Grace Flourish From the Tomb

By Pastor Vam Foung Vang

Acts 13:29-30
29 When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. 30 But God raised him from the dead.

I know of a young man, let’s call him John. He was abandoned by his parents; though he always knew where they were, in the living room with the TV. His siblings were always busy with their own friends, romance, drama, and careers. John’s bumpy and uncontrolled life naturally brought him into contact with troubled broken people. He found himself caught up in the juvenile detention center and eventually in prison.

This story seems very similar to Joseph of the many-colored coat we find in Genesis. He was enslaved and imprisoned for a total of 13yrs before God brought him out of the dungeon.

This young man, John, wondered in darkness until he was in his 30s. It wasn’t until his time in prison that he gave his life to Christ. He shared with me, that if he was never imprisoned, he probably would have never given his life to Christ, because he only knew how to drown his pain.

As Easter, the death and resurrection of our Lord Savior Jesus Christ, approaches us, remember the trials and tribulation that he was submitted to. In the end, he was nailed on the cross and killed. As Luke retells us in Acts 13; after they had lied, abused, and killed Jesus, they laid him into a dark tomb; left for dead.

The Jewish, Roman, and disciples believed that Jesus was done; a shooting star snuffed out in a dark tomb. But they did not know that tomb was the darkness that was ordained, before time and space came to be, for God’s grace to flourish. Grace is verse 30–telling us that God raised Jesus from the dead, like how God brought Joseph out of jail to save Egypt (Genesis 41:14), and how the young man was not abandoned in his darkest hour.

Reflection:
C.S. Lewis famously said that pain and suffering is how God gets our attention.

Do you remember your darkest time, how did you turn to Christ?
How can your testimony encourage another to seek Christ?

Prayer:
Father in heaven, thank you for giving me grace in my time of need. Thank you for sending your son Jesus Christ into that dark tomb for me and showing me grace when you raised your Son from that tomb. Help me to be a child of God that will show grace to others in their suffering as well. Amen.