Mark 16

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0:00 So we're finishing the Gospel of Mark today. After you mark Luke John, then next week we're starting Exodus. And then how about this? Exodus will take us all the way to Advent. Just keep wrapping up the years, you know? Just keep moving through them. But today we get to talk about the finish of the Gospel of Mark.

0:31 So we're in Mark chapter 16. And a couple reminders about the Gospel of Mark. Remember, Mark is one of four Gospel of Jesus, Matthew Mark Luke John. It's written in the style that is prevalent, there in the history of the Greek style of the deals where they take someone who's made a name for themselves. They organize the events of their story in a way to communicate a particular truth about the person.

1:06 So you might have several deals written about Caesar that organize things differently in order to communicate an idea. And the Gospels are written like this, in that Greek style of the deals. And that's why they organize them. They're events a little bit differently. The Gospels, the first three Matthew Mark and Luke we think of as the Synoptic Gospels, they more or less follow the same pattern, have a lot of the same stories. John's is pretty different. The Gospel of John is one of the last things that we have that's written in the Bible, maybe in 90.

1:40 And then there's this debate about what's the first John state in the East. And one of the reasons people think it's the first one written is because it's very clearly the shortest. It includes the fewest stories, moves very quickly. But the professor that I had in seminary taught Greek, love Greek. His specialty was Mark wrote commentary on Mark.

2:13 And he makes the argument that Mark's Gospel was the last one written. Remember we talked about this at the beginning. We're pretty sure that the mark who wrote Mark's Gospel is John Mark who's around the disciples but younger, especially at the end. When we read the story of Gethsemane and all of the disciples are scattered, they all run away. And then it says there's one guy who's running away just in his ship. They think that that's Mark.

2:43 When they come to the Passover, there's a young guy sitting at the stairs waiting. They think that that's Mark. When Peter in the Acts of the Apostles is miraculously let out of prison and he goes to first one house where they're pretty sure that's the house church that Peter was a part of, they mentioned that it's the house of John Mark's mother. And so then Mark ends up following Paul's son and traveling with Peter's son. We're pretty sure this is the mark that wrote this Gospel. And then we think that late in his life Peter was in house arrest, maybe probably in Rome.

3:17 And that before he dies, he dictates the Gospel as he remembers it to Mark. Mark writes it down. And so the other school of thought is that Mark's Gospel is one of the last things we have written. And that it's moved so quickly because of the audience that it's written to. And part of the emphasis or the argument for that is this chapter, the way that it ends. So let's look at Mark chapter 16 together. And if you don't normally follow along, it's the villain follow along.

3:50 It's only a few verses and I want to point out a couple of things in it. I'm just going to read the first eight verses and then we'll back up and talk through it. When the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James and Salome brought 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?

4:24 Looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back and 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, oh, don't be alarmed. You see Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, he's risen, he's not here. See the place where they laid him. So go and tell his disciples and Peter that he's going before you to Galilee.

4:54 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, or they were afraid. So most of our earliest verses were called the ! So most of our earliest copies of the Gospel of Mark stopped there. The Sinaitic texts, the Latin Vulcate texts, most of the old manuscripts of the Greek that we have.

5:30 The majority of scholars think this was the end of Mark originally, and these resurrection appearances were added later. That the community of the Church took some stories of resurrection appearances and added them later. Even the syntax, the way the Greek is written, is different in this last several verses of chapter 16. And that's one of the reasons that Veltz and this school of thought says Mark's Gospel was the last one written,

6:04 because the point is to say you don't have to have seen Jesus to believe in the resurrection. The promise that he would rise and the empty tomb is enough for you. That will come in actually here in just a minute. We'll look forward into some writings of 1 Peter where he says that almost exactly. He gives evidence to the connection there.

6:36 But before we get there, I want to think through just what's happening here because it's a story that maybe we've heard a bunch of times. I want to think through a couple of parts of it. So it starts off when the Sabbath was passed, Mary and Magdalene. So remember they are there for the Passover. They're in Jerusalem for the Passover. Jesus knew he would die, but no one else really expected it. Though he told them it would happen. They were kind of caught off guard.

