Eyewitnesses to the Resurrection

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On our way back from New Orleans, we were stuck in traffic in Dallas, believe it or not. I don’t think there’s ever a time when it’s not rush hour in Dallas. But we were stuck in traffic in Dallas, stuck on a freeway with a million of our closest friends, when we got word that there was a tornado warning for Comanche County.

And that is a helpless feeling to know we’ve all got family back here, We’ve all got church family back here, and we can’t do a thing to help them. Everything was way to the south of our house, as it turns out, but Charlotte didn’t even have time to let me know she was going to the cellar. I’m on the cameras trying to figure out if my house is still there, the doorbell camera and all that, trying to figure out if the house is still there and trying to figure out what’s going on.

And then we eventually started hearing from people back home and realized everybody’s okay, everybody’s safe, but we start trying to find out what has happened. Because stories are showing up and people are talking on social media. So many bad things have started with the phrase, people are talking on social media.

We’re hearing reports of entire apartment complexes collapsed, and we’re hearing talk of multiple tornadoes ripping through downtown and taking everything with it. Just people saying stuff. And I heard this and I heard that.

well, my mom’s cousins, roommates, pet dogs, vet, you know, said, I didn’t know if we were going to come back and find Lawton or not. I mean, honestly. So you hear those stories, and this is not my first rodeo.

Most of you know I grew up in Moore. We have two claims to fame, Tornadoes and Toby Keith. Take your pick.

So this is not my first rodeo. Oh, there’s another F5 coming right behind it because somebody heard from somebody else. We’ve kind of learned over time, or at least I have, okay, who said that, and where did they hear it from?

I want to trace this back to the source before I believe it. Because there’s lots of fairy tales out there. There are lots of interesting stories.

There are lots of captivating stories out there, and not all of them are true. So I want to chase down where it came from, and we before long figured out that, no, there was not an apartment building collapse. there was a building where the roof had collapsed and the fire department was dealing with that.

And there may have been rotation and funnel clouds, but it wasn’t like multiple F5s got together and had a party in downtown Lawton. And, you know, these things were overblown. And I didn’t panic, though, because I wasn’t finding these stories from a credible source.

When we hear something that’s incredible, we want to know that it comes from a credible source. We should, anyway. By the way, this will save you a lot of headaches on social media.

if you say, where did this story come from? Who’s telling this story? Who knows?

Who’s reporting this? And try to double check it if you can. We can deal with that situation in a lot of places in life.

Where did this story come from? Who said? How do we know?

So that we don’t end up believing lies and fairy tales and rumors. As we come today to the last section of the book of Mark, you’re going to see, I hope by the time we walk out of here today, you’re going to see an emphasis on where does this story come from. Because John Mark, the author of the book of Mark, the human author of the book of Mark, was writing some 20 to 30 years after the crucifixion, and he’s within that time.

And he’s writing the details of what happened because in the immediate aftermath, word got around and people seemed to know what happened. The Christians knew the story because they could go and hear it from eyewitnesses. They knew the people who had seen these things.

They could ask them questions. They could cross-examine them, if you want to put it that way. But you get a generation or so down the road, and along comes a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph.

Along come a lot of people who didn’t know Paul, didn’t know John, didn’t know Peter, couldn’t go to the source necessarily. And so Mark writes down what he knew for a group of people who were a little more removed from the story and wants to not only tell them the story of what happened with Jesus, But he lays out for them very carefully as we read through this passage where that story comes from. So this morning I want to finish up the book of Mark as we’ve been in it now for almost two years.

Sometimes on Sunday night, sometimes on Sunday mornings, but we’ve been in this a long time. I want to finish up the way Mark does looking at these eyewitnesses to the resurrection. Because Mark wants his Roman audience years later to know that this is not a fairy tale.

It’s not a lie. It’s not a rumor. It’s a historical fact.

And so we’re going to start in Mark 15, 40. We’re going to read through the end of chapter 15 and all of chapter 16 this morning. Don’t panic.

I’m not going to try to go verse by verse through it. I’ve given you the handouts if you want to pick one of those up that do most of it verse by verse. And I’ve given you information on how you can find the rest of that just so we didn’t have to kill a whole forest to print it off if you want that.

