Easter 2006
To Life Mark 15:33-16:8 April 16, 2005
There is nothing sweeter than life. The Jews toast it, “Le Haim!” – to Life! When it gets right down to it, it’s not even about good life, bad life, hard life, rich life – just life! Something about experiencing, knowing, growing, loving, figuring out, slipping down and crying, or standing on the mountain and singing. We love life. But is life a fluke? Is life – your life – just a random fluctuation, chance bringing together atoms and forces to give the illusion of a thinking, feeling, dreaming being? Or is Life itself fundamental, basic to the Universe, and dissolution, decay and death is abnormal and transient? Which do you think is lasting, life or death?
Some of the streams around here beautiful and clear, you can see the fish swimming by. If a kid throws a rock into the stream it stirs up the dirt at the bottom, and the water gets muddy but only for a few moments. The water is clear, and it washes away the mud and becomes clear again. If we came from dead, lifeless atoms, then life is just a temporary disturbance and we will return to dead lifeless atoms. But if the beginning of all things is life, then death is a temporary muddying of the waters and we are destined to live forever. Which do you believe? The resurrection of Jesus makes all the difference for me.
I. Mark 15,16 is the account of death and life.
A. And constant witnesses throughout are the women! They are the common thread.
1. They are listed, their credentials given. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Joseph (47). If the coroner wanted to identify the body these would be the ones called – they knew Jesus.
2. These women were watching the whole thing. They were there after his cruel beating, as he carried his cross to Calvary; He stopped to comfort them. They were there as the nails were driven in, they were there when He prayed for the Father to forgive His executioners; and they were there when He took His last breath; when He was taken down, wrapped in a linen cloth and put in a tomb and they saw the huge slab rolled in front of the tomb.
3. And they were there that amazing Sunday morning when they came to the tomb, saw the stone rolled away, and heard the words, “He is not here, He is risen!” Trembling with fear and excitement they fled the scene – trying to get their muddled thoughts together. And because of what they had seen they were never the same – nor the other disciples, nor the world.
B. Death is the last thing we witness about a life.
1. After that we have to make decisions about the funeral, attend to the details – like these women were doing on that early Sunday morning.
2. All that’s left is the hard work of closing the book on a life legally, emotionally and financially, But these women became convinced that death is not the end – not for Jesus.
II. Is death the end, the final reality? What do you think?
A. For some the answer is clear: nothing of who we are survives death.
1. If we came from random atoms; if life is just a bunch of atoms whirling around, brought together by random forces and chemistry, then at some point we’d expect life to vanish when the conditions that produce it vanish. Like a rainbow which is there in breathtaking beauty for a while, but when the water droplets and the sun’s rays are gone, the rainbow vanishes.
2. Life beyond the grave? No, it’s just a story we tell ourselves to feel better, like telling children who are terrified of thunder that its really angels bowling! No body believes it, but it gets them into bed – which is all we care about!
B. There are others who believe that this life is not it, that there is a vast existence beyond – but they LIVE as though this life is it. That is, it’s not clear that they really believe in something beyond death.
1. Sometimes our choices betray us.
a. Our nation spends 46 billion dollars on dieting (Forbes 2/12/05); the median amount spent on food is $54/week, but the median spent on a diet food is $85 – think about it, we spend billions of dollars extra to eat less! Imagine a restaurant that gave a 16 oz steak for $20 and a 10oz steak for $40! “Yes sir, if you want to eat less it’ll cost you!” But it’s because we care about our health; our bodies matter to us.
b. But how many people ever fast – the very idea sound weird! Imagine giving up eating to focus on the health and well being of our souls which survive the grave?
2. Think about the care and expense given to the body compared to the time and energy we invest in our souls. Like an emaciated woman, her skin hanging on her bones because of malnutrition, yet she spends all her time and money buying nail polish! What’s the point? Your whole body is going to turn to dust unless you start to care for it – your nails mean nothing! The martyrs gave up their lives – they sacrificed the bodies we polish and feed and massage! They were cut, burnt and drowned – because they believed, with all their hearts that this world was not it. “The body they may kill, God’s truth abideth still…” – it was not just a hymn, but a philosophy of life.
