Mark 16v1-8 : Resurrection

Introduction: A Muslim and a Christian were discussing their religions and had agreed that both Mohammed and Christ were prophets. Where, then, lay the difference? The Christian illustrated it this way: "If I came to a crossroads and saw a dead man and a living man. Which one should I ask for directions?" The response came quickly, "The living one, of course." "Why, then," asked his friend, "do you send me to Mohammed who is dead, instead of Christ who is alive?"

This is the basic difference between Christ and every other religious leader. All the others came into the world, lived, and died - but none of them lived again.

As we come to the resurrection, we really are therefore coming to the icing on the cake. You see it is this event that proves that Christ is who he claimed – the Son of God. It therefore also proves that what he taught about knowing and living for God was true, and that the death he died did actually kill off death. In other words, the whole of Mark’s gospel to this point depends on these eight verses. They give the final proof that Mark’s writings are more than just an interesting biography of a deluded or depraved man.

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Now before we ponder these verses, in the words of the Loriell advert, we do need the science bit.

Just take a look between verses 8 and 9. You should see a sentence reading something like: [The earliest manuscripts omit verses 9-16].

It is commonly accepted that these verses were not part of Mark’s original gospel, but were added by later scribes. The decision is made for two reasons:

First, the ending is not found before the late second century. Second, the manuscripts that omit it are those from different parts of the world. This is important, because if NT copies that are spread throughout the world show something, it is likely to have been in the original from which the various copies were made.

Now it is important that we understand this. You see, very often our friends doubt the reliability of the NT on grounds that it could have been distorted by a sort of Chinese Whispers. But the existence of footnotes like this put an end to such speculations: First, they show that those who put our Bibles together are very concerned to insert only what we can be sure stems from the time of the NT. Second, they show that there is no cover up about what was or wasn’t included.

Well with all this in mind, let’s get into the eight verses we do have.

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Now an interesting thing in this particular account is that Mark is less concerned than the other gospel writers about evidence. He doesn’t even record an appearance of Jesus himself. No his concern seems to be with the SIGNIFICANCE of the resurrection. We have time to consider only three four implications that he seems to want to highlight:

1. Fulfilment

2. Fearfulness

3. Forgiveness

4. Faith

1. Fulfilment

This is only implied here, but should hit you more than anything else if you’ve ever read through Mark. You see, like a truth ready to explode the pressure behind the resurrection has been building throughout.

Would you turn to chapter 8v32? [READ] Jesus says pretty much the same in chapter 9v31-32 and 10:33-34. Three times he predicts his death and resurrection. In fact, he even says he MUST die and rise. In other words, he makes these predictions on the basis of what he is convinced the Old Testament says must happen.

So the resurrection is about fulfilment in two ways: Fulfilment of the OT predictions and fulfilment of Jesus’ own predictions. And both are of course miraculous evidences that God was behind the Old Testament, behind Jesus and behind the resurrection itself.

So the resurrection leaves us in no doubt at all, who is the centre-point of history. Our question should no longer therefore be “how do I know Jesus is God’s Son and King?” but now “How should I respond to him?” And this raises our next point:

2. Fearfulness

This is the surprise of our verses isn’t it? We expect joy, we expect faith, we expect worship. But look what we get [READ v5, 8]

Now the word “trembling” from verse 8 is used elsewhere in the NT of reverent and obedient fear. And the only other time the word “bewildered” or “astonished” is used in Mark is when Jesus raises Jairus’ daughter from the dead. You can see the point. We hear so often of the resurrection, that we miss its wonder. It should astonish us. And it should put the fear of God into us.

Just think back to a time when you had a sense of the manifest presence of God. Didn’t it make your heart miss a beat and your hair stand on end. Well how much more to come face to face with an angel, and how much more to realise that the one you have spent three years alongside is the Son of the Most High.

Illustration: There’s a famous passage in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe that makes this point. Just in case you haven’t heard it, I thought as it’s the last week of term I’d read it to you:

"Is -- is he a man?" asked Lucy. "Aslan a man!" said Mr. Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of the Beasts? Aslan is a lion -- the Lion, the great Lion." "Ooh," said Susan, "I thought he was a man. Is he -- quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion." "That you will, dearie, and make no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver, "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else silly." "Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy. "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver, "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”

So many of us live with a lop-sided theology: We talk only of Jesus’ love and not of his justice; of him only as the lamb who was slain, and not as the lion who will destroy his enemies; as the babe in the manger rather than the returning judge.

If you look down at your Bible’s, you’ll see that the longer ending of Mark seems to have been a later add-on. Some think that the original ending was lost and this was an attempt to write a second.

Well one of the key reasons people may have assumed that there must have been a longer ending is because they feel that finishing a gospel on a note of fear and trembling is unfitting. But I wonder whether it is actually a clever tool in which Mark is actually highlighting the right initial response to the resurrection.

Yet having said that, it is only the right INITIAL response. You see wonderfully, we are not left in fear. And this brings us next to forgiveness.

3. Forgiveness

Take a look at verse 6. The angel responds to the women’s alarm with simple but profoundly calming words: “Do not be alarmed.” Why? Because “you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene.” Take a look now at verse 7. The angel could have stopped at “go and tell his disciples.” But instead adds “and Peter” – a purposeful affirmation that Jesus accepts the one who so publicly denied him.

Jesus resurrection declares the death of death – the penalty for sin. Jesus has born it and so forgiveness can now be ours. Now God obviously forgave people before Christ’s death, but then he did so on credit – if you like, whilst waiting for the penalty for those sins to be paid for. Well in these few verses we seem to have a record of the first believer who is actually forgiven after his sin has been paid for. And the great declaration here, that should provide much comfort for our souls, is that we need not therefore be alarmed.

Now it is very likely that some of you are still wracked with guilt over sins committed years ago. Perhaps for some, your guilt is more recent. Perhaps you denied or disobeyed Jesus in some profound way on in the last few months. Well can I reassure you, that those who truly trust him no longer need to be afraid. Like the women they need not be alarmed in the awesome light of who he is. And like Peter they can be sure of forgiveness and a new start even today in terms of their relationship with him.

And so this resurrection account finally should elicit faith:

4. faith

Who is it that need not be alarmed? Who is it that can be sure of forgiveness and a new start? Well it is those – in the words of verse 6 – who like the women “are looking for Jesus the Nazarene.”

This is why I think Mark probably always intended his gospel to end at verse 8. He wanted it to end on a note of fear and trembling that would move his readers like the women to “look for Jesus.”

Well as we finish, just note the nature of their faith. It is implicit in verses 1 and 2. We are told that these women were on their way “just after sunrise.” They must have left home when it was still dark. And walking to the tomb at that time of the morning would undoubtedly have been dangerous, not least for those who followed Jesus. They therefore showed their faith in two particular ways; First, in devotion. Quite simply they loved Jesus. And so they wanted to care for him even in death. Second, their faith showed itself in dedication. This love was not just a profession of their lips but of their lives.

Well, it is only this sort giving of ourselves to Christ that counts; only this that is the proof of true faith. It was this that showed itself in Peter’s remorse after denying Jesus, and it is therefore this that makes certain our forgiveness.