Did Jesus actually die?
And if he did, what relevance does that have for our lives today? As we commemorate Good Friday on Truth for Life, we'll explore the facts surrounding Jesus' death and resurrection, and think together about why these events are supremely relevant for us even 2,000 years later. Alistair Begg is teaching from the opening verses of chapter 16 in Mark's Gospel. Well, it goes without saying, I think, that the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is at the very core of the Christian faith. It's not an addendum.
It's not extraneous in any way. And whenever people discover that Jesus is alive, then their lives have to reckon with that. Saul of Tarsus, as a religious Jew, was totally convinced that Jesus was dead, that the gospel story was a fraud, and that the people who were the followers of Jesus deserved nothing better than to be either imprisoned or killed. And then, dramatically, one day he was literally floored to discover that he was wrong and that Jesus was alive. As a result, he became a preacher of the good news that he had previously rejected. And he became just wonderful at providing a very brief statement of the essentials of Christian faith. Christianity without the resurrection is not simply Christianity without its final chapter.
It's not Christianity at all. So what I'd like to do is to examine this this morning very, very simply, to take the approach of the three Rs. And the three Rs this morning are, first of all, to look at the record, then to say something concerning its relevance, and then, finally, something regarding our response to it. So first of all, then, to look at the record.
Now, there are a number of records, aren't there? A number of places throughout the New Testament where the story of the resurrection of Jesus is recorded for us. You'll notice that Mark is telling us that these women had made a purchase, and the reason they did so is because they had a plan. Their plan was to go to the tomb. It's very important for us to recognize that they had not bought flowers in order to go and rejoice in the reality of the resurrection. But they had purchased spices instead so that they could make sure that they could anoint the body of Jesus.
There was absolutely no doubt about the fact that Jesus was dead. In chapter 15 and verse 40, Mark tells us that the women who stayed true, as women often do, when the men had bailed out, that these women were present to see Jesus die. Looking on from a distance, they were able to identify that. They were also present, following along, to see where Jesus had been buried.
And it was on account of that, that early in the morning they were now able to come and do what they hoped to do. They're not coming to the tomb for Easter Sunday. They're coming to the tomb to pay their last respects. They're going to the graveyard, because in the graveyard there are dead people. And in one of the Gospels, the angelic announcer says to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead? And their answer, of course, would have been, We're not here to find the living. We're here to look for the dead among the dead. Jesus is dead.
We all know that. Why do you think we brought these spices with us? But you know, when you think about the spices, especially those of us who were present on Good Friday, they're a little late, aren't they? After all, the immediacy of decay of a body, combined with the fact that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had already purchased seventy-five pounds, we're told, of myrrh and aloe, and will have made at least an attempt to embalm the body of Jesus, why in the world would it be of relevance that they would show up now? The fact that they may have shown up late and to do something that was largely immaterial is an indication of their love. It's an indication of their devotion.
It's so overwhelmed, are they, by the prospect that they don't pay attention to the one big problem they're going to have. And it's only as they're making their way towards the tomb that they said to one another, We've got a major problem, because there's that big stone that they rolled over there, and clearly we're not going to be able to remove it. Well, they didn't need to worry about that, because you will see that in verse 5, is it, they get there, and they discover that the stone has been rolled back. Actually, verse 4. And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back.
It was very large. Now, some people are tempted to read these gospel records and say, You know, this is just legend. This sort of stuff was invented a few hundred years after Jesus had died.
These people were committed to an ideology, they were committed to a philosophy, and so they decided to put together, to invent, essentially, a religion. And these women are there at the very heart of it. But in actual fact, what we discover is that the way this is recorded, it doesn't read like a legend at all. And the way in which there are variations between all the gospels make us feel, make us think, make us deduce, that actually what we're dealing with are eyewitness reports. And especially when we recognize the fact that in first-century Palestine, it wasn't possible for a woman to give testimony in a court of law. So if you were going to invent something, you wouldn't use as your primary witnesses women.
Because women would not be regarded as legitimate witnesses at the time. So when you look at this and you read about the stone being rolled away, you read about the presence of the angelic visitor, don't stumble over it immediately. If you read all of Mark's Gospel, which we've been doing, you become familiar with the fact that the supernatural breaks into the routine all the time. Those of us who were present last Sunday saw that it was a supernatural event when, at the death of Jesus, the curtain in the angel, maybe eighty-five feet in height, was torn from top to bottom. There's no physical explanation for that.
There is no human explanation for that. And so it ought to be no surprise that when the women come to the tomb, we discover that the same God who has torn the heavens open to say, This is my Son, the same God who has torn the curtain in order to say, And you may enter my presence, is the same God who has torn the bars away from the tomb, so that these women may be able to make their entry. For those of you who are wondering, let me just say this. Authentic Christianity is not a tame and a harmless ethic. Authentic Christianity is not a series of platitudes pronounced by faithful souls. Authentic Christianity is certainly not a list of rules and regulations whereby we might find it possible to make ourselves acceptable to God. No, authentic Christianity is full of difficult parts. It is full of that which demands an explanation which cannot be given on a normal, natural human plane.
