Powerful Courage

My name's Matthew Capone, and I'm the pastor here at Cheyenne Mountain Presbyterian Church,

and it's my joy to bring God's Word to you today.

A special welcome if you're new or visiting with us.

We're glad that you're here, and we're glad that you're here not because we're trying to fill seats,

but because we're following Jesus together as one community.

And as we follow Jesus together, we become convinced there's no one so good,

they don't need God's grace, and no one's so bad that they can't have it,

which is why we come back week after week to hear what God has to say to us in His Word.

We're continuing our series on the Gospel of Mark,

although what I'm about to say has nothing to do with the Gospel of Mark.

One of my favorite things over the last couple years, I think maybe it was two or three years ago,

we started saying the Lord's Prayer together as a congregation every Sunday.

And one of my favorite things is when we do that, hearing small little voices join in.

And I say that just as a reminder to us of what a great privilege it is to be in a church where we have squirming kids.

And some of you have been in churches that don't have young children.

That's a very sad thing.

You may remember earlier in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus rebukes His disciples

because they find children to be an inconvenience.

So I say all that to say, you know, when we have young children who are screaming with us,

our response is, you know, praise God.

Praise God that He's blessed our congregation with the next generation.

And praise God that we have the privilege of having them with us in worship.

So that's just one of my favorite things about this church.

Of many, right? Of many.

We're grateful that God's allowed us to be part of raising up the next generation.

We are continuing our series in the Gospel of Mark, which will be our series for not so long.

So we're coming to the very end.

And as we're coming to the end, as we're wrapping things up,

you may remember earlier in the Gospel, I told you, you know, as we come near the end,

we're going to see things close in.

At the beginning, we're going to see three different types of people.

We're going to see people who love Jesus, people who hate Jesus, and people who don't care.

And as we get near the end of the Gospel, that middle category is going to disappear.

We're going to see people who either embrace Jesus or they reject Him.

And of course, that's what we're seeing here at the very end.

And so this passage here with Joseph of Arimathea asks us this question, really,

of what are you going to do with the Gospel of Mark?

We've been in the Gospel of Mark for two years now.

And I think maybe one of the saddest things would be if we moved on and we just sort of forgot about it.

That was a series, you know, that we did at some point and glad to move on to another series,

but it didn't make a difference for us.

I told you at the very beginning, Mark doesn't mean for his Gospel to be an intellectual exercise.

Mark doesn't want his readers to get away with just hearing about Jesus and then to walk off and do something else.

Mark means for his Gospel to change us.

He means for it to make us different.

He means for us to see Jesus and be transformed.

And so as we are at really the very end of the Gospel, the question is this,

what are you going to do now?

What are you going to do with everything that we've looked at the past two years?

What are you going to do with the vision of Jesus that we've had over and over again?

That's the question this passage asks.

That's what Joseph of Arimathea challenges us with.

And so I'm going to invite you to turn with me in your Bible.

You can turn in your worship guide.

You can turn on your phone.

You can turn in your Bible itself.

No matter where you turn, remember that this is God's Word.

And God tells us that His Word is more precious than gold, even the finest gold.

And it's sweeter than honey, even honey that comes straight from the honeycomb.

And so that's why we read now.

Mark chapter 15, starting at verse 42.

Mark 15 · chapter mention

And 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.

And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead.

Verse 45.

And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead,

he granted the corpse to Joseph.

And Joseph bought 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 and Mary, the mother of Joseph, saw where he was laid.

I invite you to pray with me as we come to this portion of God's word.

Our Father in heaven, we praise you again for your mercy to us,

that you have caused these stories, these true stories, to be written down,

that we could hear them, that we could meditate on them,

that we could know them 2,000 years later.

We ask that they wouldn't be merely an intellectual exercise for us,

but that you would show us Jesus.

And as we see Jesus, that we would be transformed,

that we would change to look more and more like him.

We ask that you would do that this morning by your word,

by the power of your spirit,

that you would make us people who are transformed in our hearts,

in our minds, in our lives.

And we would grow in our love and our affection for Christ.

We'd grow in our reverence and our awe for him.

And we'd grow in our obedience to him.

We ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Many of you know, if you've been in the world for any length of time,

that if you make the wrong move or say the wrong thing

or make an alliance with the wrong person,

you might face the end of your career.

You might face the end of a social circle

if you support the wrong person or voice the wrong opinion.

Of course, it's easy to think of times in history this has happened.

We might think of the 1940s and 50s

when Hollywood stars were blacklisted for their potential ties

with the Communist Party.

But Hollywood's not the only industry

where someone might get blacklisted.

Today, you face the risk of being what's called canceled

if you say the wrong thing or support the wrong person.

Of course, the opposite can also be true.

Courage has its own attractiveness to it.

