Chapter 4, Part 2: Was the tomb really empty?
The empty tomb · Lesson 2 of 3 · About 28 minutes · Grades 1–5
The Evidence for Jesus · A lesson for grades 1–5The empty tomb
Big questionWas the tomb really empty?
By the end, kids can
- Tell what the women found on Sunday morning, and what the young man in white told them.
- Explain why nobody would invent women as the first witnesses, and what the guards' story admits.
- Know that Jesus did exactly what he said he would: he rose on the third day.
- Say the memory verse with some words missing: Matthew 28:6 (grades 3–4: John 11:25; grade 5+: 1 Corinthians 15:20).
You'll need
- This part's one-page worksheet for each child's level (grades 1–2, 3–4, or 5), handed out at the start
- Bibles for the look-ups (grades 3–4)
- Pencils
- A screen with sound and internet: the clips come from the video “Was Jesus's Tomb Really Empty?”
Before you teach
This lesson plays one of the chapter's video lessons in clips. Its page makes the same case for teens and adults, with every source written out: watch it to prepare, or use it with older kids and youth groups. Click a part to go to its slide:
- Was Jesus's tomb really empty? The women, the linen, and the cover story · In class: Sunday, Witnesses, The guards, Going deeper · Grades 3–5, Good news
The lesson
- 2 min Warm-up: what would it take?
- 2 min Memory verse: fill in the missing words
- 5 min Sunday morning: watch (1½ minutes), talk, and the maze
- 5 min Witnesses nobody would invent: watch (1½ minutes), talk, and the worksheet
- 4 min The cover story: watch (1 minute), then talk
- 3 min Going deeper (grades 3–5): who emptied it? (1 minute)
- 1 min A quick check
- 3 min Good news: watch (half a minute), then talk
- 3 min Memory verse again, talk, and pray
Worksheets
Print this lesson's one-page sheet for each child, at their level. They fill it in as you go: the ✎ Worksheet sticker on a slide says which part goes with it.
Send it home
After class, share the one-minute Short with families, to watch together and talk about this week:
Answer key
The worksheets don't print their answers. Here they all are, and on the slide before the credits.
Grades 1–2
- Find the way! Any path that reaches the end.
- Matthew 28:6: here, risen, said
Grades 3–4
- Look it up! 1. He has risen! He is not here · 2. their words seemed to them like nonsense · 3. the other disciple (John) · 4. His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep
- John 11:25: resurrection, life, believes
Grade 5+
- Think it through: Answers will vary. Look for: 1. no one making it up would pick witnesses whose word counted for little · 2. the tomb was empty · 3. anyone could have produced the body · 4. they had watched where he was laid, and the guards knew which stone they sealed
- 1 Corinthians 15:20: Christ, raised, dead
Presenting
Each part opens with a ▶ Watch slide that plays a clip of the 7-minute video “Was Jesus' Tomb Really Empty? The Evidence for the Empty Tomb” right on the slide: read the two questions, then click (or press →, or use a clicker) to play the clip. The slides wait while it plays and stops by itself; click twice to stop it early. Then click to show the answers. The clips need an internet connection.
Click the slide, or press → or Space (a clicker works too), to show the next thing; ← goes back, even while a clip plays. F presents full screen (Esc leaves it). P opens the presenter view, a second window with your notes, the next slide, and a timer, that moves with the slides: put it on your laptop and the slides on the projector. N shows the notes under the slides.
Your script
The empty tomb
Say: Last time we saw that Jesus really died, and that two women watched where he was laid. Today is Part 2: Sunday morning. Was the tomb really empty?
What would it take?
Ask: If a friend told you someone came back from the dead, what would you say? What would you want to see?
Say: When the women told Jesus's friends the tomb was empty, Luke says “they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.”
Clicks: 1. the line “Jesus's friends didn't, at first. Let's find out what they found.”
Sources: Luke 24:9–11
Remember our verse?
Do: Say it together once with the motions from last time. Then click to show each missing word as kids call it out.
Answers: here, risen, said (the same words as the grades 1–2 sheet).
Clicks: 1. the missing word “here” · 2. the missing word “risen” · 3. the missing word “said”
Sunday · Watch: Sunday morning
Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about 1½ minutes.
Ask after: What were the women expecting? What did the young man say? Click once for each answer.
Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Was Jesus's tomb really empty?”
Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: A body. They brought spices to anoint it. · 3. the answer to 2: “He has risen! He is not here.”
Sources: 1 Corinthians 15:17 · Mark 16:1–8
The tomb was empty
Say: This is a real tomb in Jerusalem from around that time, with its great round stone. Joseph laid Jesus in a tomb like it, and two women watched. On Sunday they came back, and the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away.
Say: And Mark doesn't make them heroes. They were “trembling and bewildered,” and they ran. That's not how you end a story you made up. It's how you tell one that happened.
Worksheet: Grades 1–2 help the women find the way to the empty tomb.
Worksheet answers: Grades 1–2, Find the way!: Any path that reaches the end.
Clicks: 1. the line “On Sunday, women found the stone rolled away. “He has risen! He is not here.””
Sources: Mark 15:42–47 · Mark 16:1–8
Witnesses · Watch: Witnesses nobody would invent
Say: Notice who finds the tomb empty. It's not who you'd pick if you were making the story up.
Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about 1½ minutes.
Ask after: Who found the tomb first? Who ran there next? Click once for each answer.
Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Was Jesus's tomb really empty?”
Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: Women. In that world, a woman's word counted for little. · 3. the answer to 2: Peter and John. John got there first.
Sources: Josephus, Antiquities 4.219 · Luke 24:9–11 · John 20:1–8
Not who you'd pick
Say: Josephus, the Jewish historian, records the rule of his day: “Let not the testimony of women be admitted.” Even the apostles brushed the women off.
Ask: If you were making up a story, why wouldn't you pick witnesses nobody believed? (You'd only name them because that's what happened.)
Say: The Gospels don't name the same women, either: Mark names three, Luke adds Joanna, and John follows Mary Magdalene. That's how real witnesses sound: different people telling one event.
Worksheet: Grades 3–4 look up the four verses now.
Worksheet answers: Grades 3–4, Look it up!: 1. He has risen! He is not here · 2. their words seemed to them like nonsense · 3. the other disciple (John) · 4. His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep
Clicks: 1. the line “And Peter found the linen lying there. A thief in a hurry doesn't stop to unwrap a body.”
Sources: Josephus, Antiquities 4.219 · John 20:3–8 · Luke 24:10
The guards · Watch: The cover story
Say: Jesus's enemies had a story too. Watch what it gives away.
Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about 1 minute.
Ask after: What were the soldiers paid to say? What does it admit? Click once for each answer.
Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Was Jesus's tomb really empty?”
Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: “His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.” · 3. the answer to 2: That the tomb was empty. They had to explain why the body wasn't there.
Sources: Matthew 27:62–66 · Matthew 28:11–15 · Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 108
The story that admits it
Say: His enemies remembered what his friends forgot: Jesus had said he would rise after three days. So they asked Pilate for a guard.
Say: More than a century later, around AD 160, the Christian writer Justin Martyr said men were still being sent out to say the disciples stole him by night. The argument was never whether the tomb was empty. Only who emptied it.
Ask: Why wouldn't Jesus's enemies just show everyone the body? (They couldn't. It wasn't there.)
Worksheet: Grade 5+ answers the questions on their sheet now.
Worksheet answers: Grade 5+, Think it through: Answers will vary. Look for: 1. no one making it up would pick witnesses whose word counted for little · 2. the tomb was empty · 3. anyone could have produced the body · 4. they had watched where he was laid, and the guards knew which stone they sealed
Clicks: 1. the line “Nobody said, “The body is still there.” They argued only about who emptied the tomb.”
Sources: Matthew 27:62–66 · Matthew 28:11–15 · Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 108
Going deeper · Grades 3–5 · Watch: Who emptied it?
Say: So who emptied the tomb? Let's test the answers.
Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about 1 minute.
Ask after: Why does Peter's preaching place matter? Why not the wrong tomb? Click once for each answer.
Say: Not the authorities: they would gladly have shown the body. Not the disciples: they were hiding, and later they suffered for saying he rose. Not a wrong tomb. The historian Michael Grant judged that “the tomb was indeed found empty.”
Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Was Jesus's tomb really empty?”
Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: It was a short walk from the tomb. Anyone could have shown the body. · 3. the answer to 2: The women saw where he was laid, and the guards knew their stone.
Sources: Acts 2:29–32 · Grant, Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels (1977), p. 176, as quoted by Vridar · John 20:19
True or false?
Do: Read each one and have kids stand up for true and sit down for false. Click to stamp each answer.
Answers: 1. True. 2. False. 3. False, they said it was stolen. 4. True.
Clicks: 1. the answer to 1: True. · 2. the answer to 2: False. Their words seemed like nonsense. · 3. the answer to 3: False. They said it was stolen. · 4. the answer to 4: True.
Good news · Watch: He did what he said
Say: So who emptied it? The answer is the one the women heard first.
Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's half a minute.
Ask after: What did the men ask? Did Jesus keep his word? Click once for each answer.
Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Was Jesus's tomb really empty?”
Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” · 3. the answer to 2: Yes. He said he would be crucified and on the third day be raised again, and he was.
Sources: Luke 24:1–8
Death doesn't get the last word
Say: Jesus did exactly what he said he would. He died for your sins, he walked out of his grave, and death doesn't get the last word anymore.
Say: Read John chapter 20 this week, and talk to him. He's alive.
Ask: If Jesus is alive, what would you like to say to him?
Clicks: 1. the line “He died for our sins, and he walked out of his grave. So don't look for him among the dead.”
Sources: Luke 24:5–7 · John 20
Say it again
Do: Say the verse together, then try it with eyes closed. Now you know why the angel said it!
Worksheet: Everyone fills in the missing words of their own memory verse and colors a star each time they say it.
Worksheet answers: Grades 1–2, Matthew 28:6: here, risen, said
Worksheet answers: Grades 3–4, John 11:25: resurrection, life, believes
Worksheet answers: Grade 5+, 1 Corinthians 15:20: Christ, raised, dead
Talk and pray
Do: Talk about one or two of the questions, then pray together. Kids can repeat the prayer one line at a time.
Say: Next time, Part 3: the tomb was empty, but who saw him alive?
Do: Send the worksheets home, with this part's one-minute Short for families. The link is in your guide, under “Send it home.”
Clicks: 1. the prayer
Answer key
Do: Show this when kids check their work, or keep it on your laptop in the presenter view. The worksheets don't print their answers, so this is the key.
Pictures and Scripture
Every picture on these slides, with its credit, license, and a link to its source.