Reverend Jonathan Waits
Sermon: Good News (Mark 16:1-8)
Date: March 31, 2024
Have you ever had something good happen that you didn’t expect? That’s always fun. You’re just humming along, minding your own business, and then, BAM! Something happens to totally make your day. Everybody needs a day like that at least once in a while. What’s even more fun, though, is watching somebody else react to some unexpected good news. If you can catch it right, you can see the dawn of realization come on their face. You can watch as the clouds of confusion gradually lift and they experience the sheer joy of the moment. Videos of little kids reacting to a military parent surprising them with an unexpected homecoming come to mind here. Those things make me tear up every single time I see one. What may be the most fun of all, though, is seeing someone react to something good that they don’t even have a category for until they experience it. In those moments, you can almost watch their brains short-circuit. If they were a computer, their screen would just be flashing a “does not compute” message over and over again as their synapses were trying to figure out how to process the news in ways that will make any kind of sense out of what they are experiencing. And then the joy on the other side of the wall is often the purest, most intense joy you will find. Well, this morning, I want to talk with you for a few minutes about some people who had just this kind of an experience.
This morning brings us at last to the end of our series, A Journey to the Cross with Mark. For the last six weeks we have been experiencing together each day of Mark’s presentation of the final week of Jesus’ life before His death on a Roman cross. We started things out with Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem at the beginning of the week. What we discovered then is that Jesus has both the passion and the authority to make a way for us to get to God. That’s what His whole life and ministry were about. But if we are going to walk this path to God that Jesus made available for us, we’re going to have to walk it on His terms, not ours. As we saw in the second part of our journey, Jesus values godly humility over worldly greatness.
Well, while Jesus was far more than just a prophet, that doesn’t mean He wasn’t at least a prophet. And during His final week in Jerusalem, Jesus spoke like a prophet some. Nate did a tremendous job walking us through that challenging passage in Mark 13, and left us with the important understanding that when all is said and done, Jesus came to remove the old and bring in the new. Our job is to watch and be ready for it.
Over the last couple of weeks, then, we worked our way through the events from Thursday morning to the wee hours of Friday morning as they unfolded in Mark 14. Through Jesus’ example of faithfulness in the face of vicious persecution, we were reminded that life is sometimes hard and unfair. When that happens, we are to take His lead in following faithfully anyway. We do this even in the hardest parts of life because Jesus has been there too. He understands what we are going through in those moments far better than we might imagine. When life gets hard, Jesus understands. Then, just two days ago, we experienced the tragedy and horror of the cross together. It was an emotional night to be sure, but one in which we were able to experience together the incredible love of God who would sacrifice His Son on our behalf.
That all brings us to this morning. If you have a copy of the Scriptures handy, find your way to Mark 16. Everything we’ve seen and heard so far has been leading us to this point. And where did Mark leave us? He left us in a pretty dark place. Jesus was dead and buried. When we leave chapter 15, the stone has just been rolled into place and the hopes of the disciples have been dashed completely to pieces.
Jesus wasn’t the only guy claiming to be the Messiah in those days. There were many who came before Him claiming such a mantle for themselves. Now, His approach to the position was pretty different from theirs. They tended to live into the culture’s understanding of the Messiah’s being a political and military leader who would bring Israel back to the glory and power they imagined they held when David was king. These were typically pretty charismatic guys who quickly built up large followings that then armed themselves and sought to take on Rome in order to overthrow these oppressors of the people of God once and for all. The trouble was, Rome was bigger. And stronger. And better organized. They had more resources. They had better tactics. It just wasn’t a fair fight. And to a man they all lost. All of them. Every single time. In fact, it got so bad that the way you knew whether or not someone’s claim to be the Messiah was true was that He didn’t wind up crucified by Rome.