And a Christianity without the difficult parts isn't even Christianity. So, don't be overwhelmed, don't be unsettled by the fact that there is a man sitting in there, a young man, an angelic man, described as an angel in the other gospel records. Mark is describing an angelic visit in human terminology.
A young man sitting on the right side dressed in a white robe. And when they saw him, they said, Oh, hey, Christ is risen. And he said, He's risen indeed. No, he didn't. No, he didn't. They didn't.
No! And when they saw him, they were alarmed. And he said, Christ is risen. No, he didn't.
He said, Do not be alarmed. You're seeking Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. Now, he says, he has risen.
He's not here. And if you look over there, you'll see the place where he was laid. Now, when you combine this with the other gospel records that tell us that the grave clothes of Jesus were left intact so that his departure from the shroud was not, if you like, a natural departure. He didn't leave the grave clothes the way some of the teenagers have left their bedroom this morning—in absolute disarray. No, the pristine nature of the grave clothes was such as to cause people to say, That's not normal. Of course it wasn't normal. That's not natural.
Of course it wasn't natural. You expect the Creator of the universe to do something other than this? When he triumphs over sin and death? So, their alarm gives way to an assignment. They are to go out and tell the disciples—and Peter gives a special mention, because, of course, Peter had made a royal hash of things—"Go and tell them that Jesus is going before you to Galilee, and there you will see him, just as he told you." That takes you back to chapter 14 and verse 28, where Jesus has told them, This is what is going to happen to me, but I will meet you again in Galilee. And so out they go. Verse 8 tells us, And they went out, this is the end of the record from Mark, and they fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone.
They were absolutely dumbstruck. Presumably, as they made their way through the narrow Jerusalem streets, they just weren't even talking to each other. A silence that was clearly temporary? If it hadn't been temporary, then Mark would have no story to tell. Well, we'll leave the record there.
You can consider it on your own. I'm not going to spend time trolling through the usual arguments about, Oh, yeah, but there's a reason why people say that he wasn't there. That was because the disciples stole him, or the Jewish people stole him, or because he had been only fainting, and then he resuscitated, and then he went out, and so on.
Nobody really buys any of that stuff anymore. And furthermore, most people are not really asking this morning, Is this true?—although that is a vital question—but they're asking, Is it relevant? Is it relevant?
That's our second R. The record, you can consider. The relevance—think with me for a moment. After all, someone will legitimately say, This happened a long time ago. This is over two thousand years since this happened.
Why all the song and dance by Christians? Sort of interesting if you're a religious sort, but just irrelevant. No, it isn't. Think about it. Here's the one eventuality that all of us face. Death. The one event over which we have absolutely no control.
The one thing that is absolutely guaranteed. From the minute we breathe, there is an absolute guarantee, one day we will stop breathing. That is a paralyzing fear to many. It is a lurking thought to most. And every one of us ought to be saying, Has anybody ever actually conquered death?
And if they did, have they made a way for me to conquer it? And we open up the pages of the Bible, and here is the very heart of the Christian story—that Jesus Christ has conquered death. Death exists because of our sin, because of our rebellion against God.
That is why the good has become bad. Jesus has entered into time in order that our brokenness and our messed-up-ness might find all the necessary repair in him. And that because he is resurrected, he will one day return. Therefore, we ought not to feel that history is just trundling along to nowhere.
No, I suggest to you that it is wonderfully relevant—relevant not only to the issue of dying but certainly to the issue of living. You read the Bible, and it says that Jesus, who once lived and died, is now alive to meet the deepest longings of the human heart. Many of us have been stymied, if we're still in unbelief, because we're looking for rock-solid proofs. I read the Bible, and I couldn't find any proofs. You're not going to find proofs. If you could prove God, it wouldn't be God you proved.
If we could frame God and contain God, it wouldn't be God. No, what we have in the Bible are signs. What we have in our humanity are signs. So that the beauty of a morning stirs a longing within us that cannot be fully encapsulated by the most beautiful thing that we've ever imagined. The transcendent nature of a sunset stirs within us a longing for something. The joy of human relationships that we so easily mess up and feel bad about create within us a longing for an ultimate relationship. And so it goes on. The longing for justice in our world, so that the children in the playground, you hear them saying, That's not fair! Where did fairness come from? Because within them they recognize that there is right and there is wrong, and the longing in our world today for things to be put right—those are all signposts.
Have you stopped at the signposts? Because it helps me when I ask myself the question, Do I matter? Do I matter? Well, you say, Well, I matter to my wife, my children, I matter to a few folks.
No, but we all understand that. But do I really matter? Does it matter? Is there any meaning? What's the point of all this stuff? Just consider your lives. Consider eight o'clock tomorrow morning on 480 West, 77 North, the Tributary Roads of 43 or 91, and all the people following along. We got up to go out, to work, to get money, to buy food, to go home.
To get up, to go to work, to get money, to buy food, to go home. 1965. Ballad of the Thin Man, remember?
