been working our way through that and today we're kind of pausing as we talk about easter now we're almost at the end of the story in mark where we get to the easter story so this is kind of like an advance an advanced look if you like you kind of you're almost at the end of the book and you just skip in through a few chapters to find out what's going on because it's getting somewhere it's a sneak peek that's exactly the phrase i was looking for so thank you and then we're going to be coming back aren't we matt to look at some of the elements of um the easter story in a bit more detail absolutely yes we are so this is kind of the sneak peek the following weeks we're going to get into it into a whole bit but we're going to play a video for you now then we're going to get into the talk my advice is this right if you are listening to this on your headphones turn them up a little bit because you want good quality loud sound while this video is playing not too loud that you make yourself deaf or turn your speakers up uh to get the full effect of what's going on i'll be back in a few seconds time to do the talk and then uh sal and i'll be back after this so shall we crack on let's do it let's do it me wow just wow i mean i get goosebumps watching that video i don't know about you but it reminds me over and over again of the victory that is in christ which is just amazing that's for sure it's the most life-changing stuff right so let's get into why that's so and why the empty tomb matters now as we saw in the video mary and mary went to the tomb on that first easter sunday morning okay they were going there to anoint jesus body because this was the custom at the time but kind of imagine how mary and mary are feeling right now right their hero their savior has just been killed in the most horrific way right they thought he was gonna change everything they thought uh you know he was gonna rule the world but all of their dreams and hopes kind of died along with him as he lay there in the tomb but here's the thing right here's the thing which has stands me about mary and mary they went anyway they just went and this is an important part of the story because despite everything around them now being hopeless and kind of seemingly destroyed they still went to minister to jesus even though jesus at that point was not meeting their expectations i mean that had to be hard i mean really really hard for them to do and i kind of have i suppose a picture in my head of of these two broken-hearted ladies with sort of tears of pain and grief rolling down their face when they meet the angel whose face doesn't have tears and grief down the bible tells us it was shining like lightning and his clothing was as white as snow as he appears there on the sort of on this sort of tomb and there's this great earthquake that's going on around them i mean it's just this is not this is not what mary and mary are expecting oh no i mean if you think about their checklist of likely outcomes as they go to the tomb this is not what they were thinking was going to happen at all our story seems to have taken what can only be described as a very interesting turn as i'm sure we can all agree now here's the other fascinating thing the gods uh stationed around the tomb right they were there because they were to sort of guard the tomb the roman authorities feared that people would come and steal jesus's body so the gods are there watching this and they see this they feel the earthquake they see the angel rolling away the stone like a bowling ball at least in my head and you know what they do oh they faint oh yes good going guys they kind of fall over right and that just amuses me i don't know why it just does but the angel says to mary i know you are looking for jesus who was crucified he isn't here he is risen from the dead just as he said would happen oh yes hold the press right this is the bit of news they were definitely not expecting to hear right and it's fascinating to me imagine what's going on right let me ask you a question this is an interesting question for me why did the angel roll away the stone from the entrance of the tomb why did he do that well it certainly wasn't to let jesus out right i mean that's going to be obvious as we read the rest of the story but it certainly wasn't to let jesus out so the only conclusion i can come to is that it was to let the women see in to let them see that the tomb was in fact empty and so the angel is both telling them that christ has in fact risen and he shows them that christ has in fact risen come see where his body was lying the angel says come and have a look come see for yourself the two women who were looking for jesus come face to face with the reality of an empty tomb with the fact that jesus isn't there anymore he is risen and just like mary and mary as we ourselves look for jesus and grapple with the idea of his divinity we have to face the empty tomb we come face to face a face to faith face to face i can't even say face to face with this whole idea of the resurrection and face face to faith actually works in that sentence as well and this is actually why the empty tomb matters okay because if the tomb wasn't empty there would be no resurrection we wouldn't have to face and if christ just died but wasn't raised from the dead well then christianity actually has a huge problem to deal with it's like isn't the resurrection 100 gold-plated rubbish someone once asked and this i think is a great question because in my mind it's probably the question to ask especially if you're looking for jesus if you're kind of on that journey like mary and mary were you see the bible talks about this right and it says in the book of corinthians if christ has not been raised then all of our preaching is useless and your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins wow i mean if there is no resurrection right there is no