Los Angeles herald., 1906-04-16
TELLS OF VISIT TO THE
SEPULCHRE OF SAVIOR
Incidents Surrounding the Divine
Crucifiixion Fully Reviewed-After
He Had Arisen From the Dead Peo-
pie Saw, Felt and Heard Him

At the New Testament church in
Burbank hall yesterday, Pastor Joseph
Smale told of his visit of a year ago
to the sepulchre of Christ, and then
preached upon THE Resurrection"
Referring to the traditional sites of
the crucifiXion and burial, he said that
while archeologists and others are not
united in locating the exact spots of
these places, anyone may indulge his
own preference in concluding where
Christ was crucified and buried.
The garden tomb situated on the
northwest side of Gordon's Calvary,
while only discovered some twenty
six years ago, is nevertheless known
to tradition as early as the second
century.
There is nothing modern about it,
and close by are tombs that bear rea-
sonab- evidence of apostolic times,
and which appear to have been the
burial places of some of the members
of the Pentecostal church at Jerusa-
lem.
Whether the place of the true tomb
is ever demonstrated matters little, for
this much we know, that wherever it
is it is empty. Empty, not because
Christ's body has moudered to dust,
but empty because on the third day
after his crucifixion Jesus Christ rose
from the dead.
People saw, felt and heard him. He
showed himself alive by many infal-
lible proofs. Not simply spiritually
alive but physically. And to unbeliev-
ers he made answer, "Whereupon do
questonings arise in your heart? See
my hands and feet that it is / myself.
Handle me and see, for a spirit hath
not flesh and bones as ye behold me
having" And when he had said this
he showed them his hands and his
feet And they gave him a piece of
a brOiled fish And he took it and ate
before them.
Cardinal Fact of Christianity
The resurrection is a cardinal fact of
| Christianity 1t matters much to hu-
man welfare that Christ rose from the
dead, for there is a very deep sense in
which it is true that Christ lived not
as other men and died not as other
men. He was a representative char
acter. AS the eternal Son of God and
nothing else he could never have been
despised and crucified. He chose to be
manifested to take away human sin;
hence his appearance on earth in the
likeness of simple flesh; hence his hu-
initiation, his suffering, his cross, his
tomb.
When Christ was here in the flesh
he was at the work of redemption.
For at the supreme moment of the
cross, however strange it may
sound, he came into this world.
Upon the cross he bore the
weight of human sim and the mo-
mentous thoughts for us are these:
Did he suffer acceptably as the sinners
substitute? Did he make perfect atone
ment for sin upon the cross? If he did
not, we have no savior, and every
Christian believer is under a curse and
can never know a glorious resurrec-
tion and together with the wicked must
be punished eternally for their sins.
How may we know the success of
Christ's work upon the cross? We get
an intimation of it Immediately after
his death. His enemies appointed his
grave with the wicked, yet was he
associated with rich man in his
death. When he was taken down from
the cross his honors began as an ac-
cepted sacrifice for sin. On the third
day the demonstration was given. He
was raised for our justification.