The audio will be available here soon, dv.
Mark 5 sermon
Some things in the future are difficult to predict. Will property prices rise or fall. Will it rain today. Even important things can seem terribly uncertain for many people. Will love last? Will the pain go away? Will the preacher be finished before noon?
But there is one thing that is certain: at least, it seems that way. If this world continues long enough everyone in this room shall die. I shall die. You shall die.
Death is the one great reality that, ignore as we might want to, we cannot escape.
For some who have lost loved ones recently, the reality of death still weighs heavily on grieving hearts.
For others, it brings back more distant, yet still painful memories.
For all, it is a reality from which we instinctively shrink back in fear.
We respond to the fear of death in many different ways…
n We try to rationalize it with a platitude:
o Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.
Francis Bacon
o The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. Mark Twain.
n We try to laugh it off:
o Whether it is the Far side cartoons about hell.
o Woody Allen: I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens.
o I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.
How many times have I heard someone say, “at least his death was painless,” as if death is OK so long as we can avoid pain. No! the whole point of pain is to help us to avoid death. Pain is a mechanism for warning us how terrible death is, and that we don’t want to go there.
n We scream at it: Perhaps the most eloquent call to defiance in death comes from Dylan Thomas.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
n We deny it’s as bad as it seems. The next world must be better than this one.
Seneca: The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.
The blind and deaf Helen Keller said,
Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.
n We surrender to it.
Plato: Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death? Plato.
n Distraction
I think that by far the most common method of coping with the approach of death is distraction. It is inescapable. It will win, so don’t think about it and enjoy life.
The fear of death is merely replaced by the love of life: don’t think about death, get on with living.
So, when my grandmother died, my grandfather’s best friend insisted that the best way to help my grandfather through the day of the funeral was to make sure that he spent the majority of it drunk, and so would not even remember going home to sleep in their room by himself.
What is the way in which you cope when thinking about the reality of your approaching death?
Perhaps you think I’m being morbid: well, it is only morbid to think about death if there is in fact no answer to it. If death is a reality that kills all hopes, then distraction would almost certainly be the most appropriate tactic. The bible agrees.
If the dead are not raised, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." Is death just like the end of the summer holidays – school will start again for sure, but to spend the whole summer holidays thinking about their inevitable end would only ruin them.
If also, there death is not the end, but the reality beyond death will be pleasant for almost all, then we might happily ignore it.
But the bible says that neither of those things are true: for the reason that death is not the end is not due to the fact that our human spirits are so strong that one day we will fight it off and emerge like butterflies from our cocoons.
No, we have not understood death. Death, according to the bible is not natural. It is judicial. It is a punishment. It is God’s declaration that we have rebelled against the author of live. We have chosen to reject him. We have chosen the path that leads to death. It is the great symptom that this world has gone terribly wrong, and is under god’s anger. Symptoms should not be ignored unless one is absolutely sure that there is no cure.
So how are we to approach death: our fear of it; living in a world dominated by it; facing it ourselves one day.
1) Without Christ we should abandon hope, for death reigns
2) Fear Christ more than we fear death.
3) Turn in trust to Christ for life.
1) There is no hope without Christ.
This is a world dominated by death, and the fear of death.
Mark 4:35-38
35(A) On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side." 36And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. 37And a great windstorm arose, and the waves(B) were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"
Have you ever known a situation where you were in so much physical danger due the forces of nature that you wondered whether you would survive even another few minutes.
That was the state of some hardened fishermen in the first account.
The incredible forces of nature and our powerlessness before them are a sign that we are not in control of our lives. There has always been a healthy fear of the sea even among the most hardened sailors. In the ancient world it was seen as a sign that this world is in the grip of chaos. Each time the waves roll onto the beach, it was seen that the sea was kept from engulfing the whole land only by the sustaining hand of the Lord.
Why do you think that world is like that? That one day after people around the Indian ocean are recovering from their Christmas celebrations, suddenly death takes tens of thousands in an instant?
The bible is clear. From the day that people rebelled against God, the word has been a hostile place. God has cursed the ground so that it would be clear that all is not right in our relationship with our creator.
What is your ground for hope in a world that is cruelly ruled by death?
Death rules so much that every fear that we have has death in the background: we fear things that are a little taste of death.
What do are you afraid of?
Loss? In death you will lose everything. Job’s suffering is something that we all face in death. We must go to that place alone. Naked we came from our mothers’ womb, naked we will return.
Hurt? Death is the ultimate picture of being hurt in this world.
Shame? In death we will be utterly exposed. There will be no more hiding.
All our fears have death in their shadow.