Jesus’ approach was pretty different than these other guys took. He generally sought to avoid conflict. More than once He actively moved His ministry to a new area when one area started getting a little too heated. Now, He got into plenty of conflict with the Jewish religious leaders, but not Rome. He was perfectly content to stay off of their radar. Even in this final week when He made His claim to be the Messiah about as clearly as He could, He didn’t do anything that was going to be perceived as at all antagonizing toward Rome. As a case in point, to the extent we can tell, Pilate didn’t have any idea who He was when He appeared before him. Because of all this, and although He was so different from all the rest, Jesus’ followers really were convinced He was the guy. And then He got crucified by Rome. “Then he laid him in a tomb cut out of the rock and rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb.” That was that. Jesus was dead and that was the end of His movement.
But then the women…
Thank God for godly women. I’m honestly not sure what we would do without them. All during the Sabbath Jesus’ followers hid out and tried their best to make sense of what had happened. It wasn’t easy. They were all convinced Jesus was the Messiah, and this was not how the Messiah’s life was supposed to end. They were all having to completely reevaluate what they understood about God’s plans. That’s what the guys were doing. But the ladies said, “You know what, life still has to go on. Jesus may be gone, but that doesn’t mean we can stop everything we would normally be doing and just sit here moping.”
And so—v. 1 now—“When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they could go and anoint him.” This would have happened Saturday evening. The Sabbath was officially over at sundown. As soon as they could go and move about the city freely, they quickly went out to acquire the supplies they needed to finish the burial process with Jesus’ body. The reason they were doing that is because He was dead. He was dead, Jewish custom held that a body had to be prepared for burial, but they hadn’t been able to do this Friday evening because of the Sabbath. Now that they could get back to work, they were going to do just that.
“Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they went to the tomb at sunrise.” They wanted to do this early so that they could avoid all of the commotion that might be coming later on in the day. Stamping out a religious movement wasn’t something that could happen simply by executing the leader. Once he was gone, you had to deal with all of the followers. Rome understood this well. So did the chief priests. Jesus’ followers had been given a gift by Pilate in granting them the body at all. In most cases, the bodies of those who were crucified were left on their crosses to rot. This gift, though, could be taken back. The chief priests or Romans might have changed their minds and decided to put Jesus’ dead body on display to serve as a warning against anyone who might try to follow in His footsteps. If they were going to be able to prepare the body properly, they were going to have to get on it as soon as they could. So, early Sunday morning, off they went.
“They were saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone from the entrance to the tomb for us?’” The women knew what they wanted to do, but they weren’t sure how they were going to get it done. They surely did not know about the guard of soldiers Pilate had assigned to the tomb to keep anyone from messing with it either. Tombs then were sealed with a heavy stone to prevent the odors of decomposition from escaping. As Martha told Jesus when He wanted the stone rolled away from Lazarus’ tomb before raising him from the dead (in King James English just for fun), “Lord, by this time he stinketh.” They didn’t want Jesus or any other body to stinketh either, so the tomb was sealed. And they didn’t know how they were going to overcome that particular obstacle.
Then they arrived at the tomb and discovered it wasn’t going to be an obstacle at all. “Looking up, they noticed that the stone—which was very large—had been rolled away.” Now, Mark doesn’t tell us about this part, but just before the women arrived, an angel appeared sitting on top of the stone and took care of that part of the job for the ladies. This had the effect of frightening the Roman soldiers assigned to guard the tomb so badly that they all passed out from fear.
By the time the women arrived, the angel was still there. As a matter of fact, although Mark leaves out this part, there were two. And they had a message for the ladies. “When they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side; they were alarmed.” You think? It says something for their courage that they didn’t pass out from fear when seeing the angel like the soldiers did. The angel started with what was the pretty standard angelic greeting throughout the Scriptures: “Hey, chill out!” Well, Mark puts it a bit more formally than that. “‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he told them [too late…]. ‘You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they put him.’”
