“It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.”
It has been hailed as a history-making ground breaking achievement. And it is certainly remarkable that a nation such as the States has been transformed from a society where an African American may not take the seat on a bus or a place in a school from a white to a society that has overwhelmingly voted to put a young African American Man in the White house.
Whatever you think of Barak Obama’s politics, it has been heartening to almost all that the USA is a nation that is now socially inclusive enough not to allow the colour of a man’s skin be determinative in the political height to which he might climb.
Yet some of the headlines in the papers that were able to get the results of the US election by the Wednesday morning print run were almost apocalyptic in their congratulation of Barak Obama in being elected the first ever African American President of the United States.
The guardian, “Change has come”: The times, “this is our time”,. The Sun, “One giant leap for mankind”. Perhaps less apocalyptic was the Star’s “Yanks very much!” “A new world dawns” writes the Express
Obama himself, in his acceptance speech made this wise remark: “This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.”
Change doesn’t really come in a day does it?
On Remembrance Sunday we are reminded that cataclysmic change comes at a cost. We remember that freedom is often bought with the blood of many. The fact that there has been significant enough change in America to be able to elect an African American President comes the other side of a civil war over a century ago and the blood of others in the civil rights movement only 40 years ago.
The jury is certainly out as to whether the election of Obama will really bring any significant change, and whether that change will be for the better, and whether that change will last.
History is full of defining moments that did bring real change. We can see that from the benefit of hindsight.
D-Day.
But as time goes on we become more distant observers, and so need to have a day called remembrance Sunday, lest we forget.
But our focus for the day is a change that came quietly one Sunday morning. Initially it was announced to a handful of women, who froze in terror at its announcement. But we shall see why this was the most significant turning point in the whole of history.
If we are to understand the shape of history at all, we must understand what happened on that day, and its true significance.
Turn with to the last chapter of Mark’s gospel, Mark 16.
1(A) (B) When the Sabbath was past,(C) Mary Magdalene and(D) Mary the mother of James and(E) Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.
3And they were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?" 4And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back—(G) it was very large. 5And(H) entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side,(I) dressed in(J) a white robe, and(K) they were alarmed. 6And he said to them,(L) "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. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter that(M) he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you."
8And 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.
Marks’ account of the first Easter is the briefest and most enigmatic of the four gospels. In fact it is so brief and so surprising that fairly early on, probably early in the second century, people began to add extra endings. You’ll see one such ending in the brackets in your bible, 9-20. Those verses just contain a summary of other material that we find in the other 3 gospels. But the earliest and most reliable manuscripts don’t have it, and even some of the early manuscripts that do have it note that it wasn’t original.
Some who want to deny the resurrection suggest that this brief account in where the only actual witness to a risen Christ is an angel shows that the earliest accounts didn’t have Resurrection appearances at all.
That will not do though, for though Mark is probably the earliest gospel, it is certainly not the earliest resurrection account, as most if not all of Paul’s letters have already been written, including 1 Corinthians 15, in which Paul catalogues many resurrection appearances of Christ.
3For(F) I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died(G) for our sins(H) in accordance with the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised(I) on the third day(J) in accordance with the Scriptures, 5and that(K) he appeared to Cephas, then(L) to the twelve. 6Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to(M) James, then(N) to all the apostles. 8Last of all, as to one untimely born,(O) he appeared also to me.
But it seems here that Mark has another purpose in leaving the gospel more open-ended. He leaves the women in the same place that we are left as the reader. We have heard the news of the resurrection, we have not yet seen the risen Christ. But just as surely as those women saw the risen Christ, as was well known amongst the readers already, so too we will surely see him one day, and we too will be dumbstruck just as they were when they came to realise that he is indeed risen.
1) A new day has dawned (1-3)
The devotion of the women can hardly be overestimated. They had been there at the cross when all others had fled; they had observed where Jesus was buried. They had bought spices, or aromatic oils at the very earliest moment that was allowed for purchasing things after the Sabbath was over. They had come to the tomb at first light. They were willing to go to the tomb 36 hours after Jesus had died… His battered body might already have begun to decompose. They had prepared themselves for this act of mourning and respect for one they had loved, anointing his body, not to prevent decay, but to prevent an overpowering smell for others who might want to come and mourn near the tomb.
