This video is from our 2022 pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

On our last trip to the Holy Land I was blessed with a rare moment of quiet. The pilgrims I led had all returned home and I found myself with my wife in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which archeological evidence places 99.9% certainty on being the place where Jesus died and rose. Four million pilgrims visit this Church every year, and amazingly, no one was around. So we sat down and leaned our backs against the outside of the small chapel built around the empty tomb, and we rested.

How “normal” it felt to be there. How familiar. How extraordinary that this place was so ordinary and so approachable that I could just walk up and touch it.

The empty tomb is the epicenter of all that I believe; of the hope that over 2 billion Christians share in the face of death; of a civilization life and love, which is still unfolding.

It’s ground zero of the decimation of hell; the detonation site of a power that has ignited 2,000 years of saints and missionaries and martyrs to give their lives…

It’s where the grace was unlocked for all the sacraments, including the marriage I enjoy with the woman who’s hand I was holding there…

I was dead and am alive, all because of what happened on the other side of the wall we were leaning on.

It’s all because of three words: HE IS RISEN.

He suffered and died and won. Hell is laid waste. Humanity renewed. And we sit here and enjoy the spoils.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.

HAPPY EASTER!