I’ve got to confess: I love this part of the story. God’s sense of humor, expressed through His messenger, is fully on display here. The women walk into the tomb, get all freaked out by the angel, and listen as it delivers the message God sent it to proclaim. He starts by stating the obvious: “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.” Well, yes, that was indeed why they were there at the tomb where Jesus’ body had been laid to rest. Who else would they be looking for?
Then comes the big news: “He has risen!” Those three words are the hinge on which all of human history swings. But think for a minute about how understated this is. The reappearance of gods in various ancient mythologies were pretty universally accompanied by all kinds of pomp and circumstance. It was a big deal that the god was back from some departure of some kind, including death. And it was indeed a big deal that Jesus was alive again, but where’s the fanfare? Where’s the hype? Where’s the show? Where’s the trumpeting the news from the rooftops? Instead, all we get is this: He is risen. He’s not here. And then almost as evidence, the angel follows that up with, “See the place where they put him.” Look for yourselves. You can clearly see that He’s not here. Meanwhile the women were just staring at them utterly dumbstruck. They didn’t have a category for this kind of thing. They couldn’t even begin to make sense out of it. But the angel wasn’t finished: “But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee; you will see him there just as he told you.’” And that is indeed what Jesus had told them. Remember back to chapter 14? “But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.”
Now, think with me for just a second here. What would you have done if you were one of these women? And don’t let yourself start to develop the thought that you would have been celebrating with joy and gladness at the news of Jesus’ resurrection. Remember: you don’t have a category for this kind of thing happening. Honestly, we still don’t. Think about the stories we tell today about when someone comes back from the dead. They’re pretty universally negative stories. They’re either about zombies or necromancy of some sort. People aren’t supposed to come back from the dead. So, what do you make of this? Probably about the same thing the women did at first. Look at v. 8 here: “They went out and ran from the tomb, because trembling and astonishment overwhelmed them. And they said nothing to anyone, since they were afraid.”
If you were going to tell the story of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, it’s hard to imagine doing it much worse than Mark does right here. I mean, think about it. There’s not a single appearance of Jesus anywhere. No one is in the least bit excited about the news. No one understands what’s going on. Why on earth would Mark do such a terrible job telling the greatest story the world has ever known? At least Matthew and Luke wrote later and were able to add some of the details they either experienced themselves (Matthew) or learned from others who did experience them (Luke) so we know a little bit more about what was happening. John wrote about a generation after these guys and added still more details to fill out the picture including a little bit about that trip to Galilee both Jesus and the angel mentioned. Here’s one thought: Because it was all true. If Mark’s plan was to just make up a story that was intended to sound really good in order to sell the Christian faith to a bunch of unbelievers, this was not the way to do it. He failed in that regard. But if Mark was simply telling his readers the short version of what actually happened on the morning of the resurrection to round out his story of Jesus’ life and ministry, his presentation here makes a lot more sense.
Speaking of this being the end of the story, if you are following along with me in your own Bible, my saying this is the end of the story may seem a little odd since you can clearly see there are several more verses that follow where we stopped. While we can talk about what’s in those another time, we’re not going to do that now because most scholars are pretty sure Mark didn’t write that part. Someone added those verses to the story sometime after Mark had finished his work. We’re not exactly sure when, but we know that our most reliable and earliest manuscripts don’t include those verses. The later ones do. It’s pretty easy to imagine a later church leader or copyist adding a little bit more to the story based on some of the stories that were circulating about Jesus and the early church at the time in order to not leave things in the incredibly awkward place Mark does. When there are places in the New Testament like this where we run into questions about whether something was really in the original text or not, New Testament scholars typically use a couple of rules of thumb. The option that is shorter and harder to understand is probably the one that’s correct. The likelihood of someone editing something out of the Scriptures was pretty slim given the high view they had of them then. If someone was going to add something, though, they were probably going to try to smooth out something that didn’t make much sense to them at first read. That’s all I wanted to say on that for now. Let’s jump back to what Mark writes here.
