In August of 2007, several newspapers carried articles about recent discoveries in the seemingly unending spaces of the universe which, for me, were simply known, scripturally, as the “heavens.”

It was the place being prepared for you and me.

Two of the newspaper articles were entitled “Astronomers Find Hole in the Universe,” and “Astronomers Puzzled By Massive Blank Spot.” A “light year” is a unit of distance. It is the distance that light can travel in one year. One light year equals about 6 trillion miles. The “hole,” or, “blank spot,” is an empty place, a void, which is 6 billion to 10 billion light years away from us and is a billion light years across.

There are no planets, no stars, no galaxies, no gases; absolutely nothing. A lot of nothing.

The Scriptures tell us that, when the women first came to the tomb of Jesus, it was empty and they were puzzled and were seized by fear and terror. They were afraid.

Where Jesus had been laid, there was nothing.

They faced an empty tomb. It would take a while for them to grasp it, and let it all sink in. The emptiness made them speechless. They said nothing.

Like those women, we have all come face to face with emptiness in our lives, and we don’t always know what to say or do. It happens: when you give your heart to someone who doesn’t accept the gift; when you learn a sport, practice hard, and you still don’t make the team; when you study and pursue a profession, only to find out you hate your work; when you create something beautiful, and discover that no one’s interested; when you try to resist a temptation, but then give in to it again and again; when you jump to a new job, then you lose it in a downsizing; when you put your money into a home, only to see your equity disappear; when you retire from a long career, and wake up with nothing to do; when you lose your spouse to some disease, and find yourself all alone in the world.

Those are huge, cold spots. Massive voids. Too often people try to pretend that there are no empty places in their lives. Some will say, “Believe in yourself and you can do anything.” The truth is, bad things happen to good people and not every goal in life is realistic. Life doesn’t always give you what you want.

What the Apostles and the women discover is that, Easter, the Resurrection of Christ, is not about them, but about God — in particular its about God filling the empty places in your life with new and unexpected life: whatever pulls you down God’s grace will pull you up.

Like Thomas you can’t borrow or use someone else’s faith. He thought faith would come if he touched Christ but what he discovered was that he was wrong. When Jesus finally appears to Thomas he offers himself to Thomas and gives Thomas the opportunity to touch and handle the Risen Lord.

But Thomas discovers he does not need any of that. The offer itself is enough. Faith comes not from touching, but by Jesus offering himself to the believer.

Although not everyone must come to faith the way Thomas did, you must claim faith for yourself, a personal journey you make to Christ.

The journey ends in the same confession for each of us, to say with Thomas to Jesus, “You are my Lord and my God.”