He Has Risen! He Is Going Before You!

We hope that you enjoy this teaching from Christ Church.

This material is copyrighted and no unauthorized duplication,

redistribution, or any other use of any part is permitted without prior consent from Christ Church.

Please consider donating to this work in the San Francisco Bay Area online at ChristChurchEastBay.org.

Today's Gospel lesson is a reading from the Good News of the Gospel According to Mark,

Mark 16:1–8

chapter 16, verses 1 through 8, as printed in your liturgy.

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome,

bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body.

Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise,

they were on their way to the tomb, and they asked each other,

Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away.

As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe,

sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

Don't be alarmed, he said.

You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified.

He has risen.

He is not here.

See the place where they laid him.

But go, tell his disciples and Peter,

he is going ahead of you into Galilee.

There you will see him, just as he told you.

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb.

They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, O Christ.

Happy Easter, Christ Church.

It's very good to see you today, and we want to just begin with this question.

What actually happened that first Easter Sunday?

And since Christmastime, we've been exploring one of the four gospels,

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

And Mark's gospel is the earliest of those four.

It was written about 65 A.D., and it's the shortest of those four.

You can read it in about 65 minutes or so.

And Mark opens his work, presenting his thesis in the opening line,

where he says this is the beginning of the good news of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God.

And we've been exploring these past months, over 16 chapters,

the way that Mark gives compelling evidence to support his thesis statement

that Jesus is God's King and God's Son.

And so now we come to Mark 16, which is his closing argument and his climactic evidence.

And he says that on Easter Sunday morning, these female followers of Jesus saw that his tomb was empty,

and they heard this promise of reunion with Jesus.

Two pieces of historical evidence.

First of all, that Jesus' body was no longer in his tomb.

And secondly, that Jesus would go and appear to his disciples,

and that they would have eyewitness encounters with the resurrected and living Jesus.

Now, it's important to state the obvious up front today that people in Jesus' time and place,

they knew what we know, which is that our bodies, once they die, they stay dead.

That when our time is up, either through age or sickness or accident or crucifixion,

we do not live again.

And all of our relationships, all of our projects come to an end.

And that truth was not discovered 300 years ago in the age of the Enlightenment.

It's been known since time immemorial.

In the first century, both pagans and Jews were sober-minded that death was the end.

And yet, these first Christians, these first eyewitnesses to the resurrection,

they affirmed two things.

They affirmed that on the one hand, we live in a world where the dead stay dead.

And yet, on the other hand, paradoxically, they affirmed that one human being

has broken through death and gone out the other side into a new life

and has launched a new creation and a new age.

And so I just want to acknowledge up front, this is extremely odd.

Right?

This is an outlandish event.

It's unimagined and unheard of.

In fact, it's so unlikely and so improbable that it's astonishing this story

was ever even told in the first place.

It's that one person in the middle of history, in the middle of the night,

walked out of his grave alive with this transphysical, indestructible body

that can never die again.

That's nuts.

That's just bananas.

That's crazy.

But what if it's true?

What if this revolutionary, nonconformist vision of the world

and way of living in the world,

in this tired old world where the dead stay dead,

what if this is true?

And I want to just explore this for a moment,

talking through this text about truth to the women,

grace to Peter,

and mission to the world.

Truth to the women, grace to Peter,

and mission to the world.

First of all, truth to the women.

Look at verse 1 of our text.

It says that when the Sabbath was over,

Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome,

bought spices so that they might go anoint Jesus' body.

On the one hand, we know for certain that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified.

It's one of the most secure facts in the history of the world.

And yet, on the other hand,

we know that literally thousands of Jews were crucified

within 50 years on either side of Jesus.

And on this very day,

two others had been crucified right beside Jesus.

So what is it that made Jesus special?

Why do people all over the world tell the story of his death

rather than the story of any of these others?

There were dozens of messianic movements

in the years before and after Jesus' death.

