The Resurrection: Our Hope in Life & Death

Mark 16:1-8

Transcript

Mark 16, starting in verse 1. When the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary
the mother of James and Salome, bought spices so that they might go and anoint
him. And very early on, the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they
went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, who will roll away the
stone for us from the entrance of the tomb? And looking up, they saw that the
stone had been rolled back. It was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a
young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were
alarmed. And he said to them, Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who
was crucified. He has risen, he is not here. See the place where they laid him.
But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee.
There you will see him, just as he told you. And they went out and fled from the
tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them. And they said nothing to
anyone, for they were afraid. Let's take a moment to pray. Let's pray. Lord God,
as we open up your word, we do ask for the ministry of your Holy Spirit, helping
us to see and understand things from your word. Pray for faithfulness and
clarity as we work through this together. In Jesus' name, amen. So we've made it
to the end of the Gospel of Mark. We have been working through this book since
about the beginning of the year. And here we are, Labor Day weekend at the end.
And let me say a word about the ending of Mark, because it's unusual. This is
the last sermon in our sermon series, and we're ending at verse 8, which is the
actual ending of the Gospel. If you're looking at Mark 16 in your Bible, if you
have a physical Bible or your own Bible app, you probably will see a bracket in
your Bible between verse 8 and verse 9, between verse 8 and 9 through 20. And it
will say something like, something like, some of the earliest manuscripts do not
include verses 9 through 20. Here's, let me just give you like the one minute
overview of what that means. The vast majority of scholars do not think 9
through 20 are original to Mark. So in other words, they're not written by Mark,
and they're not actually Scripture. That's the majority view of New Testament
scholars and conservative Christian scholars of Scripture. So one of the reasons
for that would be some of the most ancient reliable manuscripts stop at 8 and
leave an intentional blank space, which would seem to indicate that the scribes
were aware that there's a variant reading, but didn't see it as something
written by Mark. Another reason would be, another is the style of the Greek is
very different in those verses 9 through 20 than everything 1 through 16, 8. So
we can talk more about it if you want, and if you have an ESV study Bible or
some other study Bible, you'll probably see helpful notes that will explain this
more. But, my opinion is that there were some who found the ending of Mark to be
too abrupt for their liking and wanted to add additional information, so this
kind of post-resurrection summary was added. And there are some people who think
we must be missing something because the ending of Mark is so abrupt, and it
leaves with the women leaving the tomb in fear. I believe the ending is perfect,
and I'll tell you why as we go along. So with that said, we can talk about that
sort of side issue more later if you would like to. But with that said, we're
going to get into our text today, Mark 16, 1 through 8. And our major idea is
simply, the resurrection is our hope in life and in death. Let me begin with
these women, and we will talk about who these women were, what they saw, and
what they were told. Who they were, what they saw, and what they were told. Mark
16, verse 1. When the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of
James, and Siloam brought spices so that they might go up and anoint Him. So
it's Sunday morning, and in the early dawn hours, these three women are on their
way to the tomb. We see Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Siloam.
Mary Magdalene was from a city called Magdala, that's her name, and she had been
healed of demonic possession by Jesus and had been following Him ever since.
These women have been mentioned earlier in chapter 15, connected to Jesus'
crucifixion. If you go back a bit, the account of Jesus' crucifixion tells us in
chapter 15, verses 40 and 41, there were also women looking from a distance,
among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, the younger, and
of Joseph and Siloam. When He was in Galilee, they followed Him and ministered
to Him, and there were also many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem.
So these three women who are mentioned in chapter 16, going to the tomb, were
also at the cross, observing from a distance when Jesus was being crucified.
They have been connected to Jesus for a long time. They followed Him, they've
helped care for His needs, going all the way back to His ministry in Galilee.
And the mention of these three women is now followed by the burial account of
Jesus. This is the text that Luke Lindner preached from last week. If you look
at 1542 through 47, when evening had come, since it was the day of preparation,
that is the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of
the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage
and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate was surprised to hear
that he should have already died. In summoning the centurion, he asked him
whether he was already dead. When he learned from the centurion that he was
dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. And Joseph brought a linen shroud and,
taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had
been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the
tomb. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Joseph, saw where he was laid. So this
account helps us know what the women had seen. They had seen Jesus on the cross.
