The First Gospel - Easter

All right, so we've been in the book of Mark since the beginning of this calendar year and today is our last

Sunday in this

Series, so we're gonna we're gonna jump

Right in all right, so if you have your Bible go ahead and open up to Mark chapter 16

Mark 16 · chapter mention

And if you don't have a Bible of any sort there's paper ones. There's printed ones out in lobby you can take home

With you they're free if or you can just download one from any of the digital app stores

Those work as well. I use those all the time

We're gonna read Mark 16 goes Matthew Mark Luke John in what's called the New Testament

We're gonna read eight verses we we have a tradition of just giving the scriptures our full attention

When we read them together as part of the sermon and one of the ways we do that is by standing together as we are able

You're also welcome to sit if you are more comfortable doing that but as I read

Here we go Mark 16 verse

One says this

When the Sabbath was over on Saturday night Mary Magdalene Mary the mother of James in Siloam

Bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus's body

Very early on the first day of the week that Sunday morning 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

Let's pray

God of every tribe every tongue

every color every nation

Every single person and identity I pray

To you today, and I thank you for the scriptures

Thank you that we have them that they've persisted throughout the millennia

I

Pray that whatever you have for us to learn today that that it would stick that it would become a part of the framework of our faith

That our faith would become stronger that we would become more like your son Jesus

Amen, thanks y'all I can have a seat

Alright so including the day we have spent

14 Sundays walking through the 16

Chapters of the gospel of Mark if you were to be a part of a church of what it was considered like an expository

Verse by verse kind of thing we could have spent

16 chapters we could have spent two years and going through 16 chapters

But 14 weeks was still a long time to talk about one book and for 16 chapters

Mark has been telling us

The first version of the story of Jesus that we have we've said that many times

This is the oldest version of the gospel that exists

And along the way we've been pointing out over and over again how mark is always thinking like an author

He's intentionally writing things in a certain way putting stories together telling things in a certain order

He's adding specific details

He thinks are important for specific reasons he's connecting stories back to their cultural and their ethnic

identity in their history

So today

We could talk about the significance of the spices

Or the significance of Jesus being in the grave on the Sabbath or we could talk about the stone

That was in front of the tomb or the kind of tomb or whose tomb is it?

Was or about the young man dressed in white robes that were only left by mark to assume was an angel

He doesn't say that it was an angel

But if all mark does say

Sticks out to me the most about these eight verses is just how much

He doesn't say

Because after everything mark has written

When we finally get to the resurrection the thing that so much of christianity thinks of as the most important moment

In our religious history mark gives us only

Eight verses

That's it and he ends his book abruptly

After verse eight if you have a physical bible or even in a digital

Bible you might see some other verses that are in italics, right?

Those are verses that scholars agree were added much later

In large part because they didn't think that mark ended it with long enough of an explanation

They didn't think he'd said enough apparently mark didn't know what in epilogue was

Because as often as i've pointed out that mark isn't just a person

As often as i've pointed out that mark isn't just writing down a random order of events that he's thinking like an author

Purposely putting things together this is one place where it becomes abundantly obvious that he is not a

modern

author

Because in any modern story there's almost always a what in epilogue

It's the little bit of the story that ties up the loose ends the bit that resolves the dangling participles the part

That helps you process the aftermath of the climactic moments of the story that you just read saw

Or experience and it is usually longer than eight verses

Think about it

What happens at the end of star wars a new hope we see luke and han receiving?

medals

From leah standing next to an empty-handed

Handed chubaca. I don't know. He did all the same stuff. Why didn't he get a medal?

At the end of harry potter we find out if no spoilers if I know

That's why I I have a pause look my wife my wife my lovely beauty

I have it if harry is married we find out if he has kids

wink wink

Even as something as silly as a movie like elf you find out that buddy's dad opens a new publishing house

That he publishes buddy's story that it becomes a bestseller that jovi and buddy have a child together

You find out all of this resolving information that makes you feel good about what comes after epilogue tell the story

after the story

Even in the other gospels that came after mark matthew gives 20 verses

To describe what came next luke the longest of all the gospels gives us 53

Verses talking about what happened after the crucifixion from the resurrection on

John the latest one written the youngest gospel that we have

gives 55 verses

He goes into the most detail about events and things that happened after the death

Jesus they understood

Apparently the value of an epilogue, but mark

All together mark uses 77 verses to describe jesus as arrest trial torture death and burial

But the resurrection gets eight

now

I

Further like really critical people in the room because this would be me so I put it in my notes to say this

I know that mark didn't use verses

Mark didn't use verses right we added the verse numbers later

But I think you get the point that verses are marked out based on the amount of words

That are there mark just used

far fewer words to end

the story than anybody

else

I

I'm sure there's a list of

Legitimate scholarly and theological reasons that we could go through. I think the one that I want to focus on

fits with how mark

wrote

the rest of his book

Because all of mark's gospel has been like this we've said it before this freight train

That was headed

towards a crash

Mark's gospel is a

Disaster

Every page is just picking up steam mark is intentionally building the tension

naming

The stakes over and over with every story mark is is he's making it more and more obvious that jesus knows

Stoking the fire shoveling more coal

into the engine

Chapter after chapter mark is building up to one thing

And it sounds funny saying it, but it's not the resurrection

At least it's not the resurrection on its own

Because by the time we read about the resurrection mark treats it almost like an afterthought

Listen there is no christianity without the resurrection. I'm not minimizing the resurrection today is resurrection

Sunday christ is risen

He is risen indeed on easter. We celebrate the resurrection of jesus the resurrection is critical to our faith

period but there is no resurrection without a

crucifixion

So mark spends chapter after chapter building up to jesus being arrested and then

