I wonder what springs to mind when we hear the word, “empty”?

I think it is usually something negative. Before I moved to Largs, or I should say, back to Largs, about a year and a half ago, I lived in Berwickshire.

One day when I was travelling through to Largs, I checked the gauge in the car and saw that I had what I thought was enough petrol to last the 127-mile journey. As I approached Lochwinnoch, the display told me I had enough petrol for 29 more miles, which should be enough.

Unfortunately, the display does odd things...who knew it was 28 miles from Lochwinnoch to Kilbirnie? When I got to Tesco it told me I had enough for one mile. I was running on empty.

How often we are disappointed by finding things are empty? It may be something as mundane as the milk bottle or the salt cellar or the cash machine. It may be when we speak of people who have given everything they can to a task and we speak of themselves as running on empty, no more can be asked of them.

People who may feel a deep sense of loss in their lives may describe those lives as being empty. Empty, when we use that word, is usually a negative concept.

Sunday, as you know, was Easter and, in the Bible, we read of the empty tomb. For those whom we read of first finding it there initial reaction was one of horror but one that turned to joy when discovering that Christ had risen. For them, the empty tomb was a time of new beginning. We all know times in our lives when we feel emptiness in the kind of ways that we thought of earlier

The message of Easter is a message that through the empty tomb there is hope, speaking to the needs we can all face, speaking of new beginning, offering a gift of love in the risen Christ one who knows the low points, the emptiness, and can satisfy our need.