christian faith it's useless the bible tells us it's useless and that's why the empty tomb matters so if you are looking into the christian faith then one of the things you should do is study the resurrection look at the evidence for the empty tomb in fact is there any evidence for it now what i can tell you is sharon my amazing and beautiful wife is going to be talking about this in just a few weeks time as we carry on our journey through mark's gospel uh she's going to come to that and go through it in much more detail so make sure you like the facebook page subscribe on youtube or you know head to the website crowd.church and join the email list and we'll let you know when that's coming out because you're not going to want to miss it let me tell you it's going to be great stuff as we look at the evidence for the resurrection now like mary and mary i personally had to face the empty tomb people told me that christ was risen and then when i was about 18 it was as if i too was seeing that empty tomb it was as if the angel kind of invited me in and i saw it for myself i heard it and then i saw it in fact this was such a real experience for me it's changed my life in irrevocable ways and not just mine let's be real right there are billions of christians out there including scientists and medical professionals teachers academics office workers tree surgeons mums dads farmers fishermen people who are unemployed poets artists missionaries all of them have faced the empty tomb and had their lives transformed because of the resurrection right that moment in time when christ defeated death where victory came out of tragedy and where life really truly begins especially meaningful life and it's and it is the story also of mary and mary right look at what happens next to these two women the angel tells them go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead and he is going ahead of you to galilee you will see him there remember what i have told you now we could rock and roll on this whole conversation that the angel is having with mary and mary but i do want to point something out here that isn't immediately obvious uh when we read this conversation but it is i mean insanely important to our discussion if i'm honest with you and it's as simple as this mary and mary are women now i appreciate this is not rocket science i appreciate this is not a new revelation and it may even sound a little bit odd so hear me out on this right because at the time women were treated incredibly badly they were not treated as equals they were lesser people in every way right in society and in that culture so if you wanted to create some kind of credible witness to an event especially something as monumental as the empty tomb well then logic would dictate you simply don't choose women why because they weren't credible no one would believe them no one listened to them at their detriment i must point out and we know this right because the disciples when they were told the men who were grieving right and who were who were lost they didn't believe mary and mary because women weren't credible yet these two women become the first evangelist to the cause the resurrection and you see we kind of have three mary's talked about in scripture the two of the tomb and mary jesus's mother right and they they seem to be bookending the life of jesus mary was there at the start and these two marries are there at the end right and god put the most incredible news the most life-altering events the most uh insane amazing fantastic message into the hands of the least credible the least trustworthy the least recognized people in humanity and society at the time and that kick-started a huge change in our human history that's brilliant isn't it when the world the culture the society the men even the women themselves had told them uh told themselves that their voice was not as important it was not as important as others that their worth was not as high as others god sent an angel to talk to them and let them know that their voice did count and that they were worth something oh it's great isn't it but let me tell you it gets better right the women ran quickly from the tomb they were very frightened but also filled with great joy and they rushed to give the disciples the angels message they were very frightened but also filled with great joy i bet they were i bet they were frightened right when you come face to face with the empty tomb it is actually something to fear something to being aurob to reverence it is very real and has very very definite consequences that cannot be taken lightly but it also comes with great joy and i find that this is a really interesting description of the christian life it is one we live or should live in fear and reverence of god that he is god god almighty that he is worthy of our respect in so many ways it's why we call him lord but alongside that we've been filled with great joy that there is an awesome and holy god that knows me personally and i can know him i mean that's insane in itself right it is reverential and it is joyful and that is the christian faith and so that's mary mary right there reverential and joyful and they get ready to run to the disciples and then jesus met them oh my goodness i mean oh my goodness can you imagine this scene can you picture what is actually happening here the risen christ the risen jesus the risen lord met them and there is something in that right that when we look for jesus we find an empty tomb and in seeing that he has been raised from the dead he meets us it is nothing short of remarkable he met them and he met them first the women he chose them first let that sink in and then perhaps what is the most understated part of scripture it reads jesus met them and greeted them i mean it's great isn't it imagine that right imagine it you meet the risen christ for the first time he is standing there right in front