This Changes Everything!
Mark 16:1-8
Introduction: Christ
is risen! Indeed He is risen! That is not a story. It is not a myth. It
is a fact of history. It is truth, and that truth changes everything. It is a
historical fact, and it is the foundation of our faith! Paul spoke to the
importance of the resurrection in I Corinthians 15:13-20,
13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has
been raised. 14 And if Christ
has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in
vain. 15 We are even found to
be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ,
whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised,
not even Christ has been raised. 17
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in
your sins. 18 Then those also
who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
19 If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of
all people most to be pitied. 20
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those
who have fallen asleep…
That is pretty emphatic, is it not? If
the resurrection is not true, our faith is useless, we are still in our
sins, we are of all men most to be pitied. But if it is true, and it is,
it changes everything! Ignatius of
Antioch, was being taken to his execution in AD 107, just a few years after the
death of the last apostle. He was expecting to be thrown to the lions, and may
have reflected on those words of Paul when he wrote the following…
If you come across somebody who says
that Jesus Christ never lived, or that He is just an idea, or a concept, or a
myth, shut your ears to him. Jesus
Christ was born into a human family, a descendent of David. His mother was Mary. He was persecuted under
Pontius Pilate, a fact testified to us by some who are now in Heaven, and some
who are still alive on earth. How can
this be a phantom, or an illusion, or a myth?
These are facts of history!
It
is also a fact that he rose from the dead (or rather that his Father raised him
up). And that is the most important fact
of all, because his promise is that the Father will also raise us up, if we
believe in Him. So if Christ Jesus is
not alive, neither shall we be. There is
nothing left for us to hope for if he is just an idea or a fantasy. In any
case, if he only appeared to rise from the dead —why should I be in chains for
this “myth”? Why should I die to support
an illusion? I am prepared to die for
him, the true and real Son of God. But
no one is prepared to die for a shadow.
The resurrection is not just a story
we tell in Sunday school, or once a year at Easter. It is the very foundation
of our faith! The tomb was empty, and that truth changes everything!
As we look at this account, we will realize that the disciples were
not expecting the resurrection of Jesus. Why would they have been? Jesus had, multiple times, clearly predicted
His death and resurrection! After the disciples first confess that Jesus is the
Messiah in Mark 8, Jesus explicitly taught them what had to happen. They
needed to learn what the Messiah came to do…
Mark 8:31 31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must
suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the
scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.
A chapter later, after casting out a
demon from a boy that the disciples had been unable to exorcize, Jesus was
teaching His disciples, and in 9:31 He says to them…
Mark 9:31 "The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men,
and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise."
Essentially the same teaching. Then
again, we read in Mark 10:32-34…
…Jesus was walking ahead of them. And
they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve
again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, 33 saying, "See, we are going
up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests
and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the
Gentiles. 34 And they will
mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he
will rise."
Each time, after Jesus’ teaching, the
disciples said or did something that showed
they did not understand. After the Mount
of Transfiguration, Jesus had told Peter, James, and John to tell no one about
what they had seen until after He rose from the dead. So we read in
9:10, “…they kept the matter to
themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead might mean.”
They would soon know! That is…
The BIG Idea: The resurrection changes
everything! It proves that He is who He claimed to be and that He accomplished
what He came to do! We’ve arrived at Mark’s account of that morning and
consider, 1) The devotion of the women, as only they, among the
followers of Jesus, risk going to the tomb on Sunday morning to anoint the body
of Jesus; 2) The declaration of the angel in 5-7, appearing as a young
man dressed in white who declares the Good News, He is not here, He is risen, and finally; 3) The deduction
of the witnesses, as it strikes them as to what this must mean!
I. The Devotion of the Women: Only they, among the disciples, risk going first to
the tomb to anoint the body of the Lord (1-4).
When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and
Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day
of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 And they were saying to one
another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the
tomb?" 4 And looking up,
they saw that the stone had been rolled back- it was very large.