What are we supposed to do with these women reacting to the news of Jesus’ resurrection this way? Well, here’s a thought that’s going to sound like I’m just stating what is patently obvious at first, but I think there’s more substance to this idea than just that. The best news ever was something nobody expected. Nobody did. None of Jesus’ followers had a clue. The rest of the world didn’t care because they had never heard of Jesus in the first place. As we talked about, the only guys who had even an inkling that Jesus’ body might not be in the tomb on Sunday morning were the chief priest and Pharisees, and this wasn’t because they thought for a second that something like the resurrection was a possibility. They just didn’t want the disciples’ stealing the body and perpetuating a grand fraud on the world. The best news ever was something nobody expected.
Okay, but what does that mean? Well, for starters, it means the likelihood that anyone just made it up is really, really small. As far as the various explanations go for what “really” happened to make Jesus’ followers start proclaiming to the world (against their own self-interest, mind you) that He had risen from the dead, that one is probably the silliest to claim. The best news ever was something nobody expected. And because nobody expected it, nobody just made it up. The far better explanation is that it really happened.
That’s all well and good, though, but what does this actually mean for us? How does this affect your life and my life in a way that matters when we talk out of these doors in just a few minutes? Listen carefully here. The best news ever is something nobody expected. I’m not just repeating myself to repeat myself. If the greatest thing God ever did was something that nobody expected, then wouldn’t it make sense to think that you may not be expecting something good He has planned for you?
In terms of your time here on Earth, I don’t know what God’s got in store for your life. I am not a prophet, nor do I play one on television. What I can see, though, is what is right here in the text. The best news ever was something nobody expected. And if God managed to pull off those plans and totally surprise everybody—in spite of the fact that He had told them again and again those were His plans—then it seems perfectly reasonable to conclude that He just may have it in mind to do that again in your life or mine. None of that is to say we are particularly special to deserve something like God’s doing that. It is simply a testament to His goodness. He loves to do good things for His people. Sometimes we can see those things coming, sometimes they catch us totally off guard. Given God’s character, if you are in a place where it feels like everything is falling apart—your job sucks, people are out to get you, your very legacy is in question, your relationships are strained and failing—the disciples on that Saturday before the resurrection know just how you are feeling. And then God did what only God could do and everything changed. The best news ever was something nobody expected.
Friends, the resurrection of Jesus is a point of hope beyond our wildest dreams. It means that God isn’t limited at all in terms of His plans to bless us and do good for, in, and through our lives. No matter how bad things may seem in a given moment, His goodness is big enough and strong enough to overcome that if we will trust in Him and keep pursuing His path through life. Now, if we jump off that path for one reason or another, we’re on our own. There’s no real hope there. But if we will keep on walking it, the goodness of our God will come through. The best news ever was something nobody expected.
This news gets even better than this, though. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead means that we already know where God’s good plans are headed wherever we happen to be in life right now. They are headed to our enjoying eternal life with Him in His eternal kingdom where every tear will be wiped away; where death and crying and pain will be no more because all of those old things will be gone. Do you see what this means? Even if the experience with God’s goodness that you are impatient for takes longer to get here than you were expecting because in His wisdom He had something more to teach you through the frustration and hardship you are facing, you already know where and how things end. And as compared with the eternity we will have then entirely freed from all such things, the trouble we face now is, as the apostle Paul said, a momentary and light burden. The best news ever was something nobody expected, but now that it has happened, we can live in light of it. We can live with hope and joy and peace and love even when life gets hard. We can love the people around us with boldness and gentleness because no matter how they respond, Jesus still rose from the dead. We can say no to ourselves with courage because Jesus’ resurrection is God’s eternal yes for those who trust in Him. We can persevere with grace and humility because the end of our troubles has already been promised. We can put our whole trust in Christ because He really is Lord and He really can grant us life. The best news ever was something nobody expected. Because of that, let’s live with expectation for what God has planned to do in, for, and through us next.