But in all of those cases,

where people claimed to be the Messiah,

the leader would be killed,

the movement would collapse,

everybody would go home because that's just game over.

But not this time.

This movement, it didn't collapse.

It, in fact, exploded.

And it transcended cultures

and it transformed the Roman Empire.

So we want to ask the question,

what made the difference?

Well, the New Testament says

that the difference was the tomb was empty

and Jesus appeared to many people.

The skeptics look at that and they say,

well, that's just fantasy.

That's a legend.

We actually don't know that history.

We can't really get back to those original events.

And so I want to just respond to that

by pointing out a few strange details in our narrative.

And I want you to notice, first of all,

that no one was expecting Jesus' resurrection.

No one was expecting this.

Look at verse 2.

It says that very early on the first day of the week,

just after sunrise,

they were on their way to the tomb

and they asked each other,

who will roll the stone away from the entrance to the tomb?

Now this is extremely odd

because Jesus has told them three times.

We looked at this in the past few weeks.

It's in Mark chapter 8, Mark chapter 9, and Mark chapter 10.

Mark 8 · chapter mention Mark 9 · chapter mention Mark 10 · chapter mention

Jesus told them,

I'm going to be killed

and then after three days, I'm going to rise again.

After three days, I'm going to rise again.

After three days, I'm going to rise again.

Well, it's the third day.

And there are no male disciples here.

And the female disciples, what have they gone to do?

They've gone to anoint a corpse.

And the question that they're asking themselves

is not who's excited to witness a resurrection today.

The question they're asking is

who is going to roll away the stone?

They're not prepared.

They're not expecting to find what they found.

Why doesn't at least one disciple say,

hey, isn't it the third day?

Didn't Jesus say something to us about,

I mean, shouldn't we at least go check and see?

If Mark is writing a legend,

if he's making this story up,

he would have surely depicted pious disciples saying,

ah, yes, it's all unfolding

exactly as Jesus told us three times at least

that it was going to unfold.

But no, no one, none of these Jews

are expecting a resurrection of one person

in the middle of history.

It's just inconceivable to them.

That's strange.

Another strange detail are the names of these witnesses

in verse one.

Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome.

Why does Mark give us the detail of these names?

And again, he does it three times.

In chapter 15, verse 40 at the crucifixion,

he does it again in chapter 15, verse 47 at the burial,

and he does it again here on Easter morning

in chapter 16, verse one.

Three times, the names of these women.

Now, you're probably aware that in the first century,

people gave very little credibility

to a woman's testimony in a court of law.

In fact, a woman's testimony was ranked

at the level of slaves and criminals.

And I'm sorry, ladies, I didn't make that up.

That's just how it was back in the day.

So if you're writing a legend,

and you're making this story up,

why wouldn't you include witnesses

that people thought were credible?

But the reason is,

because of the norms of ancient historiography,

people valued the oral histories

of still-living eyewitnesses,

so that when you would go and sit down

and record your written history

with their oral testimony,

you would cite their names,

like we do in footnotes today.

You would cite their names

so that people, your first readers,

could go and cross-examine

and corroborate your message.

And the reason that Mark has given us

the names not of men,

but of these women,

is because they were, in fact,

the first ones inside the empty tomb.

They were the first ones to hear the message.

They were the first ones to actually see Jesus

and touch his body.

And Mark is telling his first readers,

go talk to these women.

Go validate with them whether or not it's true.

Now, I don't know about you,

but for me, I'm very grateful to be part of a movement

that elevates women.

Has anybody in the history of the world

done more to humanize and dignify

and empower women than Jesus Christ?

Where are the men in this story?

They're cowering in fear.

They're afraid that somebody's gonna find out

they're followers of Jesus

and they might be the next to be crucified.

But here are these fearless women

and they go to the tomb

and they ask this question,

who is gonna roll the stone away?

And then in verse four, it says,

but when they looked up,

they saw that the stone,

which was very large,

had been rolled away.