Think about the last gangster film you watched. What makes people respect the Godfather, or tony Soprano. It isn’t their charming personalities or fine taste in suits. It’s the fact that you know that if you cross him, you might find yourself in the trunk of his Cadillac.
We live in a world where death rules.
This is seen much more clearly in the next scene.
1(H) They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes.[a] 2And when Jesus[b] had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. 3(I) He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, 4for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. 5Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.
This scene has death everywhere; over on the other side of the lake this was Gentile territory populated by pigs and other unclean animals.
And Here is someone more in the grip of death than we could possibly imagine. We read down in verse 9,
9And Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" He replied, "My name is(O) Legion, for we are many."
This man lives in the realm of the dead. He lives among the graves, he has thousands of demons – probably fallen angels in utter control of his life.
Even the whole town was unable to control him. What a pitiful picture in verse 5...
5Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.
Though he broken the shackles people had bound him with, he was very much still in chains – for he was not released from his desperate cries and self-harm.
Have you experienced one freedom, only to find another slavery? Perhaps you’ve known people who’ve kicked a gripping addiction, but have sunk instead into a deep depression. Others might come through a medical trial only to be face a broken relationship.
This is a world dominated by loss, pain and shame.
And in the next scene we see in the woman a picture relational death.
24: And a great crowd followed him and(X) thronged about him. 25And there was a woman(Y) who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, 26and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse.
One needs to understand something about the ceremonial law of Israel to understand quite what a terrible position this woman was in. We read in Leviticus 15 that so long as the bleeding continued she was unclean; nobody could touch her without becoming unclean themselves. And because she was unclean, she could not enter God’s presence. She was barred from the temple until 8 days after the bleeding stopped.
In other words she was an outcast: from other people, but most fundamentally from God himself.
All these laws about uncleanness in the Old Testament were a picture reminding us the state that we have been in ever since man and woman rebelled against God. Adam and Eve had been told that on the day they ate of the fruit they would die. And spiritually speaking, they did: Adam and eve were cast out from God’s presence, and their relationship with each other was never the same. There was relational death.
And nobody could help them. They could not re-enter Eden – again death, in the form of a flaming sword barred the way.
So it was with this woman. She was cut off, and nobody could help her. The doctors only made her condition worse, and took all her money in the process.
Where have you seen death reign in your relationships? Even if you have a good marriage, why do you find that there are not only forces that would bring you and your spouse together, but that would rip you apart? Why do you have to fight in this world to get along?
It is the rule of death and decay: when we rebelled against God, we died spiritually, and even the most loving relationships are now characterised to a greater or lesser extent by hiding, manipulation and domination rather than love and cherish. It is a sign that the fundamental relationship on which all relationships are given their right shape and stability was broken. The relationship with God.
And where is it all leading?
Well, the shadows of death are not empty threats. Death itself will come. The NHS can’t stop it. Nobody ever sees a penny from their life insurance policies. (Even calling it life insurance is trying to hide the reality of death. It should be called death insurance)
Without Christ death itself is the final and inevitable hopeless moment.
35While he was still speaking, there came from(AE) the ruler’s house some who said, "Your daughter is dead. Why(AF) trouble(AG) the Teacher any further?"
If it was tragic that the woman had been an outcast for 12 years, how much more tragic that this little girl, herself only 12 years old should have her life cut off so short.
Children, do not assume that you will live forever. The way to make sure that you are ready for life is to make sure that you are ready to die: you don’t know when that will be. What would the Lord say to you if you died tonight? You need to know the answer to that question.
I don’t know if any of you have been close to a child that has died. What is there to say at a time so tragic. When Job had lost his entire family the wisest thing that his comforters did was for a while to say nothing, and sit with him and grieve. But the time comes when something must be said to that question that we rightly and instinctively ask at the graveside: WHY?
The Australian theologian Peter bolt has written, “If your philosophy of life has nothing to say at the graveside, then it has nothing to say. Here is our last and greatest enemy. The grave casts a shadow over our life and questions its very existence. This is the problem that has invaded our world. Is there any hope? Is there any help?”
Yes, there is. For though a shocking picture is painted in our passage of the power of death, it is not he greatest power portrayed here. Death cowers and retreats in the presence of Christ.
I’ve been talking for a little while now about death. Does that seem strange to you? It shouldn’t seem strange to talk about death in a Christian church. Twynholm Baptist Church, we cannot be a church that will only talk about things that make people comfortable. We have something to say at the graveside, because there is a death at the centre of Christianity: a death that brings life. Gospel.
Does this mean that we can merely rejoice? Death is undone, so all is fine now. No, first of all, what is striking about this passage is that people are more afraid of Jesus than they ever were of death.
2) Fear Jesus more than you fear death.