of you angels are around right the stone has been rolled away the tomb is empty because the guy who was dead you saw die is now stood in front of you and the first thing he says is hi i love it i love it hi just great hi mary mary how you doing how are you doing girls he greets us right search is the love of god to his people he greets us he greets you he greets me and you know what they ran to him grasped his feet and worshiped him no kidding that's what they did right and that's why christians still worship him 2 000 years later when you meet the risen christ and you sense his greeting and his pleasure to be with you you do the only thing you know to do you worship him it is the natural response now i love that this first story of i just love this first story of easter not only because of the victory of jesus not only because we we understand that christ has been risen from the dead all the implications of that but because we can look at the journey of mary and mary and see our own story wherever we come from whatever our family or our friends or our career we come to a place of facing the empty tomb we can go from just hearing about the resurrection of christ to being invited into the resurrection of christ from merely standing on the outside to being invited in and in that place we meet christ and we meet him often in an understated but life-altering way a place where the risen god the king of the universe the creator of the world the sustainer of life in all his glory and in all his victory simply greets us he becomes a friend who says he becomes our lord worthy of our reverence and our worship and he becomes the source of the greatest joy and hope in our lives that's the story of easter and that's why the empty tomb matters thank you matt uh a brilliant talk there i love the video at the beginning so powerful and loads to think about loads for us to um get chatting about after the worship so if you've got some questions then do put them in the comments because we'd love to have a talk about the things that you're really wanting to pull out of that talk so do let us know so matt talks there about the before and the after didn't he about you know the mary's their their life before jesus had risen and then their life after and that's the same that of any of us that have had an encounter with jesus there was the us before and the us after and that's our story and so we're going to hear from someone today we're going to hear their story and this is a guy called chris kent who's got a really brilliant story about his before and after and how he met jesus hi my name's chris and um here's my story of how i became a christian at the age of 15 i decided to become a christian and what led up to that was quite an extraordinary story i wasn't brought up in a christian home in fact we didn't ever go to church i may maybe remember the old christmas but never really attending church never understood what that was all about to be honest and um in fact life at home was uh really quite difficult my parents got divorced when i was two i spent a year or so in a children's home uh which was obviously a a really awful experience as a sort of six-year-old when i came out of children's home um my mum had a really violent boyfriend who was addicted to drink and so life at home was chaotic and full of violence and and difficulty and then um when i was about 11 my mum found out that i could go to boarding school and it would be paid for by the government because my biological father was in the army so it meant that i could go there for free and so to try and remove me from the chaos at home my mum sent me off to boarding school and uh it went well for a while but um eventually that kind of the difficulties that i've been through and also the rejection um i just became a really angry kid and i didn't really care about the consequences of things and so i got into drink and i was dabbling in drugs i was looking into the occult i just felt really worthless and powerless and wanted something in my life to give meaning and um this led to me breaking out of boarding school one night breaking into a local shop and i got arrested and i also got expelled from boarding school in the same night can you imagine and so my mum came to pick me up but shortly before that my mum and my stepdad had become christians and they were talking about jesus talking about all the wonderful things that he'd done but to me it just didn't make any sense i had no idea how someone who lived 2 000 years ago could make a difference in my life but when she came to pick me up i realized that jesus had made a difference in her life the way that she spoke to me the love that she showed me and so i went to church and one night i heard the story of jesus and i realized that he had died for me and i gave my life to him that evening and the difference it's made in my life is just uh amazing i live with a sense of peace and knowledge that i'm loved by gods that i'm his child and that he's for me and he's always with me wow what an amazing story chris has and you know that could be your story too that before and after um whatever your situation is in life wherever you find yourself now jesus can bring that story to your life as well that peace that love we're going to um go into the time of worship now so it's just a song that we're going to play we're going to play the words as well and it's called in grace alone and grace i found a really brilliant definition of grace that i love it's um that love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return and that's what we're talking about today that love that god has for you the love so amazing that he would send his son to die for you so john and anna grace have put this together for us now just um read the words just think about those things that you've heard today as the worship song plays and then matt and i will be back afterwards