In the world of Easter baskets the chocolate bunny is essential! It’s big so it helps fill the basket! That’s a really good thing. You gotta have a filler so it doesn’t require a bank loan to fill the basket!
But which bunny do you choose? Solid chocolate or hollow?
First, I must admit when my kids were little I took the cheap route. Sometimes I purchased the disgusting imitation chocolate things. It only took one purchase to change my mind on that choice. Disgusting, doesn’t begin to describe those imitation bunnies!
But once you know to get the real deal chocolate bunny, which do you choose? Hollow or solid?
For me. I want the hollow. It melts in my mouth better. I like the feel in my mouth better. Maybe it’s still price? Who knows, but I choose hollow. It’s my first choice to dive into out of my candy choice.
In my haste to get the deliciousness out of the box, I almost always break the face or at the very least an ear or two off the bunny! Ahhh!! I hate it when I break it before I even get it out of the box!
Why does it break? Because the bunny is hollow. Sad, but true. Solid chocolate bunnies don’t break very easy, but the hollow ones almost always break.
And so do hollow people!
How do people get hollow?
It started with Adam in the garden. When Adam sinned it left a hollow place inside that every person is born with. It is called a fallen nature. An empty place was created that only Jesus can fill. If you don’t have Jesus there is a hollow spot inside you.
It’s not that people necessarily realize there is an empty place. Yet we all try to stuff that hollow spot.
Money
Popularity
Power
Possessions
But just like chocolate bunnies aren’t made to be stuffed with tissue paper.
That’s silly, but not any sillier than trying to fill that empty space with stuff.
Only Jesus can fill that hollow place in your life.
If you have never asked Jesus into your heart you can invite Him to come into your heart right now. You don’t have to be empty!
I hate empty!
I hate to look into my wallet and see it empty, especially when I’m standing at the cash register to pay for my order…or when I suddenly realize my gas tank is empty, and there’s no gas station in sight.
Frightened to realize the gas gauge is on empty and know there’s no service station nearby.
I’m annoyed by empty promises and empty words.
And those empty stares when I’m talking to someone that tell me they’re really not interested in what I’m saying are disappointedly hurtful.
Empty bank accounts, both financial and emotional are challenging and discouraging situations to handle.
Empty minds,
empty excuses,
empty relationships,
empty churches,
empty arms…it’s enough to make you despise the word “empty”.
Could I actually love empty?
But history records an event that would forever change the meaning of the dastardly word “empty”—the empty tomb.
Jesus took the sins of the world, although He never committed a single one of them. He paid the penalty of sin with His atoning death. Mary & Mary watched as Joseph placed the cold, lifeless body of Jesus into the grave. Empty hardly begins to describe their anguish. But death could not hold Him. God raised Jesus from the dead, and now the tomb was empty.
Because He lives, He offers new life. And that’s not an empty promise.
Easter is a time we celebrate the empty tomb and the risen Savior.
The stone that seemed to seal Hell’s victory, signaled its defeat when the angel rolled it away!
God’s empty brought fullness, peace, joy, love and redemption. The empty tomb assures us that because Jesus is alive we can have eternal life and abundant life.
1 Cor 15:14 And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.NKJ
Because the tomb was and forever will be empty, we can enjoy peace, real peace. We can experience love, unconditional love.
No one that visited the tomb that day seemed to understand its significance.
Their reactions were diverse, but all seemed rooted in fear.
The soldiers panicked, when they saw empty.
The women trembled, when they saw empty.
The priest paid huge bribes, when they heard it was empty.
Hell groaned at the announcement of empty, while heaven exploded with celebration.
Their responses are in the past.
The thing that will change your present and your future is how you respond to God’s still relevant “empty” is your response.
Modern culture reacts to the empty tomb with unbelief, ridicule, disgust or apathy.
Reactions fed by a belief system that robs them of life changing, life giving benefits.
Jesus offers, but His gift must be received.
Believers are not exempt from empty feelings or empty situations.
But the difference is, you can invite your Savior into the empty situation.
Maybe you’re running on empty financially; ask Him to be Lord in your situation. Believe that the same God that raised Christ from the grave can meet your financial need—even if that means He may realign some of your spending priorities. Be diligent to spend time filling up emotionally by spending time with Him in prayer and Scripture so your emotions don’t struggle to run on empty.
The empty tomb is both a reminder and a promise, take both with you today…the tomb was empty, so you can enjoy all the fullness of God!