But we’re going to look at this section by section and see what it is Mark wants his readers and by extension us to understand. So once you find it, if you would stand with me as we read together from God’s Word, if you don’t have your Bible this morning or can’t find Mark 15, it’ll be on the screen for you. We’re going to start in Mark 15, verse 40.

It says, Now when the evening had come, because it was the preparation day, that is the day before the Sabbath, so we’re talking Friday, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent council member who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, coming and taking courage, went in to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Now, notice when it says he was a member of the council, it’s talking about the Sanhedrin. This was the group that condemned Jesus to die.

It’s just apparently Joseph was not part of that vote. He was not there at the time. Pilate marveled that he was already dead.

And summoning the centurion, he asked him if he had been dead for some time. So he hears from Joseph of Arimathea that Jesus is dead. He says, really?

Already? So he calls in a second source, asks the centurion, is he dead? Finds out, yes, he was.

So when he found out from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph. Then he bought fine linen, that’s Joseph, he bought fine linen, took him down, and wrapped him in the linen. And he laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock and rolled a stone against the door of the tomb.

He had Nicodemus to help him, by the way, as I believe it’s John tells us. And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph observed where he was laid. So already we’re seeing name dropping.

You almost need a broom to sweep up all these names he’s dropping all over the floor. Pilate, the centurion, Joseph of Arimathea, Mary, the other Mary. They’re all witnesses to what’s gone on here.

Then we come to chapter 16. It says, now when the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices that they might come and anoint him. Very early in the morning on the first day of the week, that’s Sunday morning, around sunrise, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen, and they said among themselves, who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, for it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe, sitting on the right side. And they were alarmed.

But he said to them, Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen.

He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you into Galilee.

There you will see him, as he said to you. So they went out quickly and fled from the tomb, for they trembled and were amazed. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

By the way, sometimes people will say, why did he say he was going to meet them in Galilee if he saw the disciples multiple times here in Judea before that? Well, the eleven that were remaining were not the only disciples. They’re talking about a big meeting, and that’s where the Great Commission is given, on a mountainside in Galilee.

There’s also the question raised here because it says here in Mark, in verse 8, that they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid. I believe it’s Matthew says they went out and told the disciples. And so skeptics have seized on that and said, well, did they tell them or did they not?

What this means is they did not stop and visit with people on the way about what they had seen. They made a beeline to the disciples. You ever been in one of those situations where, sorry, no time to talk today.

I’ve got to go. I’ve got something to do. That’s where they were.

They didn’t stop and talk to people along the way. They went to the disciples and told them what they had seen. Now when he arose on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven demons.

She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. And when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. They go back and forth for a period of time.

They want to believe it. They’re not sure. Some of them believe, some of them don’t.

They change their minds. And I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation like that where some of the details come in and you’re not entirely sure what to believe and you go back and forth. They did that for a little while until they saw Jesus for themselves.

After that, verse 12, he appeared in another form to two of them as they walked and went into the country. And they went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either. Later, he appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table, and he rebuked their unbelief and their hardness of heart because they did not believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

And he said to them, and this goes along with the great commission that we see in Matthew chapter 28, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not will be condemned. He who does not believe will be condemned.

And these signs will follow those who believe. In my name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues, they will take up serpents, and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick and they will recover.

So then after the Lord had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen.

And you may be seated. And I want to mention that Mark chapter 16 is kind of a rare passage in the New Testament. It’s a sizable chunk from verses 9 through 20 that is not found in some of the earliest manuscripts.

And so some scholars go back and forth. Was it written by Mark? Was it written by somebody shortly after?

We don’t know for sure. I’m not saying it was added years and years later it could have been just as inspired if if uh if Mark’s brother wrote it down and you know God the Holy Spirit could have worked through him as well almost everything in that passage though in those verses 9 through 20 is corroborated somewhere else in the gospels so we can look at them and say you know you you textual scholars you fight it out whether you think it was in the originals or not the fact remains this is this is all true and I just say that because some of your marginal notes in your Bibles may point to that, and I don’t want anybody saying, wait, we’ve never heard this before. I have talked about it on a Wednesday night, but there’s every reason, every reason to be just as confident in the historical accuracy of those verses as there is the rest of it.