to talk about any of your questions that you have about today so far father you worked your will i had no righteousness of my own i had no right to journey your throne but father you loved me still and in love before you laid the world's foundation you pre-destined to adopt me as your own you have raised me up so high above my station i'm a child of god by grace and grace alone you left your home to seek out the lost you knew the great and terrible cause of jesus your face once said i worked my fingers down to the bone nothing i did could ever atone jesus you paid my dad by your third i have redemption and salvation i i was in darkness all of my life i never knew the day from the night spirits you made me see i swore i knew the way on my own a head full of rocks a heart made of stone spirits you moved at your touch my sleeping spirit was awakened on my darkened heart in light of christ has shown called into a kingdom that cannot be shaken heaven's citizen by grace and grace enough yes i'll stand in faith by grace and grace enough i will run this race by grace and grace i will reach the end by grace love that song yeah brilliant and it just says everything that we've been talking about doesn't it just sort of sums it all up yeah really good good job john good job anna grace thank you so much for doing that for the easter service oh loved it loved it loved it loved it so i tell you what i did love your definition of grace yeah it was pretty good wasn't it i love that should i say it again yeah yeah do it sir because we know you want to yeah i do i just thought you know i might have said it a bit quickly the first time but i just i really really liked it it just really speaks to me about what the heart of grace is and it's love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return yeah it's great great definition so why does that speak to you i think because sometimes you just don't think that we're worthy of this sacrifice don't we do sometimes it just feels a bit too big a bit too much or i you know i sort of don't deserve it which i don't and that's the whole point and that's okay um and that god loves all of us enough um you know to make that ultimate sacrifice so it's pretty incredible and it's very simple as well um and easy to sort of understand and i just think that grace is the absolute heart of the message of what we're of what we're kind of sharing with people today that is if you can just take that one thing away it's so important yeah yeah it is i love that love that because you're right grace is not about what you do it's about what he did and um and that's actually that's actually quite freeing it's also quite hard because um because we live in a culture where it's not easy just to accept something without feeling obligated in some way or feeling like you've got to earn it which i mean and it's uh grace is quite a tricky con i think you can spend years trying to get your head around grace even as a christian you can spend a long time getting your head around it yeah definitely yeah i agree but really it's quite simple isn't it the actual heart of it is very simple um and that that quote just really sums up for me so i love that so great talk matt well done ah thanks son good job you did you did good well done well done um in a totally non-patriotic so tell me matt was there anything like when you were preparing this talking when you when you were doing it was there anything sort of surprising for you that you hadn't thought about before because this must be something you've heard an issa talk you know every year for however many years yeah i've heard a lot of easter talks uh i've been around a little while so i've definitely heard a lot i think there's whenever you look at scripture i don't know about you so but whenever i read scripture um i always try and read it like it's the first time jeremy and so you you read these stories which you've heard time and time again but to try and read it as though you haven't which means just looking at every word which is written on the page and just just asking yourself do i understand what's going on here and so when i did that and i kind of i just asked myself i don't know if i've ever asked myself the question i've just kind of heard it and never really questioned it but why did the angel roll away the stone why did he do that because it wasn't it wasn't to let jesus out and that was one of my things it's like it wasn't to let jesus out at all it was so that the the mary and mary could see in and later when the disciples go the tomb they can see it as well um and the actual fact they needed to see and experience the resurrection rather than just be told by it as well and i think um and that was great for me because i you know i'm a big fan of the christian faith it's not just a mental exercise although academically i can go yes this all makes a lot of sense but actually christianity is something to be experienced god is something to be experienced he's something it's not just something to be told about which i mean and so um no i like that and the other thing that really tickled me i think that came across in the video was when jesus greeted them it just says he greeted them i just have it in my head you just go yeah hello hello hi hi guys yeah i love nicolas put that in her comments actually i never appreciated how important the simple word hi is it means that he sees you and when you feel lost and alone and feel unseen he still sees you that's yeah superpower very powerful isn't it yeah brilliant thanks nicholas i really loved as well matt what you brought out about women in that part of the story because i think some people feel that you know christianity perhaps doesn't value women or the bible perhaps doesn't value women and this shows or you've shown like through your talk that the heart of jesus showed time and time again actually how important women were yeah