Sometimes people have become famous over the last few years

for their willingness to say unpopular things.

But today, as we look at the end of this chapter, Mark 15,

we're going to see a man, Joseph, who is willing to risk it all.

He's willing to risk being canceled.

He's willing to risk losing his status and his wealth.

We see him for the first time in verse 43, this new character,

and we find out he's a respected member of the council.

And that means that Joseph was a member of the Sanhedrin.

And so you just have to think back to the last chapter.

Remember, Jesus had two trials.

He had his religious trial, and he also had his civil trial.

And you remember the religious trial.

It was the Sanhedrin, which sort of functioned as the supreme court of the Jews

that actually tried him.

In other words, Joseph was a member of the court

that referred Jesus to Herod and ultimately resulted in his death.

Okay, so just let that sit with you for a minute.

Joseph was part of the court that condemned Jesus.

That in and of itself is a bit of a bombshell.

Now, we're told about Joseph in the other Gospels as well.

Mark does not tell us this, but Luke says this,

that Joseph had not consented to their decision and action,

and he was looking for the kingdom of God.

So apparently, Joseph actually disagreed with what the Sanhedrin did.

We're not told whether Joseph was there in person,

whether he happened to miss the event.

Wherever he was, Joseph was not there to stand up for Jesus.

Okay, so we learn something about Joseph here.

Joseph is a member of the power elite among the Jews.

And that causes it to be even more surprising

that he does what he does.

Now, what he does here, we can know that he's in a rush.

Verse 42, when evening had come,

since it was the day of preparation,

that is the day before the Sabbath.

In other words, Joseph is on a tight schedule.

The Jewish holy day is coming up.

He's not supposed to be doing any work on the Sabbath.

He probably should not be touching dead bodies.

And so he has just a short amount of time to work with

to get Jesus off of the cross.

And so we see him then in verse 43.

He goes, he takes courage, went to Pilate,

and asked for the body of Jesus.

Now, you might wonder why it is that Joseph has to ask for the body here.

And the reason is that if someone was crucified,

the expectation was that they would be dishonored in every way.

So there was no guarantee that this person would have a normal burial.

Part of how you honor someone is by taking good care of their body

after they're gone.

If someone's crucified, the worst death the Romans can offer,

that's a way of saying this person deserves no honor.

And so for someone's body to be released after they've been crucified,

a special request has to be made to the magistrate,

and the request has to be granted.

Now, this request is supposed to be made by the family of the person that's killed.

Joseph, to state the obvious, is not Jesus' family.

Joseph is not a member of Jesus' inner circle.

And so that reminds us of how unusual this request is.

It also reminds us again of what we saw when Jesus was abandoned in the Garden of Gethsemane.

He dies all alone.

He dies without his family and his closest friends there to support him.

And it reminds us of what a courageous act this is by Joseph.

Now, you'll notice verse 44,

Pilate's surprised that here that she should have already died.

Remember, we talked about this last week.

Jesus, as a crucified man, should have died sort of like a dimmer switch going out slowly.

And instead, Jesus dies like this on and off switch,

which is why he's able to cry out right before he dies.

Remember, that's why the Roman soldier said,

oh, this must be the Son of God,

because Jesus dies in a way that is not supposed to happen on a cross.

Jesus is able to give up his life,

still having the strength to cry out,

rather than just slowly fading away.

And so that's why Pilate here is surprised.

Like, wait, it doesn't make any sense that Jesus has already died.

We need to go send some people to certify.

Now, as an aside,

this is Mark's way of telling us how reliable the gospel accounts are.

He is saying, look,

if you think that Jesus didn't rise from the dead

because he actually didn't die,

well, you need to take that up with Pilate,

because Pilate certified that he died.

Okay?

So Mark's throwing in this aside here just to say,

hey, this is a true account,

and if you don't believe me,

you can go talk to other people about it.

By the way, he's doing the same thing in verse 47,

when he says,

Mary Magdalene and Mary and the mother of Joseph

saw where he was laid.

He's saying, hey, there's some witnesses you can go talk to

if you don't really think Jesus died and was buried.

Same thing, I didn't talk about this last week,

but same thing going on in verse 40.

Mark is listing these names over and over,

and I put this in your worship guide under that doubt sidebar.

He's listing these names over and over to say,

hey, I'm not making this stuff up, okay?

There's a lot of other people who saw this happen.

If you doubt me, you can go talk to them.

Regardless, Pilate's surprised, right?

Joseph is asking for the body,

and Pilate grants it.

Joseph has just come out of the closet as a Jesus supporter.

It is possible to say here

that it is an understatement in verse 43

that he took courage.

Yeah, of course he took courage.

In fact, he probably had to take a lot more than courage.

Here is someone who is a member

of the team that contend Jesus.