So we look at this, and we see the details that Mark gave. He talks about people who were there. He talks about people who heard the story.

He talks about the places where these things happen. He talked about frames of time, when these happen, the days and the time of day. He talks about these things.

It doesn’t read like a fairy tale. And we’ve talked about this as we’ve gone through the book of Mark, that when you read fairy tales, there’s a sort of disconnectedness from reality, from time and space. Something happened once upon a time in a land far, far away, or a galaxy far, far away, the Star Wars thing.

You know, they’re not very specific. One of my favorite apologists, Mary Jo Sharp, talks about locating the Scriptures. And that doesn’t just mean geographical location, but there’s a sense in which the Scriptures are rooted in history because they name the people that it involved.

They name the places where it happened. They name cultural events and practices that would have been only familiar to the people that were there. They name geographic locations.

Mark gives so many Aramaic phrases that either Mark was. . .

If somebody wrote this and made it up generations later, they were a genius at Middle Eastern languages. Because Mark nails the first century Aramaic dialects like somebody who heard it firsthand. And that’s why we have phrases like we looked at, I think, last week.

Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani. There’s no reason to include the Aramaic part in there along with the Greek unless he’s trying to give us a glimpse into what he experienced. the actual words that he heard Jesus speak.

All throughout this passage, it’s no different. We see names of people. We see details about where these happened.

Mark, writing to people a generation after these events, wanted his readers to understand that the stories of Jesus were rooted in historical reality. They were not fairy tales. They were not rumors.

These were things that real people witnessed, real people experienced, and they were changed by. He wants his readers to know that, and it’s good for us to know that today. He records all about the eyewitnesses here.

We look in verses 40 and 41 where we started, and he talks about some of the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ death. In addition to all the Romans that were there, he names Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the less, and of Joseph, Salome, and there were many other women, but he names those by name. He says, here are actual eyewitnesses who watched him die on the cross.

Were they the only ones? No, but they were among them. In verses 42 through 47, he talks about the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ burial. And the burial is often overlooked.

We don’t talk about the burial a lot. We don’t talk about evidence for the burial. But it’s just as important in a historical sense as the death and resurrection. And the reason for that is because a big part of the story is Sunday morning, they go and they open the tomb, or actually they walk up to the tomb, it’s already open and it’s empty.

If he was never buried, then who cares? Then the tomb was always empty. The story of the empty tomb only matters because people saw him buried in that tomb.

So when you know that he existed and he died and he was buried and suddenly that tomb is empty and then people see him walking around, then you’ve got a compelling case for the resurrection. But we see the names of these men and women who witnessed his burial or participated in his burial. Another fun fact for you, to those who say the story was made up, the disciples were not going to make up the character of Joseph of Arimathea. The early church was not thrilled with the Sanhedrin.

Do you know why? What had the Sanhedrin just done? They’re the ones that took Jesus to the Romans and accused him so he’d be crucified.

So how is it that while they’re all in hiding, the hero of the story, the lesser hero, because Jesus is ultimately the hero of the story, but the lesser hero of the story is a member of the Sanhedrin. You can’t make that stuff up. You’re not going to make something up that makes your enemy look good and you look bad.

We see in the beginning of chapter 16, verses 1 through 8, we see eyewitnesses to the emptiness of the tomb. We see the women who went to the tomb and found it empty. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Salome, we know from the other gospels that there were other women involved as well.

But they are the ones who went to the tomb. They are the ones who found it empty. For those who wanted to say in the mid-first century, oh, this is a fairy tale, it’s a story.

I said, really? you can go ask those ladies what they saw because they were there. He talks about the appearances of Jesus.

In verses 9 through 11 here, we see how Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene. In verses 12 through 13, there’s a brief mention, even though he doesn’t state them by name, Luke gives us more detail on that, but he talks about how Jesus appeared to Cleopas and his companion, who I suspect, I can’t prove this, but I suspect may have been Luke himself, but he talks about how Jesus encountered these two men on the road to Emmaus the afternoon after his resurrection. He talks about how Jesus appeared to the 11 disciples.