absolutely and that you can't get away from that and to and actually to the point where almost a lot of this talk was going to be centered around that um especially at the moment in today's society and cultures and there's a lot of conversation around this topic i think i think if there's one thing that comes across from scripture certainly the scripture that i read god is pro-women and he is pro-men and that's that's the end of the story so much so he does a lot of stuff which is surprising where women are concerned especially with how they were dealt with at the time jeremy and all treated at the time yeah and he he just elevates them to a position that where society just they just don't get it at all and then and then paul comes along later in scripture and he says uh yeah there's no male or female there's no slave or free person we're all one i mean this was revolutionary radical teaching what do you know i mean and uh and i just love that i i love that and like i say that the fact that it it just draws out that mary and mary especially mary magdalene i mean it emphasized so the two mary's just in case you don't know one's mary magdalene and one is jesus's aunt right and mary magdalene a lot of mary's i mean did they struggle with women's names in those days or no come on where's the stephanie that's a good question that's maybe one to us it's a bit like if you want to be involved in crowd church livestream you have to be called matt apparently yeah apparently so yeah but no i thought i thought it was brilliant and i thought um mary magdalene she had such an interesting past it wasn't wasn't brilliant her past it was definitely checkered and jesus restores her and she becomes the first evangelist to the resurrection and this is such a powerful thing you know i mean she wasn't a woman of education she wasn't a woman from a good house this was you know she she'd had a past let's just put it that way yet jesus didn't care um do you remember me i think that's super powerful i think it's super i think too and i think that's really relatable for today as well for people who think that they're not worthy or you know that they bring so much baggage with them i mean look at chris's story and his past and everything that he was saying that he'd been through up until that point where uh you know he met jesus and his life changed for good and that's kind of what we've seen with with mary isn't it in the story as well so yeah it is incredible um so yeah brilliant it is let me ask you a question then as we're talking about mary and marion ladies have you have you found throughout your christian walk i suppose there's three different three different things to think about here isn't there there's what you perceive god's view of women is what you think scripture's view of women is and what you perceive people's view in the church of women and of course they're all going to be at very different levels okay what have you experienced yeah controversial question matt i like it wait a second it's easter yeah yeah um preparation i think um yeah it's a difficult one it's a really interesting question because i think i grew up in a church that didn't necessarily value women in the way that they should have been valued that in terms of their contribution to um to church and and things like that and sometimes i think the danger is that we can take the church's view as god's view and we need to be very careful about that we need to actually kind of go to the bible and talk to god and see what god says about something rather than just taking what someone else says and i know that people have been turned off from god and from jesus because of what the church says whereas actually if you went to god if you went to jesus you'd find that they're saying something completely different um i'm not obviously church is brilliant and i'm not kind of saying that it's not a good thing at all i'm just saying that we need to make sure that what we're being told is actually god's truth so i grew up thinking that uh the church viewed women as second-class citizens and i knew i knew that that didn't sit right with me not just from a kind of feminist or female point of view but i just knew that that wasn't what god thought or how god felt and i knew that in my heart but i didn't really have the understanding of the of the bible to be able to kind of say well it says this this and this um i just didn't have that understanding and it was when um i moved to liverpool when i was in my very early 20s um and just a couple of years ago then just a couple of years ago yeah not long ago just a few months and um and and joined frontline church which you know crowd church is a part of frontline church based in liverpool so it's still part of frontline church and john who's the senior pastor he did an absolutely amazing preach about women and how god sees women and how the church should see women and that just was like yes everything he's saying is everything that i knew was true i just couldn't say it quite like that you know so i know that god values women and wants to promote women and you know sees women as equal to men and and so i hope that people do kind of understand that as well that in god's eyes women are definitely not second-class citizens and have absolutely valuable things to say and give so yeah there's a long answer to your question there matt i thought it's fascinating so i i appreciate you sharing because i think it's not just the church i i mean i grew up in the 70s 80s and 90s and uh and the naughties and um i would say it was culture and society you know very at some real issues isn't it very sexist issues in in very sexist ways of thinking and so i think it's great to see the conversation happening um a lot more over recent years about the role of women in society and the equality of women um and i guess all of that to say is uh we're all equal and you're