And as they entered the tomb,

they saw a young man dressed in a white robe

sitting on the right side

and they were alarmed.

Now, again,

if Mark is making up this story,

shouldn't these women be dancing?

Shouldn't they be singing and clapping

and shouting and doing something

way more positive

than what it is he tells us they're doing?

How does he describe them?

He says,

they're terrified.

These women are doing

what everybody else in the Bible does

when they realize

that they're in the presence of the living God.

It says that they're deeply alarmed

and that their distress

is profound

and intense.

And Jesus,

knowing that this would be the case,

he gave them a message

through his messenger.

And what does he say

to them in verse six?

Do not be alarmed.

Do not be alarmed.

He said,

you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene

who was crucified.

He has risen.

He is not here.

See the place where they laid him,

but go.

Tell his disciples and Peter,

he's going ahead of you into Galilee.

There you will see him

just as he told you.

What a moment.

They're realizing

as their minds are kind of being blown,

like Jesus,

in Jesus,

death

has somehow been reversed.

that somehow death

has just been undone,

that death is now working backwards

on itself,

that Jesus somehow,

inexplicably,

went through death

and he went out

into a newly embodied life,

out beyond death,

where death can never touch you again.

One of the stories

I've been following this year

with great interest

is the story of Molly Worthen,

who's a journalist

and a professor of history

at the University of North Carolina

at Chapel Hill.

She did her studies at Yale

and is now a teacher at UNC.

Over this past decade,

she's pursued this career

researching the religious

and intellectual history

of North America.

You may have read her.

She's a regular contributor

to the New York Times,

the Atlantic,

the New Yorker.

But Molly's story

took a really interesting turn

over the past couple years.

Having described herself

as an agnostic

for most of her life,

she says that she was

a vaguely unhappy

but lazy agnostic.

In 2022,

she converted to Christianity.

And the way it happened

was she was researching

an article about a pastor

and his church

and became friends

with the pastor

and started asking questions.

And she said,

she said,

why should we take

any of these resurrection accounts

seriously?

And she was surprised

to get these long,

detailed,

well-resourced,

footnoted responses

from this pastor

who was taking every question

that she asked

with extreme seriousness

and giving her homework.

And so she went and read

Richard Baucom's

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.

And then she went and read

N.T. Wright's

The Resurrection of the Son of God,

a really 800-page romp,

you know,

just a tome.

She read Craig Blomberg's

The Historical Reliability

of the New Testament.

And in one of her interviews

about her conversion,

she just masterfully summarizes

the argument of N.T. Wright's book.

And then she says this

in this interview.

She says,

he, Wright,

who's a historian,

a New Testament scholar,

he persuaded me

that attempts

by post-Enlightenment scholars

to mythologize

these resurrection stories,

to read them as later

Christian beliefs

imposed on the past,

to say that the witnesses

and the gospels

engaged in wish fulfillment

based on dreams

or special feelings

they had about

their experiences of Jesus,

all of this

is what C.S. Lewis

called chronological snobbery.

It doesn't take seriously

the sophisticated way

in which first century

Jewish people

navigated their world

and their worldviews.

I felt personally indicted

as a historian.

I had always thought of myself

as very committed

to taking

historical subjects seriously.

This is the whole reason

I do this for a living.

She said,

but reading N.T. Wright

made me realize

I'd been engaging

in a kind

of chronological snobbery.

And she says,

also she says,

it turns out

that there's a lot

more interesting,

provocative,

and compelling

historical evidence

around that set of events

than I had ever realized before.

And so from there

she began to open-mindedly

and rigorously

investigate the evidence

and just follow

where it led

and let it challenge

her worldview.

And she says,

eventually,

I took that crucial step

of being vulnerable,

of putting myself

at risk

and I entered

into a relationship

with the resurrected

and living Jesus.

And now,

what's amazing to me

is that this historian

is adding her witness

to those original

eyewitnesses,

those beloved women

on that first

Easter Sunday morning.