In verse 14, he tells us how Jesus appeared to these 11 men in the upper room. In verses 15 through 18, he tells us about how Jesus appeared to these 11 and several others at the Great Commission. And in verse 19, we see how he appeared to these 11 and others at the Ascension.

He records the eyewitnesses to his appearance. And these same people who were there at the ascension, we see in verse 20 are eyewitnesses to his power. Because not only did they see him risen, not only did they see him raised into heaven, but because of what they had seen and experienced and because of the change that it made in their lives, they went out from that place and it says, and they went out and preached everywhere the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs.

They continued to experience the power of Jesus Christ. These people that the gospels tell us were present at the ascension. And so all throughout here. Mark, I don’t know that he’s trying to build a legal case, but he’s making sure his readers understand this is historical. This actually happened.

He wants him to know the details, because the details make it more real. They needed to understand that this was real, because what happened with Jesus had a direct impact on their lives. And what happened with Jesus has a direct impact on our lives as well. And so we need to understand that this is a historical reality.

The disciples, the followers of Jesus, Mark included, were going around preaching that there was forgiveness, that you could be right with God, that where everything mankind had tried for thousands of years to get right with God and it had never worked, Jesus promised what we could never accomplish, and Jesus delivered what we could never accomplish. They were out preaching that message that this ultimate hope was found only in Jesus Christ, that the change of life that would grow us into what God wants us to be was available through Jesus Christ. That there was a hope of eternal life, a future with the Lord that was only possible through Jesus Christ. And if we’re going to hang our hat on that, we need to know that it was real. If this was just a fairy tale, then there’s no point to what we’re doing today.

I am puzzled by churches that have gone the way of accommodating the world and saying, well, we don’t believe there’s a literal resurrection. We going to teach you how to be nice. There is no point to that.

I’m sorry. And I’m not saying that because I want to be mean to somebody I disagree with. But listen to me.

If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then he’s not God. He’s not who he claimed to be. And if he claimed to be God and was not, then C.

S. Lewis was right. He’s a liar or a lunatic.

Now, I’m not saying he is. I’m saying he would be. And if that’s the case, then he’s not a good moral teacher.

And if that’s the case, it’s a whole lot easier just to not do any of this and stay home and watch whatever sports game you want to watch this morning. The only reason any of this matters is because Jesus rose from the dead. And it still has a direct impact on our lives today.

If we understand this, that Jesus was a historical person, he rose from the dead, he was crucified for us, just as he said he would be, just as the scripture said he would be. And then he was buried. And that tomb was found empty three days later.

And he was seen up walking around. And all of the alternative theories, the disciples stole the body, please. There’s a video on the Babylon Bee.

I’m going to try to find it and post it to the church’s Facebook page so you can go find it. It shows how ridiculous that idea is. Let’s steal the body and get ourselves murdered.

I mean, that’s the gist of the video. Or the idea that it was a hallucination. Sorry, that’s not how hallucinations work.

Everybody’s not all hallucinating the same thing. There are several reasons why all these alternative theories do not work. The simplest explanation for the evidence we have on hand is that Jesus rose from the dead.

And Him rising from the dead has implications for who He is. If He rose from the dead, then He is who He said He was. He is God the Son in human flesh.

He does have the right to tell us how we can and cannot get to the Father. He does have the right to call us to follow Him. If he rose from the dead and he is who he says he is, then what he taught was true.

And I have to take it seriously. Whether I understand it, whether I agree with it or not. That came up in some of the discussions this week at the convention.

I just don’t understand why God’s word would say that. Listen, maybe I don’t either. But I don’t have to understand why he said it.

I mean, he’s God. He can say what he wants. Take it up with him.

He wrote the book. If he is who he says he is, then what he said was true and we have to take it seriously. If He is who He says He is because He rose again, then the truth is there’s power in His gospel.

There’s forgiveness of sins. There’s a changed life. There’s eternal hope because He paid for it on the cross.