The disciples had been scattered, and are
still out of sight. These faithful women, who had followed from Galilee,
watched from a distance at Golgotha. They then followed Joseph to the tomb so
they knew exactly where Jesus was buried. Again, the fact that Mark reports
that these women were the first witnesses of the empty tomb and that
they received the angelic announcement of the resurrection, is a powerful
testimony to the authenticity of the record. Women were truly second-class
citizens in the ancient world. At the time of Christ, they were not allowed to
testify in legal matters. They were considered unreliable witnesses. If Mark
was making this story up, he would not have had the first witnesses as women!
But he reports it that way because that is the way it happened. As God inspired Mark to write this account, he
highlights the role of these women as faithful followers of Jesus. They are
watching as He is crucified (while the men were scattered), they follow Joseph
of Arimathea to the tomb when Jesus is buried on Friday afternoon, and they
arrive at the tomb to tend to His body on Sunday morning.
It seems only on the way do they start to think about how they are going
to move the huge stone they saw rolled into place to seal the tomb (3). God had a plan about that. They arrive, and
the stone is already moved! Who moved the stone? That is the title of a
book about the resurrection by Frank Morrison. He set out to disprove the
resurrection, and like many before and after him, when He looked at the facts
and considered the evidence, like the centurion at the cross, like the thief
crucified at the side of Jesus, his heart was opened to the truth—surely this
man was the Son of God! Dr. Simon
Greenleaf, founder of Harvard Law school, had a similar experience. His book
was entitled, The Testimony of the
Evangelists: The Gospels Examined by the Rules of Evidence. Lee Strobels’s The Case for Christ is a more recent example. The evidence is
clear: He arose! The resurrection can’t be explained away. *It is history, and
it changes everything! It proves that Jesus is who He claimed to be and that He
accomplished what He came to do! So we see the devotion of the women, and 2…
II. The Declaration of the Angel: He is risen;
He is not here (5-7).
And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side,
dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed.
6 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. 7
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."
An alarming sight (5). Mark describes
this scene in the simplest, most straightforward terms. A young man, dressed in
white. We know from the parallel accounts that this was indeed an angel, and
his appearance was like lightening (Mt 28:3) and he was dressed in dazzling
apparel (Lk 24:4). The word Mark uses here can have the sense of “amazed” or
“alarmed,” or even “distressed.” No wonder! They were already distressed about
the events of that week, but now they find the tomb open and the body gone, and
this angelic figure seated in the tomb! As shocking as all that was, I assume
that what that messenger says goes even further…
A shocking statement (6). They were alarmed
at the sight of this angelic figure sitting in the tomb. Wouldn’t you have been?!
But the announcement the angel made had to be even more shocking: He is risen! These women may have been
there in Capernaum when Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus to life. More
recently, they might have been at the grave of Lazarus when Jesus called Him
forth! But Jesus now had Himself died. They saw His lifeless body taken down
off the cross, wrapped in linen by Joseph of Arimathea, laid in a tomb, and
then a rock rolled in front of the door to seal it in. They had come planning
to anoint the dead body of Jesus! He’s
alive? Do you know what this must mean? Yes, this was a “shock and awe”
moment!
Look at the place where they
laid Him – It is as
though the angel is saying, “Impress this on your mind, consider what it means,
you are going to be a witness to this earth-shaking event! This changes
everything!”
Go and tell the disciples and
Peter… Why does the Angel specifically mention Peter? Remember his
response when Jesus looked at him in the courtyard of the High Priest, after Peter
had denied Him three times? He was broken.
Broken and broken-hearted, Peter needed restoration—he had denied his
Lord. It’s hard to read that “Go and tell”
without thinking of the Great Commission, and our mandate to share the Good
News of Jesus with the world around us (see I Corinthians 15:1-3; Matthew
28:18).
“…he is going before you to Galilee.
There you will see him, just as he told you." Remember that after Jesus predicted that
they would all be scattered, and that Peter would three times deny Him, Jesus
said to them,
"…You will all fall away, for
it is written, 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be
scattered.' 28 But after I am
raised up, I will go before you to Galilee." 29 Peter said to him, "Even
though they all fall away, I will not." (Mk 14:27-29).