Yet even in the way in which the incidents are told in these verse, there are hints that this would not be the beginning of a third day of mourning for the women.
For this was an entirely different kind of day.
What was the day that went before: it was the Sabbath, the last day of the week which had been the Jewish holy day since the time that God called them as a nation, in remembrance of the fact that the Lord himself rested on the seventh day from all his creating.
Thus the fourth commandment had been “"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9(K) Six days you shall labour, and do all your work, 10but the(L) seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the(M) sojourner who is within your gates. 11For(N) in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”The Sabbath was therefore right at the heart of Old Testament religion.
But that central day of Old Testament religion had just passed, and with it Old Testament religion itself had passed, for a new day, of the new covenant had dawned.
Matthew Henry put it like this.
Never was there such a Sabbath since the Sabbath was first instituted as this was, which the first words of this chapter tell us was now past; during all this Sabbath our Lord Jesus lay in the grave. It was to him a Sabbath of rest, but a silent Sabbath, it was to his disciples a melancholy Sabbath, spent in tears and fears. Never were the Sabbath services in the temple such an abomination to God, though they had been often so, as they were now, when the chief priests, who presided in them, had their hands full of blood, the blood of Christ. Well, this Sabbath is over, and the first day of the week is the first day of a new world.
The next verse, too talks about the sun that had risen.
Mark had begun his gospel with an allusion to Malachi 3, “Behold I will send my messenger before you.” Here is the last chapter he alludes to Malachi Chapter 4: “but for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.”
The reason for this day of hope is of course the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
So significant an event is it, that from that point onwards even Jewish Christians didn’t meet on the last day of the week to celebrate the Lord’s rest. They were not like Muslims who meet on the 6th day of the week to celebrate the creation of Adam.
We are Christians. We meet on the first day of the week to celebrate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. In the rest of the New Testament this is the consistent pattern. The first day of the weeks became known as “The Lord’s day” because on that day the Lord rose.
We do not celebrate God’s rest in creating this world in which we live: we celebrate the beginning of God ‘s new creation. And so, that rising Sun marked that new creation, for the Son of God himself was risen.
If you are not convinced that the resurrection of Jesus Christ really happened, here’s another piece of evidence for you to consider: why would a 1200 year old custom, written on the blocks of stone of the ten commandments themselves be changed if nothing significant had really happened on that first Easter Day? This isn’t a later story made up by Jesus’ followers. They weren’t expecting it. Three of them were on the way to the tomb to complete the funeral that they hadn’t had time to hold in the rush to get him buried before the Sabbath.
As we saw a couple of weeks ago, the men were all so fearful and disappointed that they weren’t anywhere to be seen. They were not in the least part expecting a resurrection. They certainly weren’t looking to found a new religion. Yet, with the dawning of that day, Jesus Christ broke back into their lives and turned their world upside down, so that within days they are ready to preach publically that they had seen the risen Christ, and there were ready to die for that belief. Early church records say that all but one of the 11 remaining apostles were martyred for what they preached happened on that first Easter Day.
We are celebrating remembrance Sunday today to give thanks for those who made great sacrifices in the world shaping events that took place in two world wars. And it is appropriate that we should take time each year to ensure that we do not forget that without those sacrifices we would be living in a very different world today. I wonder how many of us would even be alive today had those wars taken a different course.
But the shaping of history through wars pales into insignificance compared to the way in which that day shaped history.
There are now but 4 remaining British veterans of WW1. Only one of those fought in the trenches. Henry John Patch is now 110 years old. Soon there will be none left. They fought to buy freedom; but for each one who receives that kind of freedom, he can enjoy it only as long as he is given life in this world.
The freedom the was brought about on that first Easter day is of an entirely different order. For, just as Christ was raised from the dead, those who have their trust in Christ are given a new freedom to live life in this world in a restored relationship with their maker, but that freedom doesn’t end with death. NO! In a world where Christ has been raised the freedom the other side of death is greater. We will then be free not only from the penalty of sin, but from it’s very influence in our lives. We will be free, with our resurrection bodies to go on loving and serving the Lord in an unfettered way that we can hardly begin to imagine whilst we still reside in these sin drenched self-serving bodies.
