[0:00] women, women who love Jesus, women who want to take care of Jesus to the very end, the same women who were there as he died, the same women who were there when he's buried are the same women who are now there when he's risen.
[0:20] And one of these women, Mary Magdalene, will be the very first one to see the risen Jesus. That story's not here in Mark, but we know that these women are followers and disciples and carers of Jesus.
[0:41] But here what's revealed is they didn't quite have the faith we would expect them to have. They're totally unprepared for what they discover.
[0:57] Before we jump into that, I want you to realize something else about this text. Another surprise in the gospel of Mark. There is an unforeseen ending to Mark's gospel.
[1:12] It ends in verse 8. Now, I know you have, if you open your Bible, you see, oh no, there's verses 9 through 20.
[1:23] But if you look carefully, there's either a parenthesis around those verses, or there's a footnote that says the earliest manuscripts do not contain these verses.
[1:36] And that is true. Our best and our oldest complete Greek New Testament, which existed in the 4th century, did not contain any of these words after verse 8.
[1:54] In fact, verses 9 and following, and there's different versions of those as well, but all of those following verses, those added verses, do not appear until 100 years later in the 5th century.
[2:12] So that means that Mark ended with verse 8, which as we read, sounds, wait a minute, abrupt, unfinished, negative, wait a minute, they went and said nothing to anyone?
[2:27] That's how it ends? That's it? Anticlimactic, unexpected, no appearances of Jesus? We hear the body's gone, but then nothing more?
[2:41] Does it end with fear instead of faith? That's what we have here. Now, all the added endings, what we have verses 9 through 20 in our modern Bibles, there are a couple other variations of that, are all attempts by later Christians to resolve this abrupt ending.
[3:05] And they're clearly not written by the original writer. The language of Mark is very distinct, and what we find in these verses, verses 9 through 20, is not like Mark at all.
[3:19] It's a little bit choppy, it's a little bit broken, different vocabulary, a number of reasons why all scholars are unanimous in the fact that Mark ends, the original Mark ends with verse 8.
[3:35] So, these other verses are not original, they're well intended, not really a problem with them until you get to the very end of chapter 16.
[3:45] That might be one of the things we'll look at next time as those things were added. So, the other question we have is, did Mark intend to end his gospel like this?
[3:58] You know, Mark is a brilliant writer, we have found. He's not just writing stuff down, he is thinking about how he's writing them. We've seen the Mark sandwich several times, where he starts a story, interrupts a story with another story, and then comes back to the original story.
[4:17] And he's bracketing stories within stories, so that we might see what he wants to emphasize. He has not written with his own comments and edits, he has written simply what he witnessed, what happened, and then lets us, as readers, come to a question.
[4:36] Okay, what do we do with this Jesus? And so, maybe, many scholars thought, maybe Mark intended to end his gospel like this, so that we kind of go, what?
[4:52] Wait a minute, what happened next? Well, it does have that effect, doesn't it? It kind of draws us in, like, wait a minute, did they ever, did they never say anything to anyone? Did they stay afraid forever?
[5:07] So, perhaps, but I think it's more likely that the ending of Mark was lost. Remember, these were, back when they're written, they're not written in books like this with pages, they were written on a scroll of papyrus, which degrades over time, which is rolled up from one end to the other, and after the rolling several times, the end or the beginning of that scroll can get damaged and worn and broken off.
[5:42] And that may be the most likely scenario, but we don't know. We don't know. What we do know is what we have. So, let's look at verses 1 through 8.
[5:52] And as I mentioned before, what is striking and compelling about this text is we find that what the women discover is unexpected.
[6:06] Unexpected. We have read the Gospel of Mark. We have studied the Gospel of Mark. We know that at least on four occasions, he told them he would rise again.
[6:17] He told them he would go to Jerusalem. He told them he would be mocked. He would be rejected. He would suffer. He would be crucified. He would be betrayed. And then he would rise on the third day.
[6:30] He's mentioned it at least four times just in the Gospel of Mark. And none of them believed him. If they had believed him, why aren't they sitting at the entrance to the tomb, you know, kind of, okay, he said, I'm waiting, here he comes.