7And a great windstorm arose, and the waves(B) were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" 39And he awoke and(C) rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and(D) there was a great calm. 40He said to them, "Why are you(E) so afraid? Have you still no faith?" 41And they were filled with great fear and said to one another,(F) "Who then is this, that even(G) the wind and the sea obey him?"
Pages of ink have been spilled about how storms come and go quickly on the lake of Galilee. But those who made a living out of fishing that lake were terrified. Even if the wind suddenly stopped, the enrgy in the sea would keep the waves going for hours. But Jesus brings a divine calm. This is no amazing weather forecasting. It is divine authority.
The similarities with the passage we read from Jonah are more than incidental.
Both Jonah and Jesus have such self-confidence that they are able to sleep during the storm. But Jonah’s self-confidence is misplaced: he is running away from God so should have been more afraid that anyone else. Jesus self confidence is shown to be absolutely appropriate. He knew what he had come for and that he would not die at sea, but on a cross.
But Jesus isn’t just like Jonah: he is like GOD in the story of Jonah; for it is the LORD who send the great calm. At that point all the men in the boat were terrified and offered sacrifices to the LORD. Here they are terrified about Jesus.
They are now more afraid of Jesus than they were of death.
Look down to the next scene.
6And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and(J) fell down before him. 7And(K) crying out with a loud voice, he said, "What have you to do with me, Jesus,(L) Son of(M) the Most High God?(N) I adjure you by God, do not torment me." 8For he was saying to him, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!" 9And Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" He replied, "My name is(O) Legion, for we are many." 10And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, 12and they begged him, saying, "Send us to the pigs; let us enter them." 13So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out, and entered the pigs, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and were drowned in the sea.
The disciples had stood in awe, wondering who Jesus is. The demons know. And thus they are terrified. They know that Jesus has total authority. This man who could not be bound by the people of the region, even when he glimpses Jesus from a distance must bow.
The demons fear Jesus because they knew that there was something worse than physical death. “ do not torment me” they plead.
Physical death is just one of three things that the bible talks about as death. Spiritual death is the state that we are all in without Christ: rebels against God, cut off from fellowship with him, ever since adam and eve were cast out of the garden.
Physical death is the death we all know.
But if physical death is all you fear, you have not realised that there is a far worse kind of death. Revelation calls it the second death. The demons knew all about it and they knew that Jesus had the authority to send them there.
Jesus says elsewhere, in Matthew 10:28 “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell”
It was not just the demons who feared him. Seeing the power that Jesus had over thousands of demons, the people of the area feared him too.
14The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. 15And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed[c] man, the one who had had(P) the legion, sitting there,(Q) clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. 16And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. 17And(R) they began to beg Jesus[d] to depart from their region.
Isn’t that interesting. They had never ensured that the one with 2000 demons departed the region. But they were so afraid of Jesus that they insisted he left.
I wonder what kind of fear you will have of Jesus. There is no more terrible enemy than him. Perhaps you have a view of Jesus that he is gentle Jesus meek and mild:
- Minister and astrophysicist.
He wouldn’t hurt a flea.
When we look at an increasingly godless society that lives for carnal pleasure, convenience at the cost of the most vulnerable, medicine at any moral price, it is clear that the fear of judgement has not even entered the thought process of the majority. But it will one day. Let’s pray that it is not too late.
Do you think that Jesus is safe?
Like in the beavers words about Alsan, he is not safe: but he is good; he’s the king.
He certainly has incredible humility; he is certainly remarkably patient – that is why we can be here today and were not sent to hell years ago. But he isn’t just a friend: He is Wonderful counsellor: as we must listen to him. He is mighty God: and we must worship him. Everlasting Father, and we must obey him: Prince of Peace, and we must trust him. He is Lord, Saviour, master, King. If we think of him only as friend we will totally misunderstand the nature of our friendship. We are not chums or buddies. Some of the songs that are sung you might think it was a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. NO!
The extraordinary thing about being friends with god is not that you have a new best friend; it is that God would no longer be your enemy, but your friend.
But there is a time allocated when he will return. And we have no hope as we stand before him. No hope other than Jesus himself.
We must fear Christ more than we fear even death itself. Which means we must certainly fear Christ more than we fear anything else.
Is this a community that fears the Lord? Will we speak the Lord’s word to one another in love? Or will we fear the reaction we will get? Well, I hope that the reaction won’t be death – and we are to fear the Lord Jesus more than we fear death itself, so great is he.
If you do not fear Jesus, I can assure you that you will on the day that you see him. Like that demoniac, run to him and fall on your knees before that day when you see him approaches any closer.
