The Writing on the Walls

Beneath the streets of Rome, in the cool darkness of the catacombs, early Christians carved messages on the tombs of their dead. What they wrote tells us everything about what they believed.

Pagan Roman tombs from the same era bear inscriptions heavy with finality. One common epitaph reads: "I was not. I was. I am not. I care not." The dead were gone, and that was the end of it.

But walk a few corridors into the Christian burial chambers, and the language shifts dramatically. On the tomb of a woman named Agape, carved around 250 AD, two words: "In peace." On another stone: "He sleeps — he does not die." The walls are covered with anchors, fish, and the chi-rho symbol, all pointing toward a hope that death could not extinguish.

These believers were not whistling past the graveyard. They were staking their lives and their deaths on the very claim Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 15 — that Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Paul understood the stakes perfectly. If Christ is not raised, then those who have fallen asleep in Him have perished. Full stop. But those early Christians, many of whom faced martyrdom themselves, carved their confidence into stone because they trusted the tomb was empty.

The resurrection was not an encouraging add-on to their faith. It was the foundation. Christ is risen. And because He is risen, Agape sleeps in peace.