And so I would just

encourage you

to take a little time

to look Molly up

on Google,

Molly Worthen,

her conversion story,

especially if you

describe yourself

as a vaguely unhappy

but lazy agnostic

like she was,

but who may also

be curious

and maybe even serious

about these

historical questions.

And I just want to

provoke you today

to think about

the truth

that was given

to these women

of all people.

Truth to the women.

But I also want to talk

about grace to Peter.

Grace to Peter.

And I want to,

I'll get to Peter

but I need to first

clarify something.

If you look at verse 6,

it's translated,

he has risen,

but the Greek,

the original Greek text

actually doesn't say that.

It's a little bit

of an inaccurate translation

because the verb

is in the passive form

and it doesn't say,

it's not he has risen

but he has been raised.

He has been raised.

Now why does that matter?

Well, number one,

he has risen suggests

that Jesus entered

into this new life

of resurrection

on his own

and this was kind of

like the ultimate

do-it-yourself project

and Jesus kind of

pulled himself up

by his own

metaphysical bootstraps

as it were.

But the biblical testimony

is not

that the human corpse

of Jesus

was able

just to individualistically

defeat the power of death

and come out of the tomb.

but rather the Bible teaches

that Jesus

has been raised.

That Jesus was raised

by God the Father

through the agency

of God the Holy Spirit

who's the giver of life.

And the reason

this is important

is that the Apostle Paul

uses the same verb form

in his great epistle

to the heart of the empire,

his epistle to the Romans,

where he says

in Romans 4.25,

he, Jesus,

was delivered over

to death for our sins

and he was raised

to life

for our justification.

He was delivered

over to death

for our sins

and he was raised

to life

for our justification.

What does it mean

to be

that Jesus was raised

to life

for our justification?

Well, I want us

to think a little bit more

about this in verse 7

where the message

is this,

but go,

tell his disciples

and Peter

he is going ahead of you

into Galilee.

There you will see him

just as he told you.

And it's interesting

of all four of Mark's Gospels

or of all four of the Gospels,

Mark's Gospel

is the only one

that adds these words

and Peter.

So if Peter's hearing

this message

that Jesus wants

to see all of you disciples,

what's Peter thinking

in this moment?

He's probably thinking

to himself,

well,

yeah,

Jesus can't possibly

include me.

Right?

Maybe all the other disciples

but not me,

especially after all

that I've done.

Backstabbing,

coward,

and failure

that I so obviously was.

But what's the message

of the resurrection

of Jesus

to Peter?

He says,

tell my disciples,

particularly Peter,

that I look forward

to be reunited with him.

Back at ground zero,

back at the Sea of Galilee,

back at that fishing spot

where I first called him

to come follow me.

Go tell Peter

that I want to see him.

The resurrected Jesus

is inviting Peter especially,

moral failure that he is,

spiritual failure that he is,

to come and experience

the grace of forgiveness.

And that's what

the Apostle Paul means

when he says,

Jesus was delivered

over to death

for our sins

and he was raised to life

for our justification.

That the resurrected Jesus

has infinite grace

to take the worst sinners

like Peter

and make them into

the greatest saints.

And I want you to consider

the impact that this had

on Peter's life.

We know that Mark,

the author of this gospel,

became the secretary

and the translator of Peter.

One ancient source tells us

that Mark wrote accurately

all that Peter remembered,

which means that in this gospel

we basically have

the memoirs of Peter.

And you can imagine Mark

interviewing Peter

as his core and primary witness.

And you can imagine Peter

responding back

and recalling the story

of how all the disciples

had been faithless to Jesus,

had been disloyal to Jesus,

how all the disciples

had abandoned Jesus

in his hour of greatest need.

And then Peter gets

to that climactic moment

and he reveals

his own horrible failure.

He said,

I not only denied Jesus one time,

I don't only denied him two times,

I denied Jesus three times.

And again,

if this is a legend

and you're making this story up,

why would you write

that the leader

of this new movement

is a colossal failure?