We know how that worked out for Peter! But consider the grace that Jesus
is extending. They would all desert Him, Peter would deny Him, but Jesus would
be raised and go before them to Galilee. That speaks to restoration and
forgiveness. Even for Peter, and even for us! God’s grace is bigger than
our sin. That is why Jesus came, that is why He died. And the resurrection
changes everything! It proves that He is who He claimed to be and that He
accomplished what He came to do!
III. The Deduction of the witnesses: Consider what this means! (8).
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.
Astonished and fearful they
fled from the tomb! One preacher said, “The resurrection confronts before
it comforts.” That has been true of other miracles that Jesus did earlier in
his ministry. Jesus was giving glimpses of the future kingdom and clues to His
identity in the acts of power He did. They were signs, testifying to His
identity, revealing the presence of the Kingdom in the person of the King! The women didn’t just casually leave the
tomb, chatting about the theological implications of what they had just seen.
Mark tells us they “fled the tomb.” He
uses three words to describe their feelings of awe at that moment: trembling… astonishment… afraid… That
shouldn’t surprise us too much in the light of what we have already seen in our
survey of the Gospel of Mark. It is the response of humans as they get a
glimmer of the answer to their question: “Who is this man?” (cf. Mk 4:40-41). Sinclair
Ferguson said,
“In Mark’s Gospel, this fear is
always man’s response to the breaking in of the power of God. It is the fear
the disciples experienced when Jesus stilled the storm; the fear of the
Gerasenes when Jesus delivered Legion; the fear of the disciples as they saw
Jesus setting His face to Jerusalem to die on the cross. This fear is the
response of men and women to Jesus as He shows His power and majesty as the Son
of God…” (Mark, p. 271)
I believe Mark intends us to
understand that the women went directly to the disciples, speaking to no one on
the way (8). Remember that Mark is
writing to a group of believers, a church. They had heard the Gospel. They
knew the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus from the testimony of the
Apostles. First Corinthians was one of Paul’s earlier letters. In chapter 15 of
that letter Paul says that Jesus appeared to Peter, and to the twelve, and on
one occasion to more than 500 brothers at once! We learn from the book of Acts
that after the resurrection Jesus appeared to them over a period of 40 days,
teaching about the kingdom, until his ascension. The writers of Scripture could
assume that their readers had a context, a background, that would inform how
they read the story. Of course the
women eventually took courage and told the apostles what they had seen! If not,
the men likely would never have gone to the tomb to see for themselves!
Most likely, these women ran in
silence back to the house where they disciples were huddled. All the while, considering
what all this meant, what they had seen and heard. Their excitement likely grew
as they drew nearer. The evidence was compelling, evidence that demands a
verdict! The tomb was empty, that means that Jesus conquered death—He really
is who He claimed to be! Sinclair Ferguson wrote,
“Mark… wrote his Gospel to make us
ask the question: Who is Jesus? And answer it accurately. Now he shows us the
nature of a true response to Jesus. It is to be moved with a sense of awe
and wonder that the Son of God came among men, and lived and died and rose
again for our salvation. That sense of awe is the beginning of a new life
of fellowship with a risen Lord…” (Ibid, 272).
What is God saying to me in this passage? The resurrection proves that He is
who He claimed to be and that He accomplished what He came to do!
What would God have me to do in response to this passage? We’ve worked
through Mark guided by his answer to three questions: 1) Who is Jesus? 2)Why
did He come? And, 3) What does it mean to follow Him? The resurrection is the
exclamation point at the end of the story. We will take another week to
consider the long ending of Mark, 16:9-15, in the light of the rest of
Scripture. But we already have Mark’s answers to those three questions:
1. Jesus is the Son of God; God, the Son! He deserves our
worship and obedience.
2. He came to rescue us from
wrath, to reconcile us to God. The price has been paid, the gift is being
offered. Will you trust Him?
3. Will you entrust yourself to Him, and will you follow Him? He conquered death, He is the Son of God. He
is risen, and that changes everything! He came that we might have life, and
have it more abundantly! Will you follow Him? AMEN.
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