7:10 That's why they run out of the Sabbath and he's surprised that he'll be betrayed. And so they're there for the Passover and the Sabbath. And normally once the Sabbath is over, they'd all head home. But of course Jesus dies right at the beginning of the Sabbath and they rush to bury him because they don't want to be working on the Sabbath. And because he dies so quickly, they can get him buried before the Sabbath starts. But they don't have time to do the things that they normally do. They would normally dress the body with all the spices in order that they could have the proper mourning period.

7:47 People could come and visit and the body wouldn't deteriorate so quickly that you couldn't be near it. You could still be near the body and mourn. So the Jewish community had these spices and this way that they would move through mourning and deal with the loss of someone they loved. Which gets me here that Jesus is already dead. Like the stones in front of the teeth, he's buried.

8:19 They're going to exhum his body in order to do the spices that they would normally do before they put him in the tomb. Right? Why bother? Right? Why bother? They don't imagine that they're going to find anything other than dead lifeless Jesus in the tomb when they're going early in the morning.

8:59 But they go anyway. Why? I mean the answer is simple because they love him. But this is the first point for me that I think is important that maybe sometimes we take for granted. They love Jesus of Nazareth. They love the person of Jesus. And though he is dead, they still love him.

9:33 Though he is gone, they still love the person Jesus of Nazareth. And a Judeo-Christian worldview is built on the idea that there is particular you, people in the world whom we might love. And that these people exist in reality. I was thinking about this.

10:05 It's actually pretty unique in terms of the worldview options that have emerged among humanity. The idea that you actually exist as a particular manifestation of life. All the Eastern worldviews have this notion of birth, life, death, rebirth. The cycle over and over and over again.

10:36 And the trick of navigating this cycle that they call samsara is to realize that you actually don't exist. In Hinduism, you're like the same essence, the Brahman essence of the whole world. And you are no different than anything else living in Buddhism. There is not even actually you. You're just a karmic manifestation that's karma channels the life force into different existences. In both of those settings, the reality is to, or the goal is to realize that you don't exist at all.

11:13 I was talking to an atheist friend the other day who was telling me, in reality, life is just a happy accident. And when I die, I'm done. Unique among the worldviews that are options for you is the idea that you are here on purpose. You, the particular nuances of your personality, the potential in your creative mind, the capacity of your loving heart, is actually here.

11:59 Brought forth with purpose and intent and enduring in a broken world with forethought, love and care. So that when Jesus of Nazareth dies, this unique expression of God's love in the world leads, they are sad appropriately. And their love extends beyond the grave.

12:32 To what effect? If our genuine love for people here and gone is evidence of the reality of God's creative act in the world,

13:04 that they are more than a karmic manifestation or a happy accident, but they are unique creations worthy of love, then death is this unnatural interruption on the creative act of God. And we build a ritual around it in order to cope with the fact that our love is not enough to forestall death.

13:40 Love him all you want, Mary, when you get there, you'll find him dead. Right? Well, they get there right and he's not.

14:15 There's a lot of ways to think about the resurrection of Jesus. Of course, Jesus has resurrected people, Jesus of Nazareth resurrected people, remember? Lazarus and the little girl. But dead Jesus somehow, no one walks there. It's not Peter that stands outside the tomb and calls Jesus to life.

14:48 It's not the Mary's that walk up and their love holds him out of the grave. When Jesus stands outside of Lazarus tomb, he commands death to leave and death obeys. Nobody has the force of will or love to command death to leave Jesus. There's some force of life inside of Jesus that cannot be contained inside of death.

15:21 Jesus like raises himself up from the grave. He can't be held down or held back. Death couldn't hold him. He opens up something new for us.

15:52 Do you remember where that is? You do? Maybe it'll quit. Jesus has this force of life that he moves through death, though death can't hold him. The love in Jesus, different from ours, can resurrect life on the other side.