Anybody could get crucified. Anybody could tell you today that they’re going to go die for your sins. We know it’s true because He rose again to prove it.

And because of this, we can have hope of eternal life. Listen, there are days when you will not feel saved. Your feelings will lie to you.

I think we all know this. But sometimes we get wrapped up in them. There are times when you will not feel saved.

Anytime I have to wake up before 6 a. m. , I do not feel saved.

Right? I used to be a morning person. Then I was a late night person.

Now I’m neither. I’m just tired all the time. I think five kids have something to do with that.

But there are times of the day that I do not feel saved. There are times when the flesh might tell you, if there was a God who loves you, 6 o’clock would not come twice a day. I know I’m making light of it a little bit, but some of you have been in circumstances where you feel like, if God loved me, if God saved me, if God did this, if I was His, then this wouldn’t be happening to me.

Jesus either died and rose again or He didn’t. And if He died and rose again, this is temporary. I don’t say that to minimize it because your pain, I’m sure, is very real. But this is temporary.

If He died and rose again, we have hope that transcends all of this. And so faced with the eyewitness accounts found here in Mark and found elsewhere, people say, oh, you believe the resurrection because the Bible says? Let’s look at it from a historical standpoint.

We’re not talking the Bible. We’re talking four investigators slash eyewitnesses. We have four independent accounts, plus the apostle Paul, plus James, the brother of Jesus, who was a skeptic that other non-Christian historians tell us about both of their conversions.

We have bits and pieces of evidence from non-Christian historians that lived close to the time. Faced with the eyewitness testimony, faced with the evidence of what I believe is one of the best attested facts in ancient history, considering it’s somebody that nobody in that day would have chiseled obelisks about and built statues of. Considering all of this, we’re faced with the same decision that Mark’s first readers were, whether we believe Jesus or not.

That was Mark’s whole point. He’s not just giving them a history lesson so they’ll know facts about Jesus. It was, you need to know that this happened because this can change your life.

And the good news for us is that that change of life, that cleansing of our hearts, that forgiveness of sins, that eternal hope that He gives us, that right relationship with God that He gives us, we can’t get it any other way, which sounds like bad news, until you realize we don’t have to earn it or deserve it. It’s all in how you look at it. It’s bad news that we can’t earn it or deserve it, but it’s good news that we don’t have to.

Because the earliest believers knew, as Paul told the Corinthians, Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and was buried and rose the third day according to the scriptures. This was God’s plan all along that Jesus Christ would be crucified for our sins. That’s what I talked about last week when he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

It was the moment when he took responsibility for everything that you and I have ever done that disobeyed God. Everything, every act of idolatry where we have ever put anything in the place in our lives that belongs only to God. Whether we’re worshiping money, whether we’re worshiping relationships, whether we’re worshiping physical fulfillment, whether we’re worshiping self.

All of this sin, all of this disobedience, all of this idolatry, Jesus Christ, who had no sin of his own, took responsibility for every bit of it and was nailed to the cross and shed his blood and died as the only sufficient payment for all of it. And so he’s done all that’s necessary. All that’s left for us is to believe, to believe what he says, to believe who he is and ask for that forgiveness and know that we’ll have it because it’s been paid for and it’s been promised by somebody who died and then rose again from the dead.

If he can conquer death, what can he not do? This morning, if you need that forgiveness. If you know that your relationship with God is not right, you know you’ve sinned and you can feel that separation, I’m begging you, stop depending on yourself.

Stop trying to do it yourself. Stop thinking that you’ll earn it by being here. We’re glad you’re here and I hope you keep coming here.

But stop thinking you’re going to earn it by being here. Stop thinking you’re going to earn it by being good and moral and upstanding. Jesus looked at the most moral upstanding people of his day and said, unless your righteousness exceeds theirs, you’re not entering into the kingdom of heaven.

This morning, understand that you’ve sinned against God and need to be forgiven. Believe that Jesus Christ paid the ultimate price with his blood so that your slate could be wiped clean and then rose again to prove it. Believe that and ask for his forgiveness and you’ll have it.