[6:47] And yet here we have these women. And no men, by the way. No men coming. Here we have these three women who come. Not to see him, but to anoint him.
[7:01] Striking. Compelling. Interesting. So there's an unexpected discovery at the tomb. Here we have this young man, quote unquote young man inside the tomb, who reveals to them two words, two messages.
[7:18] Both unexpected. Both unexpected. In verse 6, he says to them, a word of revelation, a word of grace. Do not be afraid.
[7:29] He is risen. A word of grace. And then in verse 7, then he goes on to give them a word of commission. So now go and tell. A word of hope.
[7:41] There you will see him. So let's look at these two messages as they're revealed by the gospel of Mark. First of all, the message, which is a revelation, a word of grace.
[7:55] Do not fear. He has risen. Revealing to them what they should have already known, what they should have already believed, but did not believe, and now are told again, he has risen.
[8:06] He's not here. A word of grace. I want you to notice the physical facts that Mark elaborates and emphasizes. He makes several references to the date and time.
[8:19] He doesn't just say on the early morning. He gives several references. He says in verse 1, when the Sabbath was passed, first of all. The Sabbath was passed.
[8:30] In other words, when does the Sabbath pass? When does the Sabbath pass? Sabbath, remember, runs from evening to evening.
[8:41] It runs from Friday evening to Saturday evening. It does not run from Saturday morning to Saturday night. It runs from Friday evening to Saturday evening.
[8:54] So then the Sabbath ends on Saturday evening. So at sunset on Saturday is the beginning of the first day of the week. So where do we get that from? Well, you go back to Genesis 1, when God created the world.
[9:06] Remember how he stated the days? So there was evening and there was morning one day. There was evening and there was morning a second day. That's how God reckons time.
[9:17] Starts with evening. And so the Jews, when they keep their Sabbath, they consider the same way. And so when Mark is saying, when the Sabbath has passed, he's saying beginning Saturday evening.
[9:33] When the Sabbath was passed. So beginning Saturday evening. But he's going to get more specific. Verse 2. Very early on the first day of the week. So we'll not only get the day.
[9:44] The day is the first day of the week. It begins on Saturday evening, sunset. But very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen. Okay, so now we're talking about what we call Sunday morning.
[9:57] We're calling daybreak. Now he's given the time. Not just the day, but the daybreak. They went to the tomb. So here come the same three women who expect to anoint Christ.
[10:15] They had come, verse 1, to anoint him with spices. And then Mark reports several other details.
[10:25] I want you to notice in verses 3 through 6. Note the physical elements. Verse 3. They're expecting to come to the tomb and find that big, large stone in front of the entrance.
[10:38] They're concerned. So verse 3, they say, who will roll away the stone? This stone is so large that for three women, it's too large for them to move. So they're hoping someone else will be there to help them move the stone.
[10:54] They're not expecting the stone to be rolled back. Verse 4 tells us it was a very large stone. Or to give you the Greek, a very mega.
[11:07] We might say ginormous. It's huge. Now, it's not as big as we would have imagined. The tombs in those days were not where the entrance of the tomb is worried about, you know, head high, you just duck a little bit and you go in.
[11:23] And no, they're not going to waste that much time carving out something that you're only going in from time to time. So they're going to make a small hole at the bottom where you can crawl through and then come in.
[11:36] So that's how they would have entered the tomb is by crawling in. But here's this stone. And the stone's easy to put in front of the tomb because it's usually built into a channel and it goes downhill.
[11:48] So the difficulty is moving the stone out of the way because then you have to roll it uphill. And then, of course, put some kind of wedge in there to hold it. So this is what they're concerned with.
[12:00] But what they discover is, surprise one, the stone has been moved. Surprise number two, another unexpected. Verse 5.
[12:10] Oh, verse, yeah, verse 5. Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right side, dressed in a white robe.
[12:25] And they, obviously, were alarmed. They see a man. And by what Mark now describes this young man, he says he's a young man, doesn't say he's an angel, just says he looks like a young man.