welcome here at crowd church right love having people having people from both sides involved in what's going on it's great fun yeah definitely definitely um have you got any more questions anybody else wants us to ask we're just having a little look in the comments here we talked about the importance of that jesus that greeting from jesus yeah no is the answer to your question right okay so i want to ask you a question then matt that kind of i've been thinking about and see if you can help to answer this question and what happened between good friday and easter sunday this is one of those big deep theological questions yeah it's a very good question yeah this is this is a big question first and then you can tell me about the chocolate okay yeah okay the answer actually to this question is we're not entirely sure okay we can have a bit of a guess um scripture itself has kind of leads in a certain direction but it is it isn't very definite um and what i mean by that is what i guess what a lot of people think is because it is a fascinating question you know jesus dies on the friday he's raised again on the sunday what happened in the meantime well we know his body was in that tomb right yeah until mary mary go and have a look so we know where his body was so spiritually where was his spirit at and there's a few clues in scripture like when jesus is on the cross we're going to see this in a week two's time when he's on the cross he's surrounded by two robbers who are dying and he says to one of them a really interesting statement he says today you will be with me in paradise and so there's a question is what is paradise and where was it that jesus went and jewish thinking at the time thought that there was a place of the dead called shoal it was like a protected realm that the messiah would come and sort of release all of the souls you know that sort of died before christ came and died i suppose um and he and the bible talks about leading captivity captive and peter talked a little bit about this um going forward but it's an interpretation it's not a theology uh so i think probably the most the most important thing here is there spiritually a place where jesus went to between good friday and sunday the chances are very strong that he went down he descended the bible talks about him descending who he met where he went to was he in hell was he in this protected realm of the dead we're not entirely sure but the bible doesn't really focus on it which gives us a clue which says actually the important things here are that jesus died he was buried and then he rose from the dead and and there are implications surrounding that for us and maybe that's what we should focus on but i think it's a fantastic question and i think i don't actually fully know the answer i haven't spent a fair bit of time looking at it i still i still don't i'm still not sure i don't know if that helps you yeah no it's good it's good i think it's good to know isn't it if you don't know the answer that other people don't know the answer as well and if we clearly if it doesn't tell us in the bible then that's not the bit that we we need to focus on as you were saying we're focusing on the fact that jesus died and then on the sunday he rose again and i'm very very grateful for that and that we can celebrate that today um so very importantly then before we move on to the catch up cadburys or nestle it shouldn't even be fine to think about this there's no conversation conversation three after three and seven what it is one two three cadbury every day i don't okay so why are we talking about if you've not read the comments one of the questions in the comments uh was what's the best type of easter egg is it a cadburys easter egg or a nestle easter egg and that's why we're talking about chocolate and we always try and answer your questions theological ones and the maybe not the theological questions uh but yeah i think it's i it's not even a question no cabra is all day long i i can't believe that even came up uh if i want to see you i think it would be a more interesting question if you threw in things like thornton's or lindor hotel hotel you know and that obviously there are other brands uh elizabeth harris chocolate for example would be uh hi we actually for our easter we got yeah we didn't get easter eggs we've got these easter boxers elizabeth harris made which are stunning let me tell you stunning hang on hang on hang on and i've got these okay you should have a word with uh with lizzie harris yeah again to the catch up i think matt yeah i'm in trouble now right quickly i'm gonna roll the ketchup vt here we go hello and welcome to this week's sunday catch up for those of you who don't know me allow me to introduce myself my name is josh edmondson i'm a member of the team here at crowd church and i'm a student studying physics at the university of saint andrews if you have never watched the stream before welcome it's great to have you here let me just quickly explain what catch up is all about every week we'll get in pictures and videos from members of the community and we put them on the stream in this segment called catch up just so that we get a feel for what everyone else is getting up to before we go on to the catch-up segment of this video happy easter it's great to be able to share this amazing day with you even if it's via a digital medium easter's such an incredible time particularly when you stop and really think about what easter actually means when you look at the incredible symbolism behind the act of jesus which we celebrate on easter it's just mind-bending when you think about it i hope that came across in this talk and just how incredible it is that we even get to celebrate this occasion that it even happened in the first place but i will leave the talk with you to think about over the coming weeks and we will move on to the catch-up segment in usual