Responding to the Resurrection (Mark 16:1-8) | 4/21/19
Mark 16:1-8 | 4/21/19 | Will DuVal
I want to begin this morning by inviting you to imagine this scene with me. You’re driving home from church on an unusually cold and rainy day for mid-April, thinking to yourself: this is a PERFECT Sunday to sprawl out on the couch, flip on the TV, and take a nice, long nap. So you arrive home, do some channel surfing, and you notice that GOLF is on: PERFECT! Beautiful scenery, birds softly chirping, no one’s allowed to talk above a whisper – perfect napping soundtrack. But you quickly realize something’s different today; there’s an ENERGY, a BUZZ in the air. You listen, as the commentators catch you up to speed: apparently, Tiger Woods, the most famous golfer of our era, yet who hasn’t won a major tournament in over a decade, and has NEVER won a major when trailing after 3 rounds coming into Sunday, has done the IMPOSSIBLE, and come roaring back, from multiple surgeries, from public disgrace, from 2 strokes behind, to take the lead on the 18th and final hole at the Masters, and all he’s got to do now, to solidify the greatest comeback - maybe in sports HISTORY! - is sink one last, simple, 1-foot putt. He checks his line, steps back beside his ball, takes one last glance at the cup... exhales... back-swing... forward-swing... and as he strikes the ball, your TV goes **STATIC**. Static: the dreaded ant-race. Do TVs even do that anymore? We don’t have cable...
Let’s play again, for you non-sports fans: the scene is now the early 20th c., North Atlantic Ocean, it’s a cold, blustery night, but this ship is aflame with passion. Forbidden love is in the air. A beautiful young heiress, Rose, has fallen for a lowly commoner, Jack. The soundtrack of THEIR love softly plays in the background (**HUM**). Just setting the mood; you got it? When suddenly the magic is interrupted by shouts of “ICEBERG; RIGHT AHEAD!” The crew begins to work frantically to avoid catastrophe... Slowly the massive ship begins to turn but it may be too late... You hear the shout “It’s gonna HIT!”... and despite knowing how the story ends, you watch on in suspense, GRIPPING your chair, bracing for impact... As the movie... cuts to the CREDITS. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Kate Winslet.
You ready to try one more? Alright, would you stand with me, for the reading of God’s word, from the Gospel of Mark, ch.16, vv1-8. I’ll read it for us; you can follow along in your Bibles or on the screen:
When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, 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. 5 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.” 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.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let’s pray...
PRAYER: Father, you have quite a sense of humor. And yet, you are the MASTER story-teller. You knew EXACTLY what you were doing, when you inspired John Mark, to pen these words, nearly 2,000 years ago. And so Father, we pray now that just as you inspired his writing, would you so too now inspire our HEARING, and our UNDERSTANDING, and our APPLICATION of your word, that it may “accomplish that which YOU purpose, and succeed in the thing for which YOU have sent it”, in our lives, for Your glory, in JESUS’ name, we pray... Amen.
CONTEXT:
I like closure, CLARITY. Things being well-defined. Dating was HARD for me, until Facebook came along, my sophomore year of college (I’ll let you do the math), and thank GOD for Facebook! Because Mark Zuckerberg brought CLARITY to my relationships: are we “Facebook-official” yet?
Do you remember the days, when you used to have to ACTUALLY WAIT, 6 MONTHS, to get resolution from the season finale, cliffhanger ending of your favorite TV show? To find out who the sniper hit at the end of season 1 of “The West Wing”... To find out if Ross and Emily went through with the wedding after he said Rachel’s name at the altar. Thank GOD for NETFLIX! Now we can just wait the whole SERIES is done and binge-watch it all at once because I can’t TAKE the SUSPENSE!
So GOD, what are you trying to DO to me, at the end, of Mark, ch.16?! The end of Mark’s entire GOSPEL! This is how it ends: v.8: “And they fled from the tomb, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” That’s IT! We don’t meet the resurrected Jesus. He doesn’t go out with a big PEP RALLY, like he did at the end of MATTHEW’S Gospel: “Go and make disciples of all nations... BEHOLD, I am with you to the end of the age”. We don’t get the CLOSURE of seeing the risen Jesus ascend bodily into Heaven, like he does at the end of LUKE’S Gospel. Instead, MARK leaves us, with a few terrified, fleeing, dumb-founded women.
Now, some of you will notice, in your Bibles, verses 9-20 just below this, but you may ALSO notice, a parenthetical note in BETWEEN, that reads something like: “[Some of the earliest manuscripts do not include vv9–20]”. So, I’m not going to take up time this morning, or even NEXT Sunday, preaching on the so-called “longer ending” or explaining why I don’t believe it is Mark’s real, original ending, but we will make that the focus of our “Going Deeper” podcast this next week, quick plug for THAT; so if you’re wondering: “Wait a minute: you’re telling me that Christians don’t even agree on what passages belong in the Bible?”, I’ll invite you to our podcast this week.