[12:40] But he's not a normal young man because, one, he's dressed differently. He's wearing white. And who wears white when you're crawling through tombs and getting all dirty?
[12:51] Who wears white? And white is usually a signal of something holy. And then, secondly, what he tells them is a message from Jesus and a revelation from Jesus.
[13:05] So this is not some just regular teenager that got in there and is hanging out. This is somebody who's giving them a message from Christ. This is an angel.
[13:17] The other Gospels confirm that we have an angel here. So she discovers the stone has moved. She discovers this young man in there. Then she discovers by his revelation to them that the tomb is empty.
[13:34] They're expecting to see a body. He shows them there's no body. He is risen. He is not here. So it's one thing that he says he is risen.
[13:45] And then he points out the fact that he is not here. In other words, the body is not here. It's not just that he is spiritually raised and the body is still here.
[13:56] No, he, soul and body have risen. The body is gone. In fact, then he invites them to come. Come. And by the way, you enter the tomb.
[14:08] There's an antechamber. So you are able to stand. And then you go through another crawling hole to get into the actual chamber of burial. So they come in to that one and he shows them here he is.
[14:22] This is where they laid him. Notice he's not there. Notice there's no body there. So he's emphasizing these physicality issues.
[14:32] The stone, the empty tomb, the body is gone. And then notice in verse 6 how he describes Jesus. He said, do not be alarmed.
[14:44] You seek Jesus. Jesus. To which he adds Jesus of Nazareth. Now why do they need that information? Who was crucified?
[14:57] Again, another detail. Why do they need that information? They know that. They watched him crucified. They know he's from Nazareth. Why is Mark recording that this angel describes Jesus as Jesus of Nazareth?
[15:14] And that he's the same Jesus who was crucified. Who is now not here. Nor is his body here.
[15:25] Why describe him that way? Because Mark is emphasizing that Jesus was a specific, not just any Jesus. There were lots of Jesuses. He is the Jesus of Nazareth.
[15:37] He's that Jesus from up in Galilee. He's the one who was born to Joseph and Mary who had at least four brothers and at least two sisters. He's that Jesus from Nazareth.
[15:50] And he's the one that was crucified. Because again, it's important to connect his crucifixion with his resurrection. You cannot have one without the other. Neither of them make sense without the other one.
[16:01] He's a specific historical person. Mark has only given us eight verses here, but he's including these details.
[16:13] Which are interesting. So they've had the surprise of the rock move. The surprise of the young man. The surprise of the body gone. One more surprise.
[16:23] There's a word of declaration that they hear. Do not be alarmed. This word for alarm in the Greek, it's only Mark uses this word.
[16:36] He uses it at times when people are just kind of blown away. And these women are alarmed. They are struck out, literally. And we might translate it as they're experiencing shock and awe.
[16:51] Because it kind of has both those elements. It has a scary element and an awe-inspiring element. So they see the young man. That gives them shock and awe.
[17:02] They see all these things together. That gives them shock and awe. Then the message that they hear is also going to scare them. Because after they hear the message, they're going to run away. They're unprepared.
[17:16] I want to emphasize that. They have come totally unexpected to discover Jesus' body gone. In other words, they never considered when Jesus said, I will rise on the third day, they never considered that to be a literal prophecy.
[17:38] They never took it serious. Neither did the men. Where are the men? It's the third day. Where are they? They're still hiding. It's over.
[17:49] It's done. God's done. Jesus was a great man. We'll never forget him. He said something about rising again, but that had to be a parable.
[18:00] Had to be a parable. He didn't mean that. I mean, look. Here's the evidence. They did not expect this. And by the way, if the early church was making this stuff up, for one, they would never say the women were the witnesses because in the early centuries, women were not legal witnesses.
[18:27] So they blessed that up. They would not do that. They would not make everyone who's the witnesses look so bad. This has the ring of authenticity because it's so unexpected.
[18:43] They didn't take it serious. They never considered Jesus would rise from the dead. They can't even go there. So he tells them, do not fear.