Peter.

But Peter shares with Mark

and he shares with us

and he shares with the whole world

his terrible guilt

and his most shameful moment.

Now what is it

that got Peter to that point?

What got Peter to the point

where he no longer

had anything to fear?

He had nothing to hide,

he had nothing to lose.

It was that Peter realized

Jesus was raised to life

for my justification.

Think about that.

After all of his failures,

how could Peter know

that he had been made right with God?

How could Peter know

that his grievous sins

had been forgiven?

How could Peter ever approach

God in prayer again

with confidence?

And how could Peter face death

without fear?

And how could he think

about the coming judgment

without a sense of despair

and alarm?

It's because the resurrection

of Jesus

is the proclamation

that God the Father

has been fully

and completely satisfied

with the work

that his son did on his cross.

That the son of God

bore the full punishment

for Peter's sins.

He bore the full punishment

for our sins

and his atoning work

there was effective

and God the Father

was so fully satisfied

with Jesus

that he raised Jesus.

He has been raised

for our justification.

It's not only that God

vindicated the innocence

of his son

by removing the power

of death over him,

but he also vindicated us.

He also caused us

to be forgiven.

He caused us

to be put right.

He caused us

to be justified.

Friends,

do you know

that your greatest failures,

the worst things

you've ever done,

that you'd be horrified

for anybody in this room

to know,

your greatest guilt,

your most shameful moments

were carried

on the shoulders

of Jesus

and they were nailed

to his cross

and there it was all

paid in full.

That is what the apostle

means when he says

he was delivered over

to death for our sins

yet he was raised

to life

for our justification.

And that's why Peter

hears these words,

but go,

tell the disciples

and Peter,

I'm going ahead of you

and I can't wait

to see you again.

Truth to the women,

grace to Peter.

And I want to end

just talking a little bit

about mission to the world.

The mission to the world.

Notice how the story ends.

My youngest son

read this story this morning

and he's like,

really,

is that how it ends?

Verse 8,

trembling and bewildered,

the women went out

and fled from the tomb.

They said nothing to anyone

because they were afraid.

That is the most downbeat,

anticlimactic,

literary ending ever.

And I wish that I had time

to explain to you

why that's the case

and if you come to coffee

I'll explain it to you

if you're interested.

But it took these women

just a minute

to kind of get over their shock

and get their bearings

and let this message

sink in.

But the rest of the New Testament

tells us that

they did in fact

go deliver these words.

And that the disciples

and Peter did see him

both in Jerusalem

and in Galilee

over the period

of the next 40 days.

And this answers for us

some critical

historical questions.

Like why did Christianity

begin in the first place?

And why did it take

the shape that it did?

Why did Christianity

emerge so rapidly

and with such power

and with the explosion

of a full-blown worldview

literally overnight

and out of nowhere?

By far the best explanation

for those questions

is that the tomb was empty.

And that the disciples

and Peter went and saw Jesus

and they heard Jesus

and they touched

the body of Jesus

and they knew

that Jesus was alive.

And these encounters

with Jesus

changed them profoundly.

They went from being

fearful men

and women

locked behind closed doors

afraid that they would be

the next to be crucified

to in a very short time

boldly claiming

that Jesus had been bodily

raised from the dead.

And when they went

and they saw Jesus

who had gone ahead of them

into Galilee

can you imagine

what those conversations

were like?

I think Jesus

was basically reminding them

of everything

he had taught them

prior to that moment.

And I'm sure

that he took them back

to these great words

in Mark chapter 13

Mark 13 · chapter mention

which he's already

spoken to them.

I'm sure he spoke them again.

It says in Mark chapter 13

Mark 13:9

verse 9

he tells his disciples

on account of me

you will stand

before governors

and kings

as witnesses to them

and this gospel

must be proclaimed

to all the nations.

They probably needed

to hear that again

when they met

the risen Jesus.

