Empty Tomb (Easter 2025)

Good morning, Church.

Oh, I get to read the resurrection story this morning.

I'm so excited.

When the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, 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?

And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back.

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, 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.

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.

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 our Lord.

Welcome to church this morning.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

We're so glad to get to gather together with you all on this Easter morning and celebrate the resurrection.

This is the most wonderful story that we have to tell.

And I'm I'm so thrilled to get to share it with you all this morning.

This is uh Easter Sunday, and so churches all over the world are gathering together to move through this same text or another text from one of the four gospels and look through the resurrection account in uh of Jesus Christ.

But uh, this is also for our church the culmination of a long journey through the book of Mark.

So for five years we've been preaching through the book of Mark, not five years straight, but over the course of the past five years, we've been moving through the book of Mark, and today we finish it with chapter 16, verses 1 through 8.

And these are the concluding moments, and in it we see the empty tomb.

In the other Gospels, the emphasis is on Jesus meeting the disciples.

In Luke, we see him meet some disciples on the road to Emmaus.

In John, there's that wonderful story where he sees Peter fishing, and Peter jumps off the boat and runs and meets Jesus.

But in this gospel, in Mark's gospel, strangely, we don't see the risen Christ.

That's not where the emphasis is in Mark's Gospel.

The emphasis instead is on where Jesus isn't.

It's on the empty tomb.

That's what Mark draws our attention to.

There's in your Bibles, you might see that there's uh further uh verses remaining in the last chapter of Mark.

Uh, those we won't be preaching on.

They're not in the original text, and I would argue that they're not a part of the original scriptures.

Where Mark, but you can see why folks would want to add something to the end of Mark's gospel, that there would be some copyists down the line that would say, Hey, I think Mark left something out of his resurrection account.

Um, you know, Jesus.

But Mark is not leaving anything out.

He's tying up exactly, and he's he exactly the book that he intends to write, which is the one that makes the case that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

And the evidence that he draws our attention to for that is not where Jesus is, but where he isn't, that the tomb is empty.

So that's what we are going to focus on today.

What are the details that Mark draws us to to show us the importance of the empty tomb and what that means for all of us?

So here's the story.

Mark 16, verses 1 through 2.

Mark 16:1–2

It says, When the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Saloon bought 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.

So the perspective on the resurrection that Mark gives us is through these women who had followed Jesus in his ministry, they witnessed the resurrection, and they had witnessed that on Friday evening Joseph of Arimathea had gathered the body and buried him in the tomb that he owned.

And so, making as much haste as they possibly could, that Friday even that excuse me, the Saturday, once the sun had gone down and the Sabbath day was concluded, they went and bought spices and they prepared them, and then they waited that Saturday night so that they could wake up as early as possible, once the Sabbath was over, and go and see the tomb of Jesus.

Now, when Jesus was buried by Joseph and Nicodemus, his body was already anointed.

But you can see that the desire of these women is just to pay honor to Jesus.

They wanted to make sure that his body in the tomb was honored.

And so they sought to do that.

But there's some obstacle in the way to their being able to do this.

And it's a strange one.

You know, when Mark doesn't bring Jesus onto the scene, then that means that the details that he's emphasizing are really important.

So we ought to look at them very carefully.

In verses three and four, the main emphasis is that the stone that blocked the tomb would is just too heavy.

It's just too big of a stone.

In Mark 16, verses 3 through 4, it says, and they were saying to one another, the women, as they walked to the tomb, who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?

Mark 16:3–4

And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back.

It was very large.

If there's one thing that you would take away from Mark's story, it was a it was a big stone.

That seems to be the main thing that he's drawing our attention to.

The stone that was in front of Jesus' tomb was very large.

Thank you for joining us this Easter.

Why all this talk about the size of these stones?

Well, one of the law, in fact, the longest discourse of Jesus in Mark's gospel is about stones.

And so what Mark is doing is he's returning to a theme of his book.

Jesus, when they when he's standing with his disciples on the Mount of Olives, they are overlooking the temple structure.

And his disciples make this observation, and they say, look at these marvelous buildings and look at these great stones.

Now, the stones of the temple were incredibly impressive by any standard, even by modern standards, architecture with stones that were this large would be incredibly impressive.

But Jesus, instead of just admiring the wonderful stones that made up the temple, he goes into a long discourse, and he says this in Mark chapter 13, verse 2, he and Jesus said to him, Do you see these great buildings?

Mark 13:2

There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.

So that was sort of an odd thing for Jesus to say when they're admiring this these great stones and these great buildings of the temple structure.

And so Mark is drawing our attention when he is mentioning these great stones.

He's drawing our attention to what seemed like an immovable structure, which was the temple.

Now, what is the temple to the Jewish people?

The temple is the dwelling place of God with man, and it is the place of atoning sacrifice for the people of God that they might be cleansed and brought to the Lord.

So the temple is the dwelling place of God and the place of sacrifice.

Now, what is the tomb?

The tomb on Saturday, what has it been where Jesus was placed?

Jesus is the Son of God.