[18:55] Don't be in shock and awe. He is risen. Now it's startling too. This is why I say this is a message of grace. He does not shame them for their unbelief.
[19:13] He does not say, why didn't you believe? Jesus told you, you should have believed. Shame on you. You don't have enough faith. Your faith is too small.
[19:25] No, he just says, don't fear. He relieves their fear and then says, he has risen. Come and see. That's grace. No shame for their unbelief.
[19:36] Instead, he comforts them. He reassures them. He shows them then where. See, you've come to the right place. This is the right tomb.
[19:47] You got that right. This is where his body was. You came to the right place, but with the wrong expectations. But do you see how gracious the response is?
[20:01] I mean, the context, they, we, we do that to ourselves. We shame ourselves. We beat ourselves up because, oh, I should have trusted God in that. I didn't. I knew Jesus said that and I still didn't believe him.
[20:15] God must be so disappointed in me. For one, that's impossible for God to be disappointed in you. It's impossible. He knows the future.
[20:25] He knows you. He knows you will fall just like he knew Peter would fall. He's not disappointed. He might be sorrowful. He might hurt with you.
[20:39] He's not going to condemn you. He understands that we're but dust. This is a major mind shift to understand that there's, somebody's going to rise from the dead.
[20:52] So he shows them where. So let's ask a practical question. What does this resurrection of Jesus mean to us? In the context, he has just died.
[21:04] He is crucified. We understand that he was crucified on our behalf. As Isaiah 53 talks about, he bore our sins, not just our sins, but our iniquities, which are the worst kind of sins, the twisted, bad ones.
[21:24] He bore them. So now what does his resurrection mean? Jesus laid down his life as a sacrifice. He was an offering to God. What it means is that God, the father accepted his sacrifice, that his sacrifice was well pleasing because now the father raises him up, exalts him to heaven, elevates him, honors him, puts him at his right hand.
[21:52] He has done what has pleased the father. Because it pleased the father to send his own son to die in the place of rebels so that he might forgive us and bring us.
[22:07] And so the father is glorifying the son. Just three days earlier when Jesus is dying, the father held off from rescuing the son.
[22:19] As the son cried out, why have you forsaken me? Jesus and his humanness, feeling that separation from the father, the judgment of God on the sin.
[22:33] And now the father, yeah, now I get to elevate my son. Now I get to show how pleased I am in him. Now I get to show off how wonderful was his love and how much he loved sinners to take that on their place.
[22:49] That's what the resurrection means. It means that he has accepted the sacrifice. Well, what does it mean to have faith in the resurrection? Can we trust that it really happened?
[23:00] We cannot prove it. We cannot go back and give you some physical evidence. We can't check DNA or fingerprints, or we can't go and interview all those witnesses.
[23:10] We just have what the witnesses said recorded in a book. So are we supposed to trust that? How do we know we can trust it? How is it, do we know it's reasonable to trust?
[23:24] Well, as I said, Mark and the other gospels are giving facts. They're giving details. And they give it in such a way that it kind of, you know, where the women are not even believing what they're seeing.
[23:39] But let me give you an example. In Mark, excuse me, in Romans chapter four, Paul is describing Abraham's faith. Abraham had received a promise too.
[23:53] When he was 75 years old, he was, God told him, you're going to have a son. And through your son, there's going to be a multitude of people, whole nation of people. So 10 years go by and still no son.
[24:06] No. 15 more years, 14 more years go by and still no son. 24 years have gone by. God promised Abraham to have a son through his wife, Sarah, and still no son.
[24:19] In the 24th year, God came to Sarah and said, next year, you'll have a son. And we know that son was Isaac. His name meant laughter because when Sarah heard at 90 years old, she was going to have a son, she laughed.
[24:35] Ha! Right. I'll call him. Ha! Pretty much loose translation of the Hebrew. Ha! You can spit a little bit. Too.
[24:45] Sorry. So here's how Paul describes Abraham's faith. Those 25 years of waiting for God to fulfill his promise. Romans 4.20.
[24:56] No unbelief made Abraham waver concerning the promise of God. But he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God.