But how – how are we to fear him? Are we merely to be gripped with terror, and paralysed.
No, the kind of fear that the Lord Jesus wants is not terror: that will come to those who do not fear him in this life. The kind of fear that the Lord Jesus wants is Trust. And those who trust in him will find that his great power is working for their good, turning death into life.
3) We are to turn in trust to Christ for life.
As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. 19And he did not permit him but said to him, "Go home to your friends and(S) tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." 20And he went away and began to proclaim in(T) the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.
We may begin to take notice of Jesus because of his great power; but once we have cast ourselves upon him, his mercy becomes all the more beautiful to us than his power. If Jesus had only power, we would flee from him. But because he has power and mercy, we would do well to flee to him.
And if we do, that power is all exercised in mercy towards us. That strength which was against us, bec
John Piper writes,
“Let us make crystal clear at the beginning of each new day, all we will get from God as believers is mercy. Whatever pleasures or pains may come our way in this day, they will all be mercy. This is why Christ came into the world – “in order that the Gentile maight glorify God for his mercy.” (Romans 15:9) We were born again, “according to his great mercy” (1pet 1:3) we pray daily “that we may receive mercy” (Heb 4:16) and we are now “waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life”. (Jude 1:21) In the end, when all is said and done, we will confess, ‘So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”(romans 9:16)
We see again that it is faith in jesus’ mercy that Jesus commends in the woman that he heals
34And he said to her, "Daughter,(AC) your faith has made you well;(AD) go in peace, and be healed of your disease."
And where do we see faith in Jesus’ mercy most clearly: it is in the reality of death.
5While he was still speaking, there came from(AE) the ruler’s house some who said, "Your daughter is dead. Why(AF) trouble(AG) the Teacher any further?" 36But overhearing[e] what they said, Jesus said to(AH) the ruler of the synagogue, "Do not fear, only believe." 37And he allowed no one to follow him except(AI) Peter and James and(AJ) John the brother of James. 38They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus[f] saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39And when he had entered, he said to them, (AK) "Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but(AL) sleeping." 40And they laughed at him. But he(AM) put them all outside and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. 41(AN) Taking her by the hand he said to her, "Talitha cumi," which means, "Little girl, I say to you,(AO) arise." 42And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement. 43And(AP) he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
In the end, the only answer to the fear of death is not sheer terror at Jesus. It is faith in him.
It is the faith that realises that Jesus raises the dead. That realises that without him we are lost eternally, but with him we are eternally safe.
Will your fear cause you to run from Christ, or to run to him? There is no refuge from him. There is great refuge in him.
Hebrews 2:15
and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
And, with the eyes of faith Death will help us to see not merely the extent of Jesus’ power, but the extent of Jesus’ mercy.
I’ll say that again. With the eyes of faith Death will help us to see not merely the extent of Jesus’ power, but the extent of Jesus’ mercy.
Death came as a punishment for our rebellion against God. Jesus bore that punishment and so if we have faith in him, we need not face the second death, and death itself will become a doorway. Not the doorway it once was to judgment. But the doorway to life: a life where there will be no more mourning or crying or pain. A life where there will be no more death.
What a mercy there is in Christ. How much he bore when he faced not just physical, but the second death on our behalf. That is why as Christians we can talk about death and rejoice. It shows us just what our saviour has done. We don’t need to laugh it off or ignore it or rationalise it or surrender to it or scream at it. We can stare it in the face; we need not deny what a terrible enemy death is. For we merely see how great is Jesus’ mercy that he would taste it for us to release us from death and from the fear of death.
Jesus raises the dead. Not just in the case of this little girl who would not grow old, but eventually succumb to death again.
But in that raising of a little girl there is a picture of what Jesus does.
He raises the dead:
- Spiritual death: through faith, Jesus gives new life.
- Physical death: we too will be raised
- The second death: those who face Christ will NEVER face the second death. That is the death that Jesus tasted on our behalf.
These three deaths we deserve; and yet in the face of death we see Christ’s mercy. Where we deserved death, in him we have life.
Romans 5:17
For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
Thine be the glory, risen conquering son, endless is the victory thou o’er death has won.
And, as those who receive all the benefits of his victory, the name of Jesus is no longer held in hatred or terror: but in the fear of deep awe. The deep awe that has found something so wonderful that one’s own significance shrinks before it.
So, then we can sing
How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds
in a believer's ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
and drives away his fear.
Jesus! my Shepherd, Brother, Friend,
my Prophet, Priest and King,
my Lord, my Life, my Way, my End,
accept the praise I bring.
Till then I would thy love proclaim
with every fleeting breath;
and may the music of thy Name
refresh my soul in death!
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