But suffice it to say, our best evidence suggests that the early CHURCH was so unsettled by Mark’s abrupt ending in v8, that Christian writers a century LATER decided to bring some CLOSURE and CLARITY to his Gospel for him, and added vv9-20.
But all this brings us to a bigger question: Why does Mark end His Gospel this way? If John Mark was the assistant of the apostle Peter, if Mark’s Gospel serves as a memoir of Peter’s own first-hand recollections of Jesus; Peter, who had been Jesus’ OWN right-hand man; WHY in the WORLD, would MARK of all people, recording Peter’s eyewitness testimony, intentionally OMIT all these appearances of the resurrected Jesus? If Mark KNEW, from talking with PETER, about all these miraculous encounters with the risen Christ, why did he choose instead to end his Gospel with speechless women, running scared?
I want to suggest to you this morning, that the reason Mark INTENTIONALLY ends his biography of Jesus this way is 2-fold, and I’ll build the rest of this message around these 2 points:
1) First, Mark wants to show us that even Jesus’ closest followers, even after he told them NOT ONCE, not TWICE, but THREE times, Jesus predicted his DEATH, his burial, and his resurrection, and YET, even his closest followers, who knew him best, knew him PERSONALLY, walked with him, learned from him, every single day – they didn’t get it. They didn’t understand his Resurrection, and they didn’t respond properly.
2) But SECONDLY, and MORE importantly, I think Mark ends with a cliffhanger, because he’s INVITING us, you and me, this morning, to finish the story for ourselves. Mark leaves us with an open-ended, quasi-conclusion, because he wants to FORCE you to answer this question for yourself: forget how THEY responded to the risen Jesus 2,000 years ago; How am I going to respond to Him today? That’s the question for us this morning, friends.
So let’s unpack both those reasons...
Reason #1 that Mark ends his Gospel so abruptly: To humanize Jesus’ followers.
Quick recap, for our first-time visitors, ch.15 ended with Jesus’ death on the cross, with his 12 closest male disciples nowhere to be found, but we did hear that the women, THESE SAME women, from ch.16, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, never left his side. In fact, in LAST week’s sermon, on “Responding to the CROSS”, I used these women as an example for us, of how we OUGHT to respond to the cross: with faithful devotion, willing to lay down our lives in return for the eternal life that Jesus has offered us, by virtue of his death in OUR place on the cross; the ONLY right response to such sacrificial LOVE, such amazing GRACE, is devotion. And in ch.15, these women exemplify it. But then we get to ch.16. And I want you to notice, the stark contrast, between what this angel, the accounts of Matthew and John make his identity clear: this is an emissary directly from GOD, what the angel instructs the women to do in vv6-7, and then how the women ACTUALLY respond in v8. Time for some audience participation: FIRST, what does the angel instruct them to do; 4 things, 4 imperative verbs, vv6-7?
1) Do not be alarmed (then he makes a statement of fact: “You seek Jesus...”)
2) Behold the place where they laid him
3) Go tell his disciples (and then finally?)
4) Go to Galilee, so you can SEE him for yourselves, just as he told you
NOW, let’s do the same thing with the women’s RESPONSE in v8; what’s their reaction, we hear 4 things:
1) They were “seized” (Greek: “OVERCOME”!) with “trembling and astonishment”
2) They “FLED from the tomb”
3) They “said NOTHING to ANYONE”
4) (We hear nothing more about them in Galilee or seeking the risen Jesus as instructed, because the story ENDS with them paralyzed in fear)
Just look at the DIRECT contrast Mark is highlighting here; what is Mark doing? I think he’s purposely drawing our attention to the women’s FAILURE to respond rightly to Jesus’ resurrection, lest at the end of the story we make the mistake of making THEM out to be the heroes. “Look at these wonderful women, who stuck by Jesus’ side, all the way to the end. Look at their great LOVE for Jesus and their devotion.” And to that ENDING of his gospel, Mark says, “Oh no”. This story isn’t about THEM. Isn’t about THEIR faithfulness, THEIR devotion. THEIR love. Mark says: “There’s only room for ONE hero in my Gospel”.
By the way, you want to guess which Gospel comes down the harshest on the apostle Peter, TIME and TIME again? The Gospel that makes Peter look like just an absolute... nincompoop? It’s MARK. The Gospel that Peter narrated.