A new day has indeed dawned… Why?
Because on that day the Risen Saviour is revealed….
2) The Risen Saviour is revealed
3And they were saying to one another, "Who will roll away(F) the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?" 4And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back—(G) it was very large. 5And(H) entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side,(I) dressed in(J) a white robe, and(K) they were alarmed. 6And he said to them,(L) "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. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter that(M) he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you."
The stone weighing around two tons had been rolled over the tomb. It was rolled there by means of levers, but would have dropped into a groove prepared for it. It would have been considerably harder to remove it.
But, to their astonishment, as they look up and see the tomb ahead of them in the early morning light, they can see that it is already rolled away… Someone’s got there first, they think. They was in through the entrance. There would have been an antechamber before entering into the burial chamber itself.
And they are astonished. The person who had got there first meets them. He looks like a young man, but as he speaks it becomes clear that he is an angel. He hosts the women as they enter the tomb, and he proclaims that Jesus is risen.
Note how the resurrection is therefore revealed to these women in two ways.
1) The facts. The tomb is empty: the body is gone.
2) The explanation of the facts: He is risen: and the explanation would not stop there: the angel reminds them to look back to the explanations that Jesus himself had given already: v7: there will you see him, just as he told you;
Bear facts are not self-interpreting. As we have seen with Obama, the bare fact that he has been elected does not tell us what significant role he will actually play in shaping the history of the US or the world; that will take the analysis of hindsight.
There is the bare fact of the empty tomb itself. Jesus was not where he had been laid. Nobody denied that bare fact. We read in the other gospel accounts that the roman and Jewish enemies of Jesus knew where the tomb was and knew that it was empty. They had to come up with an alternative explanation of the empty tomb, and the one that fitted the bill was that the disciples stole the body. That remained the official explanation of the empty tomb in Judaism until into the 13th Century AD.
If you want to explore more whether the resurrection really happened, I’d encourage you to attend the Christianity explored course that begins tomorrow. Come and see me afterwards.
So too, even the bare facts of the resurrection of Jesus Christ are not self-interpreting. We could believe that Jesus Christ was risen from the dead and not come to recognize the significance of that fact. I remember when I was a student there was a debate hosted between a Christian society and a secular society about whether the Resurrection of Jesus happened. A friend of mine went along who was a law student; at the end of the debate he said that he was convinced beyond reasonable doubt that the resurrection really did take place. Did he immediately submit his life to the risen Christ? No, there was no sign that he did. His life didn’t change.
In order to understand the significance of the resurrection as the most significance event in the history of the world we must look more carefully at the bible’s explanations of the resurrection, not just its descriptions of it.
Note some hints here:
- It is the crucified one who has been raised.
- In the new Testament the resurrection makes sense only in conjunction with the crucifixion.
- As we saw last week: in the crucifixion Jesus bore the penalty for sin; he was separated from his Father, and endured the hell of God’s righteous anger.
I had an interesting conversation with someone after the sermon with someone who said that they thought that Jesus being a scapegoat who takes the punishment we deserve was a lovely idea, but was probably too good to be true… It was certainly Jesus’ own understanding of his death beforehand: as we read back in chapter 10:45 Jesus said, “The Son of Man has not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”.
Well, his explanation might seem too good to be true; but if he predicts both his death and then his resurrection, we should begin to take his explanations of his death rather more seriously.
The meaning and not just the merely fact of the resurrection would be particularly important for one sinner we have been following in Mark’s gospel. Did you notice the special mention he gets in the angel’s announcement?
“verse 7, go tell his disciples and Peter…”
In a very real sense, it was difficult to call Peter a disciple. Barely more than 48 hours earlier he had followed Jesus to his trial only to deny three times that he even knew him.
It may have seemed that a resurrected Christ might be bad news for Jesus. You abandon your closest friend at the moment of his downfall, and then suddenly he rises to extraordinary power. Perhaps revenge would seem the most likely response.