Then we hear about this Roman centurion, who is a hardened soldier, obviously
someone who would know what death looked like when he saw it. And when Joseph
comes to ask for the body, Pilate is initially surprised that Jesus has died,
that it happened so quickly. So he verifies the death with the centurion, who is
functioning in this passage kind of like an official medical examiner. The
centurion verifies for Pilate that Jesus is indeed physically dead. So Joseph
covers the corpse in a shroud and lays him in the family tomb. Then we hear
about these women again, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph. They are
again at the tomb. Mark is essentially providing us with eyewitnesses of the
death and burial of Jesus. And here's the significance of that. The idea of a
dead person rising from the grave and coming back to life was just as wild in
the first century to Jews and to Greeks as it is to us as 21st century people
living in America. We cannot think, oh, of course, this made more sense to these
primitive, uneducated people in the first century. They can get caught up in
this children's story where someone supposedly rises from the dead. Mark knows
very well people do not rise from the dead. Think about this. Jesus predicted
his suffering, his death and his resurrection three times directly in Mark
chapter 8, Mark chapter 9, Mark chapter 10. And he said on the third day that he
would rise again. Now it's the third day. Not a single one of the disciples is
thinking, oh, it's the third day, let's check the grave to see if he rises from
the dead. That's how dead Jesus was. Some people have come up with explanations
or theories that Jesus was perhaps only mostly dead and there was some
misunderstanding. And Mark is giving us all these eyewitness details to say, no,
there was no mistake about that. His death was verified by the centurion, Joseph
took the corpse away, these women saw it at the tomb. You know how you might
read a book and the author makes a surprising claim and you think, how could
that possibly be true? But then you might see a footnote connected to what
you're reading. When an author footnotes, the author is essentially saying, if
you doubt what I'm saying, you can look it up. The footnotes and then the
bibliography in the back of the book allow you to get more information and see
for yourself where did this information come from. You can see what the original
source is. When Mark is writing, he's basically saying, if you're not sure about
this, if you have your doubts about this crucifixion, burial and resurrection
that I'm talking about, you can go talk to these women. They were there, they're
still alive. And in Mark, we obviously see a lot of the failure of Jesus'
disciples, particularly in his time of need. These women are functioning as a
contrast to the failures of the disciples. They've been faithful, they've been
following Jesus all the way from Galilee. They were there at the crucifixion,
they had stuck by him, they were at the burial, they were faithful to Jesus in
his life, even in his death. So in between the cross and the resurrection, we
see these faithful people like Joseph and the three women taking courage, doing
the right thing, even in despair. So we start to see a little bit about who
these women were and what they had seen, and now here they are on the way to the
tomb. They have been following Jesus, they haven't left him, and their intention
now is to bring spices so that they might anoint the body. It's like a final act
of devotion to Jesus. As far as they are concerned, there's nothing that's going
to be gained from what they're doing. Remember, this is the Middle East. It's
hot, of course. The body's going to decay very quickly, so the purpose of these
spices is to counteract the putrefaction that would take place, the odor of the
dead body, for a little while. So it's very early in the morning, the sun's
coming up as they go to the tomb, and the women begin to speak to each other,
recognizing they've not thought about how they are going to move the stone. Mark
says, and they were saying to one another, who will roll away the stone for us
from the entrance of the tomb? Seems like an obvious thing that they should have
thought of. But you know how when you have a big, stressful event in your life,
it could be a wedding, it could be a funeral, it could be a sickness, someone
you love has been hospitalized. Something is going on that takes you way out of
your normal routine. This is when we start to forget very basic things. I don't
know if I could prove this exactly, but this is like when you become ten times
more likely to lock your keys in the car, or to lose your wallet or your cell
phone. Well, something like that is happening to these women. In their hurry, in
their stress, in their grief, they've forgotten they have no way of getting into
this tomb. 46 and 47 tell us that they were eyewitnesses, so they know how large
the stone was. Most Jewish tombs did not have rolling stones like what's being
referred to. Only the wealthy, but Joseph was wealthy, had tombs like this. Most
tombs would be closed up with a stone going over the opening, kind of like a
cork being squeezed into a bottle. The rolling stone was a feature of wealthy
families, like Joseph of Arimathea, and once the stone had been rolled on these
grooves and been locked into place, it's extremely difficult to move. Way beyond
the physical capacity of these three women. But verse four says, looking up,
they saw that the stone had been rolled back. It was very large. So we've talked
about who these women were, faithful to the end. When we think about what
they've seen, they've seen Jesus' ministry. They've seen his crucifixion.