16:22 Peter picks this theme up in his letter to the church. Probably done. Look at 1 Peter, chapter 1, starting at verse 3. So if Peter is dictating this story to Mark and he has it stop at the empty tomb,

16:56 then we go to 1 Peter chapter 3, which he maybe wrote before the gospel, or before Mark wrote his gospel. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to his great mercy. He has cause us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.

17:26 That's a lot. First of all, like looking back at it, Jesus, according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Peter, like the rest of the gospels and Paul, assert that Jesus' death and resurrection secure the same for you. That his divinity and humanity joined together mean that his death can count for yours, meaning his force of life can come into you.

18:01 So, though your old creation experiences death, the new creation in Christ endures beyond the grave, that Jesus with his death and resurrection secures death and resurrection for you, imperishable, undefiled, set aside. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while if necessary you have been grieved by various trials, so the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold, though of parishes by fire may be found,

18:34 to result in the praise and glory and honor and revelation of Jesus Christ. This is the verse I wanted to get to verse 8. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him, and rejoice. Rejoice that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. I think in this first generation, Peter, you can see the way Paul sometimes writes to the church, they're trying to figure out, like they were assuming Jesus would come back in their generation.

19:19 And Jesus moved all around Galilee right for three years and grew up there for 30 before that. And then after his death and resurrection he appeared to 500. And so they might have assumed that Jesus would come back and we would not have to answer the question, what about people who never saw or never knew or didn't know anyone who knew Jesus of Nazareth?

19:52 And all they have is the story. And so Paul goes out into as far as he can walk and take a boat and tells the story and unique, he sends the word back to Jerusalem. The story is animating faith in people. People who never knew Jesus of Nazareth and never saw him are believing the story and receiving the benefits of faith. This is why Paul writes so joyfully to the Galatians, there are marks of faith you will notice.

20:29 Your heart of stone will be turned to a heart of flesh. You'll have life according to the spirit. You'll put away life according to the flesh. You'll look like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, and loose general self-control. You don't have to have ever seen Jesus to believe in Jesus and get the benefits of Jesus now and forever. Perhaps the most compelling thing about the idea of the incarnation, death, and resurrection is the notion that you, in all your uniqueness, the scars that formed you how you are, the traits you discovered on your own,

21:22 the marks of what you've learned from what you've done, that your unique and forming personality was worth saving for eternity. This is the death and resurrection of Christ, the unique salvation of you forever. That you are worth coming to rescue Jesus with his death and resurrection accomplishes, Peter says, the undoing of the unnatural interruption of death on your eternal life.

22:10 This is the unique position of the Christian worldview. Now, knowing that you exist on purpose, for real, for heaven, loved by God into eternity, how should we spend our passing days? I was thinking about that question and ended up in 1 John.

22:48 One more text if you want to look there with me, 1 John, right towards the very back. 1 John, chapter 4, those three John's, June revelations, and go all the way to the back. 1 John, chapter 4, verse 7. John always boils it down really simply. And remember, John boils it down to love a couple of weeks ago, we said, the fullest example of love is the cross, solidarity, and self-sacrifice.

23:22 Stand with someone at your own expense. John boils it all down to love in 1 John, chapter 4, verse 7. He says, beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. And anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. And in this, the love of God was made manifest among us. That God sent His only Son into the world that we might live through Him. In this love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

23:58 We love it if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God, but if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. If the resurrection is the evidence that uniquely you exist in the world, and God has found a way to end the unnatural interruption of death and secure your particular eternity forever,

24:31 then the most natural and helpful response is to mirror the love that you've been given out into the world. And when you do, those people have not seen God, they will know God. And be reminded or uncover again the uniqueness of who they are and their path to live forever.

25:01 My prayer for you today for each of us is that we remember that Christ accomplished all for us, that His life is enough for us, and freed by the reality that we particularly us live forever. He might be freed of love, the people around us well. And Jesus name, Christ, and His name.