And so his body is dwelling within the tomb.

It is the dwelling place of God.

And what is he when he is in this temple, this tomb temple?

He is the true sacrifice for God's people.

And so what great stones make up this temple?

Who is the one who is strong enough to remove the stones?

That is, who is the one who is strong enough to render obsolete the temple sacrifice system?

Well, as we see in the text, as they round the corner in verse 4, and looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back and it was very large.

Jesus is the one who is strong enough to remove the stone.

And in the removal of the stone, we see that the temple sacrifice system is now obsolete.

And we see that the tomb itself, the wages of sin, are now paid.

The tombs that we are all headed for is now obsolete.

That old covenant, which the temple represents, which requires of us death, because we are unable to move the stone of the weight of the law.

Jesus is strong enough to remove the stone.

And Mark draws our attention to that as they approach and they see that the stone has been removed.

Now this means that the true sacrifice has been made.

And as they approach the temple, excuse me, the tomb, well, you you get it now.

This is how Mark relays what they see next.

In Mark 16, verse 5, and it says, in entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed.

Mark 16:5

Now the other gospels describe, what do the other gospels describe Jesus seeing it, excuse me, them seeing it as they approach the tomb?

It's not just a young man, right?

It's angels in glory.

And Matthew describes there's an earthquake that takes place.

Now there's all these details that Mark doesn't show us because he's wanting us to zero in on something that he in particular wants us to see about the resurrection event.

Entering the young tomb, they see a young man.

Now, the young man is an angel, and we see throughout scripture that angels present themselves as in the likeness of men.

And so this is not a strange thing.

There's no inconsistency among the scriptures.

They see a young man sitting on the right side of the tomb, and he's dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed.

Now, why does Mark emphasize that it's a young man?

I think there's a story that Mark is telling.

The last time we saw a young man in Mark's gospel was the night that Jesus was arrested.

And the night that Jesus was arrested in Mark 14, verses 51 through 52, Jesus is taken in, and all the disciples flee, and then there's this strange story that only Mark includes about that night.

Mark 14:51–52

And it's just these two verses.

It says, And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body, and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.

So the last time we saw a young man in Mark's gospel, he was following closely behind Jesus.

But when Jesus was arrested, the young man flees with all of the other disciples.

The shepherd is struck, and they're all scattered.

Now that young man was wearing a linen cloth, but when they grab him in order to seize him along with Jesus, he flees and he shakes off his linen cloth and he runs away naked into the garden.

So we see a young man naked and ashamed in a garden.

Does this remind you of anything?

If we go to the very beginning of the Bible, we see that Adam, this man in the prime of his life, because of sin, his we could call it his flight or abandonment of the Lord, he finds himself naked and ashamed in the garden, unable to draw close to the Lord out of fear.

So too did this young man, and his linen garment is stripped from him.

What Mark is doing is he's drawing our attention to how Christ is the sum of the whole of the scriptures.

And so we see him give us this image of Adam.

Now Adam was meant to be a priest of the Lord, who tended to the garden and proclaimed the good news of the Lord to his wife and to his offspring, to stand as an intermediary figure between the Lord and his creation.

But because of sin, he is fleeing from the Lord, naked and ashamed in the garden.

The linen is a priestly garment, and it is stripped from this young man who is a type of Adam as he runs away naked.

The linen could not be worn by him.

He was no true priest.

But the linen garment instead was wrapped around Jesus.

It is the linen shroud that he was buried in.

And this linen shroud shows us that Jesus is the true Adam, the true high priest who is able to make the sacrifice on our behalf.

And so Jesus is the true high priest in the temple who wears the linen garment that we could not wear.

But then what does that mean for the young man?

What does it mean that Jesus was the true Adam and he went in and was the true sacrifice on behalf of fallen man?

It means that the next time we see the young man, he is dressed in a white robe of righteousness.

Not because he was able to go through with the sacrifice.

But Jesus goes to the cross in shame on behalf of that first Adam and all of his offspring, so that we, because of Jesus' sacrifice, might be clothed in the white robe of his righteousness.

Don't you see?

That death will immovably bind us because of sin.

Who can move that stone on our behalf?

Jesus is the one who can move the stone.

That there is a sacrifice which we cannot make, a righteousness which we fled from, like our first parent, Adam, in the garden.

Who can go through with the sacrifice?

Who can bear the humiliation of nakedness and be shown clothed in linen on the other side as a true high priest?

Jesus can, on our behalf.

And that means that we, like the young man, will be clothed in his righteousness.

And so we see the story of the young man that Mark shows us in his gospel.

Why does he not just call him an angel?

Because he's telling us the story of what this means for the whole of Scripture.

And then, with Christ as the true high priest, the women are alarmed to see the young man and the stone removed.

And then they encounter the empty tomb, which is Mark's emphasis in Mark 16, verse 6.

Mark 16:6

And he said to them, Do not be alarmed.

The young man says this you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.

He has risen.

He is not here.

See the place where they laid him?

This is the whole emphasis of Mark's resurrection account.

The tomb is empty.