But not for Jesus. He wants to meet Peter too; and you will remember that extraordinarily moving encounter that Jesus has with Peter as John remembers it in John 21; three times Peter had denied Jesus, three times Jesus asks Peter if he loves him.
He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was grieved because he said to him(AA) the third time, "Do you love me?" and he said to him, "Lord,(AB) you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed(AC) my sheep. 18(AD) Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young,(AE) you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go." 19(This he said to show(AF) by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, (AG) "Follow me."
What does this have to do with the resurrection? It is in the resurrection that Jesus not only proved what he has achieved on the cross, it is as the risen Saviour that he applies that work to our lives.
It is on the cross that Jesus won the salvation of all his people.
It is as the Risen Christ that he will send his Spirit to bring his people to saving faith in him.
It is as the Risen Christ that Jesus confronts us with our sin, our guilt, our need of forgiveness, and then points to his finished work on the cross as the answer that we most desperately need. It is as the Risen Christ that he calls us to bow before him, and acknowledge that he is our only hope, and he has become our central joy.
3) The witnesses are awestruck
Perhaps one of the clearest reasons that people saw fit to add onto the end of Mark’s gospel is the surprising response of the women that we see in verse 8.
The angel has just commanded them to “tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you into Galilee, but that isn’t what they do: they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
- Apologetic: the first witnesses were women…
o Speaks much of the way in which Jesus encourages women to be disciples, and to pursue Christ as much as men. Speaks against the idea of a made-up story.
§ 1. In a chauvinistic world women’s testimony was worth half of men’s in court.
§ 2. It is recorded that they are the first witnesses… Why?
o But now also, they don’t immediately tell anyone; imagine that standing up in court: and why didn’t you run about telling the whole world this cataclysmic news?
o “err… we were scared!”
But why were they afraid. This seems to be a very different fear than had gripped the disciples three days earlier on the night when Jesus was arrested and they all fled.
There the fear had been fear of people and what they might do.
Here is an entirely different fear. They are afraid not of people, but of Christ himself.
It is the same fear that we have seen throughout the gospel of mark. The fear of the crowds when Jesus cast out demons, the fear of the disciples when Jesus calmed the storm, the fear of Jairus when his daughter who had died was raised to life by Jesus, the terror of the disciples when Jesus walks towards them on the water, the terror of Peter, james and john as they see a glimpse of what this glorious Christ will be like in the transfiguration.
Certainly the angels charge is a response that they must fulfil. As the first witnesses to the empty tomb, they must tell the others.
We too, if we have come to know the risen Christ, must speak. We cannot have this great news and keep it to ourselves. We have not recognised Jesus as Lord if we refuse to proclaim him as Lord. What more joyful thing can there be than to make this good news known. The one who was crucified for our sins has been raised so that he might give us new life.
But proclamation is not the first response to the good news.
The right response to the Risen Christ is first of all fear. The women were not disobedient in not immediately running to tell everyone. They were paralysed by fear; a reverent awe of realization
This is the kind of fear that is reserved in the old Testament for God alone; we heard Moses terrified response in his encounter with God in the burning bush.
In the announcement of the resurrection, it all comes clear to the women. This Jesus whom they have known and walked with and eaten with is God himself. It was the moment that would define the rest of their lives. What could they do but walk away in utter silence, in awe?
Will our response be the same?
The story of the resurrection is well known still to most people. But we live in a world that lives as if it had never happened. Jesus is seen to be just another figure who made history. Perhaps even the most significant. But his story is confined to history; it is remembered perhaps with the thankfulness with which we remember those who fought in the wars of a dying generation. But what seems relevant today is the more recent news of Elections won, crises looming and
In the light of eternity the most significant thing that will happen this last week is not that a new president has been elected; nor that interest rates have been cut; nor that a world took time to remember its dead. The most significant thing that will have happened this week will have been that around the world there have been people this week, who for the first time have been awestruck by the realization that Jesus Christ is the risen savior. And they have walked into the next day, new people, living no longer for this world and its dreams, but for the Lord who sits enthroned and will soon come to usher them into their eternal reward.
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