[25:07] Listen to this. Fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That's the bottom line of faith. Faith means I'm fully convinced God is able to do what he promised.
[25:21] So when it comes to the resurrection, do I believe God is able to do that? Not, has it happened before?
[25:33] Have I seen that? Do I believe? Am I fully convinced that God is able to do what he promised? Jesus promised he would raise from the dead. God said, I will raise him up.
[25:45] So that is why, Paul goes on, his faith was counted to him as righteousness. The words that it was counted to him were not written for his sake alone, but for ours as well. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord.
[26:02] Who was delivered up, killed for our trespasses, and raised for our justification. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, being fully convinced that God did what he promised, we have faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
[26:25] Faith in Jesus' death and resurrection brings us peace with God. And it's faith that's not based on, okay, I've seen all the evidence.
[26:36] It's faith based on the reasonable understanding that God has promised it. God can do what he promised. Now there's enough facts and historical data in the gospels to say, okay, it's also reasonable.
[26:53] I see what happened. I see there's witnesses. I see there's, there's questions. I see there's, it's kind of not a setup. It's not how we'd write the story. Why is the resurrection so important?
[27:04] Because the death and resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of our faith. Apart from the death and resurrection of Jesus. Well, listen to what Paul says. Here's Paul's reasoning. If there is no resurrection of the dead.
[27:17] In other words, if there's no life after death, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
[27:30] We, we, the preachers are found to be misrepresenting God because we've testified, testified about God that he has raised Christ whom he did not raise.
[27:43] If it is true that the dead are not raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.
[27:55] That's the biggie. You're still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
[28:06] In other words, they don't have hope. When we die, there's nothing else. There's no hope. If Christ is not raised, if there is no resurrection, there is no hope. If in fact, if in, if in Christ, we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
[28:26] See, if what we trust in the resurrection is not real, then we're wasting our time.
[28:37] As Paul says later, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die. If there's no, I mean, if, if now is all we have, then live for now. But Paul says, but in fact, in reality, Christ has been raised from the dead.
[28:54] The first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. We do have hope. This isn't it. This life isn't it. My point is that Christianity is based on physical facts.
[29:05] Jesus was a historical person. His death and resurrection were witnessed by multiple witnesses. Our faith is reasonable.
[29:17] Our faith is informed. So the angel's first message is a message of grace. Do not fear. He has done as he promised. He has died for your sin, and he is raised for your salvation and peace.
[29:32] But there's a second message the angel brings in verse seven. Now it's a word of commission. Now he's sending them. It's a word of hope. Go and tell others.
[29:44] He has gone before you into Galilee. There you will see him. Here's the hope. Go and tell others. You will see him. You will see him. That's the promise.
[29:55] That's the hope. He's not gone. He's again, he's still here. So first there's the commission. Go and tell who, by the way? Did you notice? Verse seven.
[30:06] But go tell his disciples and who? Who gets special mention? Peter. Go tell his disciples and Peter.
[30:16] Now why does he mention Peter? How come Peter gets picked out? Well, if you remember the last time we read in the gospel of Mark, the last time Peter was mentioned, he had denied Jesus.
[30:31] And then he had gone out and wept. Peter was. Peter had failed. He had deserted like all the other disciples.
[30:42] And Peter took it a step further. He denied Jesus. He had failed Jesus. Remember, he had boasted, I will never desert you like all these others.
[30:53] I will never fail you. I will fight to the end, even if it takes my life. And then he's hiding in the garden and the little servant girl finds him. He was a big failure.
[31:10] Like every one of us who have promised the Lord and failed the Lord, who have meant well and still failed.
[31:23] This is a word of hope. They're not told, you know, tell the disciples and Peter especially, tell Peter, you know, really disappointed in you.
[31:41] Really, really ashamed of you. I really hope for more. You should feel bad. No, that's not the message. Go tell the disciples and Peter, you're going to see me again.
[31:52] There's a reunion coming. There's a reunion coming. And there's a place that you're going to go in Galilee and there you will see me. A place of restoration, a place of regathering.