They've seen his burial. And now they see the stone rolled away. At first, they
would have expected some sort of interference or some sort of violation of the
grave. When they go inside the tomb, they see a young man who we know from other
gospel accounts to be an angel dressed in a white robe. And Mark says with this
wonderful understatement that they were alarmed. And entering the tomb, this is
Mark 16 five, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white
robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, do not be alarmed. You seek
Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here. See the
place where they laid him. These women become the first eyewitnesses of the
empty tomb, and they hear the angel proclaim, he has risen. He is not here. When
we talk about the resurrection, we're talking about the very bedrock foundation
of the Christian faith. A Christian is someone who believes that a man was
killed, went into the grave, was buried, and came back to life. A Christian is
not someone who believes that that is normal. A Christian is someone who
believes that it happened one time in history. And if you're skeptical of the
resurrection, or you're talking to someone who is, there's a good reason for
that. We're not talking about a normal event. I would never think that I could
convince you of that on reason alone. And you might think, how would anyone
believe that a thoroughly dead man came back to life? What you should also
consider is that nobody denies that the tomb was empty. Even the first century
Jews who continued to oppose the early church, long after these events, did not
deny that. They accepted it as historic fact, that the tomb where Jesus had been
laid was now empty. That was the big issue that they had to deal with. That's
why they said that the disciples had stolen the body. There was evidence for
everyone to consider and do something about. The tomb was occupied, and then it
wasn't. So if, for example, the disciples had hidden the body, do you think they
would have been willing to be martyred decades later on account of that? Or
would they have been willing to cooperate together to hold onto that conspiracy
decades later, even as they were scattered across the known world? Or if the
Jewish people had been able to produce the body, wouldn't have done that. So
along with the testimony of scripture, the historical consensus that the tomb
was empty is one of the great evidences of the resurrection. But this is also
not one of history's great mysteries where we can just say, wow, and be amazed,
and who knows? For example, some of you may have been to England at some point
in your life and seen Stonehenge. Or maybe you've just seen, like me, you've
just seen pictures. When people see those impossibly large boulders and stones
that were apparently organized, set up over 5,000 years ago, well, they have a
lot of questions. How in the world did that happen? But I will personally be
content to die without knowing. And not only that, my opinion doesn't matter.
How Stonehenge came into being or how the pyramids precisely were built. It is
fascinating to think about and watch National Geographic shows. It's fascinating
to discuss and consider. But for a lay person like me, my opinion doesn't
matter, and it has no actual bearing on my life. The empty tomb is an entirely
different thing because we have to deal with it. It confronts us. Even if you
think that you can avoid it, your avoidance is itself a choice. Because in Mark,
Jesus states his mission like this. For even the Son of Man came not to be
served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. So a Christian
is someone who trusts in Jesus' ransom payment on the cross for their sins.
Okay, back to the women. The women see this startling, frightening sight of the
empty tomb and the angel in dazzling white inside. But there's no body. And this
is what they hear. The angel says, do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth
who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid
him. But go. Tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to
Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you. He is risen. The one who
was crucified has been raised by the power of God. In the Greek, that phrase, he
is risen, is only one word, not three. So there's never been more communication
packed into one word. When Jesus was crucified, he was paying with his life the
ransom debt for the penalty of sin. And that debt would have been beyond
counting, beyond our ability to compute, past anything we would be able to
calculate. But when he was raised by the power of God, that is God the Father's
declaration that the debt had been paid for and paid completely in full. Think
about the feeling, and maybe some of you have had this, the feeling of paying
off something that has been hanging over your head. You may have experienced
this with house debt or credit debt or a car loan or student loans. Some of you
are dealing with those right now and can only imagine in kind of a vague way of
what it would be like to be done with those. You can picture the incredible
relief that that debt payment would provide. Some people when they get out of
debt literally scream for joy and for relief. But as crushing as debt like that
can be, it's still temporary. The weight of sin goes far beyond that. And on the
cross, Jesus paid completely for our sins so that you and I can be brought back
and restored to a guilt-free relationship with God, our creator. He was raised
and then he walked out of the tomb because the penalty of sin had no more claim
on him. How did the women respond? Verse eight tells us, and they went out and
fled from the tomb for trembling and astonishment had seized them. And they said
nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. One final note about these three women.