So he had to take courage in the sense

that he's standing against his own social group,

his own team.

As you know, you can quickly lose your place

among the elites of a society

by siding with the wrong people.

And here, Joseph is an elite.

Joseph is in the inner circle

of the inner circles of the Jews.

We're told in the other Gospels

that Joseph is actually very wealthy.

He has quite the place in society.

He has quite the wealth to work with.

In fact, this is part of the reason

he's got an empty tomb

that he can just offer to Jesus.

Joseph has done very well in life.

In fact, Matthew tells us this in his Gospel.

He says,

there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph.

He doesn't even tell us his name first.

He says, look, this guy had a lot of money.

So it shouldn't surprise us, right,

that he also has a large tomb

to go along with it.

Not everyone in the ancient world

just had a spare tomb lying around

that they could hand off

to someone who had been crucified.

Joseph, who happened to have a lot of money,

did have that.

And so that raises the question for us

of why did Joseph take the risk?

Why did Joseph take courage

and go to Pilate and ask for the body of Jesus?

In fact, everything would point against him doing that.

Upton Sinclair has famously said,

it is difficult to get a man to understand something

when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

Joseph's standing in society

depends on him not understanding

what's going on with Jesus.

And yet, against all odds,

he comes out here

and publicly expresses his support for Jesus.

It is not a secret anymore.

Why?

Joseph certainly knows he has a lot to lose.

And Joseph somehow has become convinced

he has a lot more to gain.

Joseph has a tremendous amount to lose.

And somehow, in his following of Jesus,

he has become convinced

he has even more to gain.

Christian,

are you willing

to lose your kingdom

for the sake of God's kingdom?

Joseph

gave up

one of the spaces in his tomb

and he went

and he bought new linens

to put Jesus in.

Are you willing

to sacrifice your resources

for the kingdom of God?

Joseph

was willing

to make a bold

and unpopular stand.

Joseph

was willing

to come out of the closet

as someone who supports

Jesus.

Are you willing

to stand against your team?

Against your friends?

Against your people?

By letting them know

that you stand with Jesus.

Are you willing

to lose your reputation?

Are you willing

for people to think

that you're stupid

or even worse,

dangerous

because you follow Christ?

Are you willing

to jeopardize

your vocation

to miss

an opportunity

to advance

because people know

that you stand

with Jesus?

Are you willing

to lose relationally?

Do you believe

that it is better

to be single

than to be with someone

who doesn't share

your beliefs about God?

do you know

that you have

a lot to lose?

Do you know

that you have

even more to gain?

That's what happened

to Joseph here.

Although,

we know

it didn't happen

right away.

Now,

the other Gospels

tell us,

in fact,

John 19 says this,

Joseph was a disciple

of Jesus

but secretly

for fear

of the Jews.

Joseph

kept his love

of Jesus

under wraps.

And so,

what changed

for Joseph?

Joseph.

How do you

become a Joseph

of Arimathea

type person?

How do you

change

that you're

willing

to give up

your kingdom

for the kingdom

of God?

Well,

you have to believe

that there's

something

in the future

that's better

than what you have

in the present.

You have to believe

there's something

you don't have

that's better

than what you do have.

There's a basic

principle in life

which is that

the greater

the vision,

the greater

the sacrifice.

And so,

somehow,

somewhere,

Joseph had

caught a vision

for what the

kingdom of God

actually was.

Joseph had seen

how beautiful

Jesus actually was.

I told you guys

before,

you don't get

over that old

crush

until you get

that new crush.

Joseph

finally got

over

wealth

and power

and status.

Jesus finally

became

his new crush.

Jesus was

the one

who was worth

more

than everything

else.

And so,

that's why

things are

interesting here

in this passage

with Joseph.

It's not just

that he's taking

courage like

verse 43

tells us.

but that he's

taking a new

courage.

Joseph is

taking courage

he never had

before.

Joseph is

taking risks

he wasn't

willing to

take before.

Joseph is

putting everything

on the line

after Jesus'

death

that he wasn't

willing to do

before

his death.

John 19,

I mentioned,

tells us that

it was a secret

that he followed

Jesus

and now

Joseph

decides it's

not a secret.

Joseph

has seen

the beauty

of Christ.

Joseph has

finally realized

how valuable

the kingdom

of God is.

Joseph has

come to

understand

that there

is nothing

that is

worth keeping

if it means

giving up

Jesus.

Before it

was a secret

now Joseph

is willing

to take

the risk.

He knows

the kingdom

of God

is worth it.

He knows

it is more

valuable

than money

and status

and power

and comfort

and pleasure.

Now,

this passage

doesn't tell us

what the tipping

point was

for him.

Potentially,

it was Jesus'

religious trial.

Maybe he was

actually there.