fashion i will kick things off with something that i've been up to this week this week was my final week of easter break so i spent some of the time just making sure that i've got everything done for monday which i need to get done as i go back to studying physics at full speed until the end of time but i also got to meet up with quite a few of my friends which was really nice i'm enjoying the slightly lifted restrictions i don't know about you but the rule of sex it feels like such a liberty after so long not being able to do anything like that so taking the opportunity to make the most of these rules that has been really nice this week really really nice but that's enough from me let's get on to the catch-up clips thank you very much for sending all those in it's really great to see what everyone is getting up to throughout the week if you want to see your stuff on catch up please do send it in to the whatsapp number that you will have seen on the bottom of the screen throughout this service or you can use hashtag crowdcatchup on instagram and i will go through the hashtag at the end of each week and find your post and put it on catch up for you so if you want to see your stuff on catch up please send it in via one of those two means but that's all from me this week thank you very much for watching and i will catch you next time awesome josh yeah always good to see you yeah i like the catch-up music i'm not going to lie i kind of start swaying ketchup music is catchy yeah yeah it might get the everybody was kung fu fighting sound out of your head as well well now you've said it again now so that's it it's back in there now isn't it everybody was kung fu fighting oh nicola just said she didn't realize catch up was happening because she had a picture to send nicolas still send it in and we can show it next week so please do send that and anybody else that would like us to share pictures or anything in catch up do send it to us and we can use them next time absolutely ketchup happens most weeks just so you know it does it does keep happening and keep going forward okay so sal you sent me a photo during that should i bring that on screen yeah go on quick pick of this is my nephew seb who got baptized today there's him wearing his nicely on brand t-shirt i have decided um and that's him that's him just i'm guessing just before he was done because he looks quite dry there so yeah that was a picture of the gorgeous set yeah yeah it should say i've almost decided i'm just about to decide maybe i did i just haven't done it yet well done seb it's great to see you getting baptized there well done bud uh do come back and join us next week as we are going to carry on our journey with uh our study of mark's gospel we have got the amazing james sloane back uh he's going to be carrying on our look uh like i said mark's gospel we've got ketchup we've got worship uh sal i'm here are you here next week i might be we'll have to wait and see a little surprise for you drummer you have to tune in to find out because we just don't know i'm going to have to tune in to finance we just don't know uh it's been great to have you uh with us uh thanks for joining us this week now if you are part of a church great uh but if you're not part of a local church and you would like to become a member of a church then why not consider joining us here at crowd we live stream every sunday at 4 p.m on youtube and on facebook we have a midweek community group on wednesday evenings although as matt crew quite rightly pointed out in the comments the email that went out uh says we have a disciple group this week we don't uh there's no group this week we're having a week off because it's easter so ignore what was said in the email that is entirely my fault um for not telling joella that actually we would postponed it can't get the staff can you no i'm really sorry it's just this i have no excuse uh if you have enjoyed the live stream then why not head over to the website crowd.church.www.crowd.church and there you can just put in your name and email address and we will let you know about an hour before we go live when we go live and what's coming up so you never miss the crowd church live service oh no that's that's what happened so do go to the website give us your email address and we'll we'll let you know yeah definitely and don't forget to send us a message if we can pray for you or help you in any way and we would love to do that so there you are there's the number that you can get in touch with us so just to say really have a brilliant rest of easter sunday don't eat too much chocolate or yeah why not eat a lot of chocolate go on it's easter sunday after all and uh i'm off to cook a roast dinner now are you so uh i will see you very soon indeed so the way we're going to close out the live stream in case you don't know we are just going to play another track another music track this one is called uh when i survey it's an old hymn which talks about looking at the cross of christ which is very apt for easter do stay do i enjoy if you're new to the whole christian thing just read the words and just let them wash over you because it's quite a fascinating thing uh hopefully you've enjoyed the service i've enjoyed being here sal it's been great to to as always do crowd with you uh yeah it's been brilliant that's put here today was clucking not quite sure how to respond to that uh brilliant bless you guys have a great week we'll see you again have a great week everyone bye bye when i surveyed the 100 on which the prince of glory died richest gay counted lord save in the dead of christ my god all the vain things them to his plans see from his head his hands his feet sorrow and love flowing down such love sorrow me or thorns composed richards thank you for the cross i thank you for the cross my lord thank you for the cross i thank you for the cross my lord nature my you