In first century Jewish culture, three women would not have been considered
reliable witnesses. Their testimony would not have been allowed in, for example,
a court of law or a legal proceeding because of their gender. If the early
church was fabricating a resurrection narrative, the witnesses would have been
men. It was in some sense inconvenient for the early church that the first
witnesses of the empty tomb were these women. But the reality is that it was
three women who first saw the empty tomb that actually points to the factuality
of Mark's account. And this is how the Gospel of Mark ends, very abruptly as
these women go sprinting off, too awestruck to say anything. If you think about
it, they never see Jesus. There is no appearance of Jesus in Mark's conclusion.
And that abrupt ending is what led some people to hypothesize that something is
missing. But nothing is missing. The ending is perfect because fear and
astonishment are characteristic of people's response to Jesus throughout the
Gospel of Mark. If you think about Mark chapter 4 when Jesus calms the storm,
the disciples are terrified and astonished. If you think about Mark chapter 9
when Peter and James and John see Jesus on the mount of transfiguration and they
see him in his glory, they are fearful and astonished. When Jesus tells them,
the disciples in Mark chapter 10, that he was going to suffer and die, they are
fearful and afraid. And what we see at the empty tomb is fear and astonishment.
The best summary I read of this came from one commentator and he just said
simply this, the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah is an event beyond human
comprehension and therefore awesome and frightening. Let me just end here
because as a church we are living in light of the resurrection. We could say
we're children of the resurrection. So how important is the resurrection for us
today? This is something that we talk about and celebrate every Easter of
course, but I love that it is actually today, the end of August, Labor Day
weekend and we get to talk about the resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus is
our hope in life and in death. So many places I could go, but let me just read
two scriptures. In John's Gospel, when confronted with the death of Lazarus,
Jesus tells Lazarus' sister Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever
believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and
believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? When the Apostle Paul
reflects on the resurrection in 1 Thessalonians 4, he says, since we believe
that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him
those who have fallen asleep. The resurrection is our hope in death because we
believe it is the first fruits of what is to come. That means for those of us
who trust in Jesus, when we die, we will not be annihilated. We will not drift
away into nothingness. We will not be reincarnated to come back in some other
life form. We will be raised from death to life and we will always be with the
risen Jesus. The resurrection is our hope, even in death. Death will not be the
end. And we can sometimes think to ourselves, that is great, that is amazing,
but that is all hopefully a long ways off. Does it matter now? The resurrection
is our hope in life and in death. When the Apostle Paul reflects on this in 1
Corinthians 15, he concludes by saying, therefore, my beloved brothers, be
steadfast, be immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that
in the Lord, your labor is not in vain. The resurrection gives us hope for the
life to come, but it gives us a resilience in our life now. Our labor, what we
do for the Lord Jesus out of love for him, however varied those things may be,
is never in vain. Think about one more time about what these women heard. Do not
be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth who is crucified. He has risen. He is not
here. See the place where they laid him, but go tell the disciples and Peter
that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him just as he told
you. The angel hit them with about eight bullet points and they ran away from
the tomb, silent and terrified, but they didn't stay silent for long. We know a
lot more than they know. What we do now, when we share the gospel with other
people, when we love other people, when we serve other people, when we lay down
our lives for them in Jesus' name, may feel very small. Even when we feel the
weight of the sin and decay of this world, our labor is never in vain because
Christ is risen and he is our hope in life and in death. Let's pray. Lord God,
we thank you for the great hope that we have in any stage in life or in death
because of the empty tomb. And I pray that everyone here would know that. Lord,
would you infuse our labor this week with resilience and joy in light of your
resurrection? And I pray that that hope that we have in life and in death would
be our anchor. In Jesus' name, amen.