77 verses on the brutality of what they did to him

Only eight verses on what came next

Because as miraculous as the resurrection is stay with me here

Jesus had already answered the question can someone be raised from the dead

Mark shows jesus doing that

He brought gyrus his daughter back to life in the book of john we see john jesus bringing lazarus

Back to life after three on the days on the fourth day even

So this may be surprising to you, but resurrection is not the biggest surprise here

Mark spent so much time on what leads up to the cross and so little time on what came after because mark

Doesn't want us to forget just how stunning it is that god would let himself be killed on a cross

There's no long drawn out epilogue after the cross because epilogues are designed to be orienting

To soften the emotional landing after the climax, but mark doesn't want us coming down so easily

from the shock of what we should be feeling

Because this is shocking

It is scandalous it borders on the ridiculous

Even the impossible the god would allow the humans that he created to murder him

Maybe that doesn't sink in for us because we're 2 000 years removed and we didn't see this happen

We have no point of reference some of us have seen a fight some of us have been in one some of us maybe have seen

Or experienced some level of hurt physical harm. Maybe some of us have even seen movies that depict torture

But when we think of jesus, we don't see the

Trauma we think of the triumph and we forget the pain

That when jesus was handed over pilot had him flogged

Flogged means wit

His hands would have been tied to a post about the pain of the cross

Flogged means wit his hands would have been tied to a post above his head to stretch out his body

And then a whip that was made of strips of leather with bone and bits of lead embedded in the ends would have been

Slapped across his back and then yanked back towards the person holding it

Slicing skin tearing it away from him

Cutting his back his sides his legs rome designed these whips first to cut then to tear and also to bruise

Whatever didn't rip apart after only a few lashes jesus's body would have been bleeding profusely

His skin there's no other way to describe it it would have been ribboned

Like putting a piece of paper through a shredder

His muscles bruised and cut his body before it ever touched the wood of a cross would have already been unrecognizable

It is historical fact that victims of roman flogging rarely survived past the flogging

Somehow jesus did so they took this king of the jews and they formed for him a crown made of thorns and they stabbed it into his scalp

Pressing it down across his head thorns pushing their way between the skin and his skull

At this point he would have been blinded by his own blood by his own sweat and because he couldn't see them verse 19 says that they struck him on the head with a staff they spit on him they mocked him

They covered his bleeding and torn up back with a purple robe pretending that he was royal they fell on their knees and they were all covered in blood

They covered his bleeding and torn up back with a purple robe pretending that he was royal they fell on their knees and they pledged their allegiance to him paying homage and worshiping this king of the jews

Then in the same way that all earthly power ends just as the robe was fusing with his body they ripped it from his bloodied and decimated back

They'd beaten him so badly mark tells us that he couldn't carry his own cross our mindset these days we think of something like this oh that doesn't look too bad

Back then most likely it would have just been the crossbar at the top weighing anywhere from 75 to 150 pounds we think of strong jesus

Unable to carry one railroad tie so a stranger was forced to carry it for him

As jesus staggered to the place that he would die when they got to the place called galgotha they stretched out his arms they hammered nails through each of his wrists they drove a nail through both of his feet tacking them together

Then they stood the cross up vertically now jesus was being crucified and he hung from his wounds for hours

Can you imagine because if he slouched all of the weight would have been on the nails through his wrists I have arthritis in my wrists it hurts bad enough when I just bump it the wrong way

Imagining hanging from something that's going through it if he wanted to push himself up the weight of his body is now on a single nail that's going through both of his feet

Crucifixion would put your body in such a position that if you slouched if you just hung your rib cage couldn't expand and correct uh contract correctly so you couldn't breathe

You couldn't breathe in and out like you're supposed to and so jesus wanted to breathe he had to pull himself up he had to push up on the pain that was in his feet

So ultimately when his arms fatigued and his body cramped as every muscle seized and gave out jesus was suffocating under the weight of his own body

Until his medically speaking until his heart finally just gave out this is what jesus had told them over and over would happen that I will go and I will die

This unbelievable event and the absolute shock that comes with it the utter and complete stunning nature of jesus dying on a cross mark doesn't want us to forget

Doesn't want to dilute the brutality of the crucifixion with the beauty of the resurrection they both have their place but lest we forget what he went through

I think that's why he's so brief in his description of the resurrection because the resurrection took only a moment think about it the resurrection took a moment

But his suffering was drawn out the good news of jesus christ is told by the gospel according to mark is that jesus rose from the dead and because his suffering was so total

That his blood his work on the cross fully covers the sins of all the world that's the good news

And now my epilogue

Some of you may be familiar with the comedian named mike brubiglia

He has this video that's floating around the internet right now that that I love because I'm an on time person

And he says you know hey are there any late people and they go and he says see what what late people don't understand is that us on time people hate you

I don't hate you I don't hate anybody

But he says he says and here's why because being on time is so early it's so easy all you have to do is be early and early lasts for hours

And being on time only lasts a moment and being late lasts forever and as he finishes it people walk into the show and he goes oh hey welcome to the show we were just talking about you

So here's we close let me do it briefly as mark does and let me do what pastors do and let me spiritualize that story I just told you

So if market said something similar he might have put it this way Jesus suffered for hours but the resurrection only lasted a moment but the salvation that it offers lasts forever

So today I hope that this is something that you consider that you think about don't be late Jesus is here let's pray

Jesus I thank you for what you did on the cross gosh it's so easy to forget so easy to boil it down to something that I wear around my neck or something that hangs on a wall behind me

Remind us in a way that is not meant to leave us in a state of depression but in a way that leads us to feel a sense of gratefulness for everything that you were everything you did and everything that you are

Because you bore the weight of the world you suffocated under it but now you have risen you have risen indeed and you dwell within your people in your name we pray amen