[32:06] There is hope after your failure. God does not write you off when you fail him. God does not shame you when you fail him.
[32:19] But doesn't the Bible say that the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin? Yes, conviction of sin is very different than shaming. Shaming will push you away from God.
[32:30] Conviction will draw you to God. Holy Spirit is very gentle. Well, sometimes he uses a two by four, but the result, whenever it's the Holy Spirit, it draws us back to God.
[32:40] It doesn't push us away. So if you get pushed away from God, that's you or that's the devil. Because the Holy Spirit's job is to pull you back.
[32:51] God wants restoration. He wants relationship. And this is what he wants with the disciples. They had deserted him. They denied him. And he says, I'm still going to meet you.
[33:04] He gives them comfort. You will see him. You will see him. You will see this body transformed into a new body.
[33:15] You will touch it, Thomas. You will touch it. You will put your hands. It's the same body because you're going to see the nail prints in his wrists and in his feet and in his side.
[33:28] You're going to see the blood-stained forehead. Well, maybe not stained, but certainly where the thorns went into his brow.
[33:40] you'll see the lash marks on his back. You will see him. And notice that the angel says, just as he said.
[33:53] He told you. Yeah, I remember now. Now, yeah, he did say that, didn't he? I wasn't really paying attention because I was wrapped up in something else.
[34:07] No, he said he'd go before you. After I have raised, I will go before you to Galilee, he says back in Mark 14, 28.
[34:19] And by the way, the word for see here does not just mean see physically. Yeah, you see physically, but it means to see beyond the physical. You're not just going to see that he has a physical body that was raised and transformed, but you're going to see with understanding.
[34:34] you're going to see the significance and the meaning behind his death and resurrection. You're going to see who he really is because all through that you're following of Jesus, you've been wondering, who is he?
[34:50] After he calms the storm, they're all saying, who is he? We know he's special. We know he's a prophet. We think even that he's the Messiah, but oh my, not what we expected.
[35:05] Who is he? And so when he raises from the dead and you see him changed, he has been victorious, he has done exactly what he said, you're going to see him with new eyes. Now you're going to see him.
[35:17] Wow. Wow, you're going to see the grace and the truth. You're going to see that he's faithful. You're going to see that he keeps his word. You're going to see that he's the son of God. He's the savior. He's the redeemer.
[35:28] He's the lamb and he's the lion. You're going to see more and more all the time. You'll see, you'll see, you'll really see him. So the angel has presented the message of grace and the message of hope.
[35:47] So how do the women respond in our very last verse? won't they be full of grace and hope? Won't we expect them to say, yes, he's risen like we do on Easter Sunday, right?
[36:07] Yeah, we say, yeah, he's risen. He's risen indeed. Aren't they supposed to say that when the angel says he is risen? Aren't they supposed to say he is risen indeed? That's what we do. No. They don't do that.
[36:23] In fact, their response, Mark tells us in verse 8, they went out and fled, ran from the tomb. Why?
[36:33] for trembling and astonishment. In the Greek, the word is ecstasy. Not happy ecstasy, but a displacement.
[36:50] Like a, I'm a little out of myself. I'm a little displaced. Put yourself in these women's sandals.
[37:03] What did they expect? A dead body, quiet tomb. They come and big stone moved, strange young man sitting there, not a normal guy, kind of bright.
[37:20] In fact, the other gospels say he was dazzling. Remember, they go into the tomb, it's not well lit. It's dark in there. I think dazzling would kind of stand out.
[37:31] So you see this guy with the, whoo! Okay, that's unsettling. And then he shows you that the body's gone and he tells you he's not here.
[37:44] What? Now, we're expecting them to process all this real fast. When your mind's been blown, when you come to understand something that you haven't seen for a long time, when you discover a new truth in Scripture that, how did I miss that before?
[38:03] It takes a while to process. Let's be fair to these women. They had a lot to deal with.
[38:14] They flee in fear. They're overwhelmed. And then Mark says, they said nothing to anyone. That's how it ends.
[38:30] For they were afraid. They were phobia. They were, they had a phobia. They could, remember phobia means you're paralyzed by whatever you're afraid of.