Bob Dylan. Do you remember the refrain that runs all the way through it? Something is happening here. But you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?
Something's happening here, and something is happening here. And Jesus gives meaning to all of these things. You see, the answer to the question, Do I matter? is found in the love of God for us. The answer is, Sure, you matter. He made you, he made you, and he made you for a relationship with him. Is there any purpose in what I'm doing?
Sure there is. Listen to what Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, even though he dies, yet he will live.
What a claim that is! And whoever lives and believes in me will never die. In other words, the reality of physical death will be experienced by all. But all who have been placed into Christ and who are raised with Christ, for them death will be like falling asleep this afternoon after a nice Sunday lunch and waking up and saying, Well, the sun's come out.
Because Jesus has made of death a narrow sunlit strip between the goodbyes of yesterday and the hellos of tomorrow. And, my friends, I don't know anyone else who has. Do you? Well, people say, That's just too much for me to swallow. You know, I'll take my chances. And frankly, if there's nothing that can be done about it, we might as well get out now while the going's good.
And that's exactly what many clever people have done, isn't it? Those of you who take the Wall Street will have seen, as I saw, this amazing piece under the heading The Escape Artist, the story of Mike Kelly. Wonderful, contemporary artist. Very influential.
Born in Wayne, Michigan, 1954. Punched out just a few months ago. And in the dying embers of his day—which nobody knew where the dying embers of his day, although he had resolved certain things—this is what he said, I've given my whole life to being an artist, every ounce, so that there's nothing left. But he told his friend, Now I need something else, but I'm emptied out. Now I need something else, but I'm emptied out.
We are by nature emptied out. So we go for what helps us. Significance. Cash. Sex. Whatever.
Just to try and make us through that getting up, going to work, coming home, getting up. Well, I could say more about his relevance, but I don't want to become irrelevant. So let me come to my final point. Response. Response. Every so often we are invited to somewhere.
It's always very nice to be invited. Sometimes it says, Regrets only. I prefer RSVP.
Responde silvo play. Right? In other words, this is not an option. You have to get back to the person who sent you the note. That's why they put RSVP. Might have said no gifts, which is good. As a Scotsman, I like no gifts. I'm always looking for no gifts. That's nice. But RSVP—are you a foreigner? I'm not a foreigner.
Are you? Right? Whatever it is. You've got to get back to the person. Now, here's the thing. God did not go to the extent of extending this invitation for us just to walk out the door and say, His invitation is clear.
Come to me. His requirements are clear. Repent and believe. His warning is clear. If you do not believe, you will die in your sins.
And then, at the bottom of the card that he sends, it says RSVP. What's your response? The Gospel writers provide us with all this information, not so that we could have a biography, not so that we could have a history, although it is both historical and biographical, but in order that we might understand it is good news. And they present the signs or the evidence in order that we might believe, so that in believing we might discover life in his name. That's the whole program, where you say, I believe. Well, then, that's good. But do you believe in a kind of sitting-down way, or do you believe more in a standing-up way?
You say, what are you talking about? Well, so here we are. I can't move the chairs. They won't let me move the chairs, so I'll have to sit here.
So, it doesn't work as well without the chair, but this is how we have to use. So, here I am. If I can stand here, it's reasonable to believe that I can sit there. And I believe that entirely. I believe that if I sit there, I can sit right on that very spot. I will not fall over. It will hold me up. I believe it.
Completely believe it. You're all going, yeah, but, okay, are you gonna sit down, or are you just gonna stand there? Okay, then I sit down.
I was right. Have you ever believed in Jesus in a sitting-down way? When I was a boy in Sunday school, they told me that faith was this, forsaking all I trust him.
Forsaking all I trust him. We're gonna sing a song now, as our closing song. It could become, for some this morning, a sitting-down moment, even though you're gonna sing it standing up. Because some of you have taken a long time considering the record, have actually concluded that it is phenomenally relevant. But the RSVP is still out there, awaiting your response. How kind and gracious of God to give us more and more time to accept the gift that he has provided in the person of his risen Son. That is Alistair Begg, with the Life Transforming Invitation, and a warning for each of us to consider. You're listening to the Bible Teaching Ministry of Truth for Life. Of course, this weekend we'll be remembering Jesus' death as we celebrate his resurrection, and it's important for us to remember that these events are not the end of the story. The book we are recommending to you today from Truth for Life explores all that happened after Jesus' resurrection. It's titled, Saved, Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Acts. This is a new release from a well-known author, Bible teacher, Nancy Guthrie. She skillfully walks us through all 28 chapters in the Book of Acts, unpacking the history-altering events that followed Jesus' resurrection.
Ask for your copy of the book, Saved, when you donate to Truth for Life today through our mobile app or online at truthforlife.org slash donate, or you can call us at 888-588-7884. Thanks for joining us this week. We hope you have a blessed Easter weekend and are able to celebrate with friends and family. On Monday, we'll consider the abrupt ending to Mark's gospel. How does it impact our response to Jesus? I hope you'll join us. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