Because Mark and Peter BOTH know: “There’s only room for ONE hero here”
Friends, can I just clear the air of sort of the elephant in the room this morning; like I told you: I like clarity. I’m not much of one for subtlety and Christian niceties. Listen: we’ve basically got 2 types of people in this room. There are those of us who are actively involved in the church, some of us even get PAID to be here, PROFESSIONAL Christians, and then there are many of you here this morning who, praise God, this might be your first time back in church in YEARS. Maybe your first time EVER. We are SO glad you’re here; you don’t even KNOW! Or maybe you just fall into that category that we’ve so lovingly nicknamed “ChrEasters”, who attend church faithfully twice a year on Christmas and Easter simply because it’s a family tradition. Listen: whether you’re here this morning for the egg hunt for your kids, or you’re here to finally get your annoying neighbor or family member off your back, who’s been inviting you for forever now – frankly, I don’t care WHAT your motivation; I’m just glad you’re here. But can I just get REAL with y’all for a second: I think Mark ends the story by humanizing these otherwise faithful, devoted women because he wants to remind US TODAY, ESPECIALLY those of us who are TRYING to be faithful, who FANCY ourselves the devoted followers; it’s to remind us, that we are NOT the heroes. We’re NOT. Those neighbors, who invited you, who seem like super-Christians, the perfect idyllic family who have it all together, guess what: they DON’T. Trust me, I’m their pastor, I’ve probably got dirt on them... I could tell you STORIES. “But surely YOU’RE different; you’re a PASTOR!” OHHH! Don’t even get me STARTED on ME! Talk about STORIES! Friends: I am NOT the hero. I am not the good, devoted, always-faithful, never-failing follower of Jesus that a LOT of other pastors might have led you to believe that they are. I can’t speak for them, but I’ll lay my cards on the table this morning and confess: I am NOT the hero. So if you’re new and you’re looking for a church with a perfect pastor, I suggest you catch the late service down the street.
But friends, hear the good news this morning, straight from the lips of Jesus himself: “Those who are healthy have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17).
More crowd participation: By show of hands, how many of y’all would admit this morning that you are NOT perfect? That you are SPIRITUALLY sick, that you struggle with sin?
Okay – let the record show, that on Easter Sunday, 2019, EVERY HAND at West Hills Church was raised, in confession that we are broken sinners in need of grace. Friends: if YOU raised your hand, let me tell you what that means, practically, according to the Bible, it means 3 things:
1) Left on your own, you are disqualified from Heaven. Heaven is the perfect residence, of a perfect God, admissible to perfect people only. Jesus said in Matthew 5 that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, which is LIKE saying unless your better at golf than Tiger Woods, then you can’t get into Heaven by your good deeds. Good doesn’t = “perfect”. “Better than most” doesn’t = “perfect”. God doesn’t grade on a curve.
2) If you have been using the church’s HYPOCRISY, as an excuse to stay home on Sundays, to cut God out of your life, let the record show that EVERY SINGLE PERSON, at West Hills Church, raised their hand to confess they’re a sinner. To publicly admit, that we don’t have it all together. That we are NOT the heroes. Do me a favor: can we remind each OTHER of that, out loud, this morning to really drive it home. Could you turn to the person sitting next to you right now, and say to them, “You are NOT the hero.” Okay, now turn the OTHER direction, to the person you’re LESS comfortable with, and remind them, “You are SICK!” And friends, if you’ve stayed away from church EITHER because you thought you weren’t GOOD enough to be here, because church is for people who have it together and you realized you were broken, OR because you thought you were better than us, because we’re all a bunch of hypocrites and at least you’re honest about who you are, let the record show this morning that we admit that we are ALL broken, we are ALL sinful, and if you’re looking for a church full of regular people who know we need help and have FOUND that help in the person of Jesus Christ, you’re in the RIGHT place. This is a church for YOU.
3) Thirdly, and most significantly, if you raised your hand to confess you’re not perfect, that means not only are you disqualified from Heaven on your own merit, and not only that you are welcomed here at West Hills, but most importantly, it means, that you are actually HALFway to Heaven already. Because the Bible says that salvation is available to all who do TWO things: 1) CONFESS, and 2) BELIEVE. And if you raised your hand this morning, in CONFESSION that you’re broken, you’re at least halfway there. Now all that’s left, once you realize you’re sick, is 1) find the physician and 2) receive the cure. And that brings us to point #2.
#2 – Reason #2 that Mark leaves us with this cliffhanger ending, is: To INVITE us to PERSONALLY read ourselves into Jesus’ story, and write the ending for ourselves. Mark doesn’t want us to get so caught up on how the women reacted, how the disciples responded, even what the resurrected JESUS does next, that we BLOW PAST, and we MISS, the empty tomb. Because HIS empty TOMB, is OUR INVITATION.