On account of me

you're going to stand

before governors

and kings

as witnesses to them

and this gospel

must be proclaimed

to all the nations.

This is the foundational

mission

of the church.

The primary task

and the primary focus

of the church

is this exact

statement of Jesus

that we are to proclaim

his good news

to all the nations.

That our job

is to bear witness

to Jesus

to his person

and his work

to his incarnation

his crucifixion

his resurrection

and they got that

loud and clear

because Peter

in a very short time

was totally transformed

and he goes out

on the day of Pentecost

where he preaches

the first Christian sermon

and he says

in Acts chapter 2

Acts 2 · chapter mention

God

to this crowd

of unbelieving people

he says

God raised Jesus

from the dead

freeing him

from the agony

of death

because it was impossible

for death

to keep its hold

on him.

God has made

this Jesus

whom you crucified

both Lord

and Messiah

repent

and be baptized

every one of you

in the name

of Jesus Christ

for the forgiveness

of your sins

and you will receive

the gift

of the Holy Spirit.

The Apostle Paul

who had his own

dramatic encounter

with the resurrected

Jesus

he writes this

in his letter

to the heart

of the empire

in Romans 10 9

he says

if you confess

with your mouth

that Jesus is Lord

and believe in your heart

that God raised him

from the dead

you will be saved.

when I think about

the permanently changed

lives of these eyewitnesses

when I think about

the provocative passion

with which they

went on to continue

and extend

the mission of Jesus

when I think about

the ways that they

embraced poverty

and prison

and painful death

in order to proclaim

the gospel

would they really

have died for a lie?

Would they really

have given their lives

for a legend?

The French mathematician

and philosopher

Pascal

he said

I believe those witnesses

that get their throats cut

the only reason

that you would call

all the nations

of the world

to repent

and be baptized

the only reason

you would go out

and you would tell people

at the heart of the empire

that they needed

to confess

and to believe

is if your message

is worth dying for

and therefore

very much worth

living for

and so if you're here

today and you say

yes I'm one of those

people

I would have never

thought

that I'd be one

of those people

who confesses

with my mouth

that Jesus is Lord

and who believes

in my heart

that God raised him

from the dead

but here I am

somehow

I don't know how

what am I supposed

to do now?

Well I just want to

I just want to

encourage you

we need to get on

with the mission

that Jesus gave us

and the mission

he gave us

is very clear

these are his exact words

the gospel

must be proclaimed

to all the nations

and friends

that's not something

that we go out

and we do on our own

with our own effort

and our own resources

it's a mission

that's to be done

with the presence

and the power

of the resurrected

and living Lord

that just as Jesus

goes ahead

of his disciples

into Galilee

that's been his pattern

with his church

throughout the ages

he goes before

his people

so that wherever

we go

we actually find

that Jesus

has already been there

before us

he got there

ahead of us somehow

Jesus doesn't follow

the mission of the church

Jesus leads

the mission of the church

and so my question

for you today

is do you trust

do we trust

that Jesus

has gone ahead of us

into 2024

and beyond

do we trust

and believe

that Jesus

is out there

in Berkeley

and Oakland

and the San Francisco

Bay Area

ahead of us

and are we willing

to follow him

and do what he said

which is to proclaim

his gospel

to all

the nations

Christ Church

Jesus

Christ

has been bodily

raised

from the dead

he came to launch

the new creation

where all can be forgiven

all can be reborn

and all will

in fact be

remade

and so I want to say

to you

let's join

in that resurrection

project

let's be

a resurrection

people

let's be a joyful

people of life

for a world

that's still in death

let's be a

worshiping people

that celebrate

God's victory

over sin

and death

and let's be

a forgiven people

let's be a

missionary people

who are sent out

to proclaim

the gospel

for the nations

for whom

Jesus bled

and for whom

he died

to save

is that what we want

this Easter Sunday

may God give us

the grace to do it

in the name of the

Father

Son

and Holy Spirit

Amen

Amen