[38:41] And they're not over that yet. But as the readers of this gospel, we think, wait, wait a minute, it's unfulfilled. He said he'd appear. Did he ever appear to them? Did the women ever come over there, overcome their fear?
[38:55] Well, we know there's more to the story. We're fairly, it's fairly likely that the, that there was an ending that Mark had and it got torn off in some way.
[39:06] But you know what? Mark is not the only gospel we have so we can answer the questions. What happened next? We can go to the gospel of Matthew. Matthew was written a little later than Mark.
[39:17] Matthew tells us that as the women are going away afraid, they meet Jesus. Things changed after that. They met Jesus.
[39:29] The gospel of Mark tells us that they did finally go back and tell the eleven. The gospel of John tells us that Mary Magdalene, before she went in the tomb, she was there earlier and saw that the stone had been moved and went back and told Peter and John.
[39:46] Peter and John came, looked in the tomb, figured it out. They leave. Mary Magdalene meets Jesus. So the other gospels fill in. What happened? They tell us that the women did overcome their fear, that they did report to the others.
[40:01] They did see Jesus. Why? Because they were there. And even though they were there with little faith, no faith, maybe they didn't have faith but they had devotion and love for Jesus.
[40:17] but God blessed them. Jesus appeared to them and they become the first preachers.
[40:31] They became the first message. Go tell the apostles. Go tell the preachers. What a surprising God, isn't he? Did they ever meet in Galilee?
[40:44] Yes, they did. Matthew, the end of the gospel of Matthew tells us that the eleven disciples went to Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had told them to go to and when they saw him, same word, saw him, they worshipped him though some doubted.
[41:03] And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go, go and make disciples of all the nations, not just the Jews, but of all the Gentiles, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.
[41:27] Behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. So the end of the gospel is, yes, the women do fulfill their commission. They do spread the news.
[41:39] The church is born. We read the rest of the story in Acts. So the question for us then is, what will we do?
[41:52] With this news. Does this frighten us so that we say nothing to anyone? What will we do with this news? This news that Jesus was crucified for our sins and has risen as a Savior to bring us to God.
[42:10] What will we do? Let me end with two encouragements. One, hear the word of the resurrection. One, do not fear. He is risen.
[42:20] For today, that means he is on his throne. He knows exactly what he's doing. He has a purpose in all of what we're going through. We don't always know what that purpose is.
[42:32] We may not know in the coming days what that purpose is. We might know. But his purpose is good. It's good. It's always good.
[42:43] And secondly, hear the word of the resurrection. Go and tell others this word of hope. Tell others that God has kept his promise that he has sent his son to do what we can't do.
[43:00] That is, pay for our own debt and make ourselves right. John summarized it very well. In John chapter 3, he said, God so loved the world.
[43:16] He loved the world in such a way that he gave his only son. Gave him for what? To die for sins and to be raised for our peace.
[43:33] That God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him, whoever is fully convinced that he has done what God has promised, will not perish but will have everlasting life.
[43:46] And that's our hope. And that's our faith, which is reasonable. Reasonable. Because God is able to do what he promises to do.
[44:00] Let's close with prayer. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you, Father, for the way that the word is written. We pray, oh Father, that you would apply it to us.
[44:15] Father, we confess that many times we are those like the women who have heard what you have said and have not believed. Have not really considered that you mean what you say.
[44:27] We hear the words and maybe there's some kind of outside comfort to us, but we don't really take in the words and put them to heart. We never really consider them. So we're just like these women, Father.
[44:39] We're weak. We don't always get it. We don't always believe it. So forgive us and cleanse us. And Father, we pray that you'd give your Holy Spirit to take us to the next step to see, to believe, to trust.
[44:55] And help us in this day, Father, as the uncertainty is all around us. We hope that there's resolution, but Father, at the same time, we're in your hands.
[45:07] You are in control of all of this. And so we say we trust you. We believe you are good. We believe you are present. Strengthen our faith.
[45:21] Give us voice to our witness. This we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Amen.