Maybe he saw

that Jesus'

love for his

people was so

great that he

was willing

to suffer

for them.

Maybe the

false accusations

woke him up

finally to

the dead

religion of

his colleagues

in the

Sanhedrin.

Maybe he

realized

finally that

they were

not actually

interested in

God and

his ways,

but they

were interested

in power

and status.

Maybe Joseph

was changed

when darkness

came over the

land for

three hours

while Jesus

hung on the

cross,

and that

caused Joseph

to understand

that Jesus

was the one

who was taking

the penalty

for his sins.

Maybe he

finally got

home for him

that Jesus

was forsaken

so that he

could be

accepted.

Maybe it

was Jesus

miracles that

got to

him.

He finally

realized that

Jesus was

more powerful

than all the

things that

he loved.

Maybe it

was Jesus

casting out

demons.

Maybe Joseph

realized that

Jesus could

heal things

and fix

things that

money and

medicine would

never be able

to fix.

Maybe it

was Jesus

teaching.

Maybe Joseph

heard Jesus

say this,

for whoever

would save

his life

will lose

it, but

whoever

loses his

life for

my sake

and the

gospels

will save

it.

And maybe

Joseph heard

that and he

realized the

future was

better than

the present.

Maybe he

heard Jesus

say this,

those who

are well

have no

need of a

physician,

but those

who are

sick.

I came

not to

call the

righteous,

but sinners.

and maybe

he finally

decided Jesus

healing was

worth more

than anything

else.

Maybe he

heard Jesus

say 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.

Maybe that

captured

Joseph's

loyalty.

We're not

told and we

don't need to

know.

because the

question for

us is not

what changed

Joseph.

The question

is, has

the gospel

of Mark

changed you?

As we've

looked at

Jesus for

two years,

have you

seen how

gracious and

loving he

is?

as we've

looked at

Jesus for

two years,

have you

seen his

power and

his

authority?

He's more

powerful than

the rulers

of this

world.

As we've

looked at

Jesus for

two years,

and especially

in the last

week of his

life,

have you

seen that

Jesus loves

you more

than anyone

else?

as we've

looked at

Jesus,

has he

melted your

heart?

Because if

we move on

to the book

of Judges,

which is our

next series,

and we just

think of the

gospel of Mark

as a book

that we

looked at

for a

while,

we will

have missed

out on

what Joseph

saw.

Hast thou

heard him,

seen him,

known him?

Is not

thine a

captured

heart?

Mark puts

this here at

the end for

a purpose,

which is to

remind us that

Jesus' death

demands a

response.

that we're

not meant to

see Jesus

walking towards

the cross and

dying on it

and then to

simply walk

away and

continue with

the rest of

our lives.

No, we're

meant to be

like Joseph

who sees it

and is finally

willing to put

everything on

the line.

We're meant to

be like Joseph

who sees it

and is willing

to finally be

public about

the fact that

he loves Jesus.

We're meant to

be like Joseph

who sees it

and is willing

to give up

his resources

to care for

Jesus' body.

We're meant

to be like

Joseph,

to be willing

to lose it all.

I've been

telling you for

two years that

there are two

camps.

There are those

who are in,

all in on

Jesus and those

who are out.

Christian,

are you all

in?

are you

willing to

be like

Joseph of

Arimathea?

Is the

kingdom of

God worth

it to you?

Is it

worth losing

other

kingdoms?

Joseph

believes that

the kingdom

of God is

better than

the kingdom

of Joseph.

And in case

you missed it

at the beginning,

the kingdom

of Joseph is

going really

well.

Joseph's

life would

be very

convenient and

comfortable if

he just kept

his mouth

shut.

Joseph's

life would

be very

convenient and

comfortable if

he just let

alone and

let Jesus'

body hang.

God

will

but he

doesn't.

Christian,

is that

true of you?

hast thou

heard him,

seen him,

known him?

Is not

thine a

captured

heart?

Captivated by

his beauty,

worthy tribute,

haste to

bring.

Let his

peerless worth

constrain

thee.

Crown him

now,

unrivaled

king.

let's pray.

Our

father in

heaven,

we praise

you and

thank you

for your

son and

our savior,

our Lord

Jesus.

us.

We ask

that you

would not

let the

gospel of

Mark wash

over us.

You

wouldn't let

us be

numb to

it,

but you

would give

us tender

hearts,

that we

would be

like Joseph,

that it

would click

for us,

that we

would finally

see that

your kingdom

is better

than our

kingdom,

that your

future is

better,

than our

present,

that the

vision that

you have

for us is

worth the

sacrifice,

and so

that we

would know

Jesus and

love him,

we'd follow

him and

obey him.

We ask

these things

in the mighty

name of

Jesus Christ.

Amen.