Mark leaves us with this VISUAL, this PICTURE seared into our minds, of AMAZEMENT at a grave that 3 days earlier, contained a physical BODY, that is now, nowhere to be found.
I mean, let’s quickly run down the possibilities, because this is REALLY, what it all comes down to this morning. Before we even ASK the question that I started with - “How will YOU respond to the Resurrection?”- I guess I should first establish the historical FACT, that there WAS a resurrection, friends! I’ll let Kent Hughes summarize the FACTS for us:
“Even the most extreme skeptics do not deny that the grave was empty, including the early Jewish polemicists. [We have MULTIPLE, independent attestation, even from Jesus’ ENEMIES, from NON-Christian 1st c. primary sources like Josephus, to the fact that Jesus’ tomb was empty. Evidenced, amongst other things, by the fact that the first WITNESSES were all women. In 1st c. Judaism, the testimony of women wasn’t considered reliable – not even ADMISSABLE in court – so the idea that the early church would have MADE this story up, in this way with these details, doesn’t make ANY sense. So Hughes asks...] Where was the body? The Jews did not have it, for they would have produced it post-haste [The Jewish leaders had a VESTED interest in making SURE that Jesus stayed dead and could be PROVED to be dead; they weren’t hiding his body...]. The disciples did not have it, for if they did, it would have been psychologically and spiritually impossible for them to live the dedicated martyrs’ lives and deaths they did [Read Foxe’s Book of the Martyrs; It’s one thing to believe a lie; it’s a whole ‘nother thing to willing DIE for something that you KNOW is a lie, because you’re the one who stole the body! Only a clinically INSANE person would do that, and we’re talking DOZENS of stories of 1st c. Christians who would rather DIE than renounce Christ – were they ALL insane? So Hughes concludes] ...When someone says, “I don’t believe in your Resurrection,” ask them, “Then what happened to the body of Jesus?”” (Hughes, Mark, p.217)
That’s the first question you and I HAVE to deal with this morning, and if you’re still not convinced, I’ll invite you to study the evidence for yourself, it is COMPELLING. Here: I’ll actually give you ELEVEN arguments for the Resurrection to go home and research more for yourself:
1) The empty tomb (how else do YOU explain it?!)
2) The embarrassing witness of the women
3) Early non-Christian testimony (Josephus, the Toledoth Jesu...)
4) The Nazareth Inscription
5) The conversion of James
6) The conversion of Saul/Paul (people that had a vested interest in NOT following Jesus, who derailed their LIVES to do so...)
7) The martyrdom of the apostles (I covered that)
8) The founding of the Church in Jerusalem (it would have been a non-starter if his body was still in the tomb; the location was well-known)
9) The spread of the Church (how else do you get thousands of people within a few YEARS of Jesus’ death, to sign up for a new religion that is ILLEGAL and punishable by DEATH, if it’s not true?)
10) The transformed lives of believers throughout history
And Lastly) The Bible. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans... they ALL point us back to the Resurrection. The New Testament isn’t a good book of moral instruction. It’s biographies and letters, of TESTIMONIES to a historical event. THE event, at the center of ALL of history.
That’s why Mark ends with the empty tomb. To FORCE us to reckon with it, historically.
But not JUST historically. He wants us to reckon with it PERSONALLY as well. How will YOU respond, PERSONALLY, to the risen Christ?
It’s sort of like Mark is writing, and all of a sudden he STOPS, but instead of putting a PERIOD, he puts an ellipsis, a ‘dot-dot-dot’, and then turns and hands YOU, the READER, the pen, and says, “Okay - you write chapter 17. How does this story end?”
And friends, I want to end this SERMON this morning, by simply sharing with you the GOOD news, that because His grave was empty, YOUR story doesn’t have to end with a period either. Your life... when they make your TOMBSTONE one day, it doesn’t have to read, “Born this date, died this date – PERIOD”. Jesus’ empty tomb means that YOUR life too, can end with an ellipsis. To be continued. In Heaven. In GLORY. In PARADISE. WITH Jesus. FOREVER. For ETERNITY. Because He conquered sin, and Hell, and Death ITSELF on the cross; and the empty tomb was the receipt that PROVED that His payment for YOUR sins, was made in FULL. The check cleared. Payment received by the Father. And now JESUS holds the keys to life everlasting, and he wants to share it with you this morning.
But as we saw earlier, it’s not enough to simply CONFESS. You must confess... and BELIEVE. John 1:12 - “To all who did receive him, [received JESUS] who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
So I ask you again this morning, friends: “How will YOU respond, to the Resurrection? Will YOU receive, the Risen Christ?” Let’s pray...
Sources used:
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection
https://answersingenesis.org/jesus-christ/resurrection/biblical-and-extra-biblical-evidences/