Jesus is not bound in the tomb.

Now, this gospel, Mark's gospel, begins with this argument that this is the beginning, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Here's the argument of Mark's gospel.

Jesus Christ, the man, is the Son of God.

Now, we've asked this throughout these past five years of this text.

What would you possibly have to hear in order to conclude that this man is the Son of God?

What is the answer to that question?

What story would you need to hear where you would walk away and finally be convinced, yes, this man is the Son of God?

Would it be enough to see a healing?

Would it be enough to have seen water and then drink it later and it was wine?

Would it be enough to see a man with a hand that was lame all of a sudden be straight?

Would it be enough to see a blind man able to see?

Would it be enough to see Lazarus come out of the grave?

Would any of those be sufficient for you to conclude this man is God who took on flesh?

Well, here, in the conclusion of this argument, Mark points to the empty tomb.

Here's what the empty tomb means.

Death is dead.

There are lots of stories.

In fact, you almost can't have a hero story without the hero laying down his life or at least risking his life for the people that he loves.

That's what it means to be a hero.

We have other stories.

You know, Odysseus himself, he he goes down into Hades.

He goes on the river Styx and he goes into the land of the dead and then returns.

We have stories like that in other ancient mythologies.

Some even go and perform a rescue where they rescue someone from the land of the dead.

Is this just a story like that?

You know, after all of those stories, even the ones where someone is rescued from the land of the dead, you know what's still out there?

Death.

This is the final story.

This is the final hero.

There is only one story that goes all the way and shows us that death itself is dead.

That final enemy, this ultimate victory, is shown in the empty tomb.

This is Mark's emphasis, not on where Christ is, but on where he isn't.

The tomb is empty.

For my wife and I's first anniversary, we had this opportunity to go to Rome, which is in Europe.

And when we went to we went to this uh uh church, it's called uh Santa Maria della Concessione dei uh dei cappuccini.

And I think if you say that anywhere in Italy, they bring you uh an espresso or something.

And the basement of this church is a crypt.

It's full of bones.

In fact, it's full of the bones of over thirty, seven hundred Capuchin friars, which is a lot of bones.

And they're all arranged in these ways that are just horrifying because it's people's bones.

And so we went in there and we were just walking around Rome, and we heard we should check this out.

And my wife had to buy a shawl thing because she was just wearing like a sleeveless something to walk around Rome, and they were like, you can't come in here and dress like And anyway, the whole thing is this big grift.

Famously, in this church, written above the door, it says, speaking on behalf of the bones, what you are, I was.

What I am, you will be.

In all of your life, everything that you are headed towards will culminate in death.

This is the message of the Fool Tomb.

Everything finally and ultimately ends in death and disintegration.

What I am, what you are, I once was.

What I am, you will be.

That's what the fool tomb says.

Now imagine walking into that tomb one day and finding it empty.

No bones.

That means that death itself, the thing that held them there, was defeated.

And strangely, we could imagine that Jesus is the only one who is strong enough to remove that stone.

He is the only one who is pure enough to be that sacrifice.

And he is the only one who is able to walk in to a room full of dead bones and not have them say, What you are, I was.

What I am, you will be.

But he has the power to say to the room full of dead bones, what you are, I was.

What I am, you will be.

Because death is dead.

Think of what a tomb is.

Think of what death is.

I mean, finally, in the picture of Scripture, it is to dust, from dust to dust, meaninglessness, and dust is disintegration.

It's the brokenness of relationships, the removal of identity, all those things that cannot hold.

Our lives culminate in this collection of tombs because of our sin.

Here's the hope of the gospel.

Everything that you have done that leads to death, all the sins that you have committed which have broken your relationship with God and have broken your relationships with others.

All of the things that have been done to you, all of the pains of abandonment, the blows that you have experienced in this life, the sickness you bear, all of the suffering of this life is evidence of the rule of death and disintegration.

In Christ, our hope is that that tomb of suffering and loss, one day in Christ, we will look and see.

It's empty.

Because the sufferings of this present life are not worth comparing to the glory that is to come in Jesus Christ.

This is the meaning of the empty tomb.

And so they are told in Mark 16, 7 through 8, but go, tell his disciples in Peter, the one who abandoned him.

On the other side of the cross, there's just reconciliation.

Tell him that he is going before you to Galilee, that place where he first preached the gospel.

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

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.

Mark's gospel ends with the word afraid.

What is he doing?

I think he's showing you their fear.

He's asking you to participate in it, and he's asking you this question: What finally are you going to do with your fear?

And he's told you, as he's relayed this story, there's only one place to take it.

Because there's only one who can remove the stone, the crushing weight of the law which shows us our sin.

There's only one who can wear the linen cloth and go in and atone for our sins.

There's only one who can render the tomb empty and give you hope.

Jesus Christ.

He is the one where we can take our fear.

And in the other gospels we see when he greets them, the first thing he says, do not be afraid.

He has done it.

It is finished.

Come to him.

He's the only one strong enough.

The tomb is empty.

He is risen.

Now let's take communion together.