3. We expend ourselves for our children’s activities – sports, school, career and college, leisure of all sorts but spend little time on feeding their souls; creating in them an appetite for the majesty and glory of a good and gracious God. If you wanted your child to be a great painter, you wouldn’t want they spending all their time with velvet painting of dogs playing pool! We want the best for our children – therefore what we think is best is revealed in what we want to pass on to our children. What do we pass on? Do we prepare them for heaven, their souls being honed to enjoy God fully and serve Him? Cf. the Cambodian family (Jesus Freaks) who did not deny Christ but, with tears and breaking hearts, told their children to die bravely because they were convinced of heaven.
C. Do we really believe that there is a life beyond death?
1. There is a strong current of belief today that this life is it. And if it all started with death – lifeless atoms, lifeless chemistry, lifeless chance – then it makes sense that finally it would end in death.
2. But if it all – and we all – started with life, then it would make sense that it would end in life. If God, the source of life, was there before atoms, chemistry, physics, seemingly random motion of atoms, and He created us and gave us life, then death is the unusual intrusion, the transient event, the temporary state which one day will be swallowed up in life! (See Mangalwadi, Freedom and Dignity, p. 115).
III. And Jesus’ resurrection changes everything. If what the women saw is true, there are deep and abiding consequences for you and me.
A. Why? God, the one true God, offers His friendship in Jesus.
1. The God who made the woods through which you walk, the beautiful fish you fish for, the mountains and the lakes and you is willing to know you and let you know Him – the way a friend knows a friend. John 15.
2. That’s why all this talk about the Da Vinci Code and the Gospel according to Judas bugs me – because many people who have not looked into it are coming away thinking that these other books are just like the gospels in the NT.
a. They don’t realize that these were stories written some 100 years after Christ. Are they valid? Yeah – anyone can offer their interpretation of Christ’s life; you could write one now – the Gospel of Bob!
b. But what I want is to meet the real Jesus, which means I want to know what those who heard Him and saw Him have to say… that’s the N.T. Luke takes the trouble to point out that he interviewed the actual eyewitnesses to arrive at his account.
3. If Jesus rose from the dead, then His claims are true. Muhammad, Buddha, Moses all lived in history, and their own Scriptures report, matter of factly, that they all died – but Jesus, alone, rose from the dead! His claims are credible: We saw Him, with glory as of the Father in Heaven; and, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.”
B. Life will never be the same again – because the one true God has made Himself known.
1. Everything affects our lives, but most things have little affect.
a. Some one calculated that the atoms in Caesar’s last breath have mixed in with the atmosphere, so that on the average with every breath we breath in several of the same atoms that were in his lung. Big deal – I don’t feel more important.
b. We listen to the news of the sextuplet scandal in Missouri, or the riots in Paris and flip the channel.
c. Just this week, just a quarter mile down the road, while riding with my daughter, I saw a moose. It was great. But I don’t’ think it’ll change my life. A few months ago I learned that my daughter was engaged to be married – now that was a pretty big deal.
2. But some things do affect us: I remember after my first daughter was born hearing the news of a little girl being kidnapped and thinking, “When I was single this was just a news item, I didn’t care. But now I get a lump in my throat thinking there is some dad like me searching for her!” And then I remember the time when that same daughter, a few years old, wandered off in a mall and how frantic her mother and I were looking for – my heart was pounding; it wasn’t someone else, it involved me!
3. And the resurrection of Jesus affects each of us the way global warming or the bird flu virus affects us all; or the way we would all be affected if the Sun were to explode and engulf the planet in its fires. I know we could turn off the news and pretend it isn’t so – but it still is so! The resurrection of Jesus is a cosmic event.
C. There is a life beyond the grave in which we will face this great God.
1. This life is but a vapor. We love it and want more of it – but the way the aroma of a good meal makes us want the full feast; we’re never satisfied with just smelling a good roast, we want to sink our teeth into it. And Jesus’ resurrection says that this life is just the salty sea breeze, the vast majesty of the ocean is still to come. This life is like the womb, there is a fullness and richness of life that awaits that we can’t imagine – I Cor. 15, seed to plant, zygote to human!
2. This life is not it. But it will be a day of giving accounts and I fall far short. Acts 17:29-31 says that God has set a day to judge the world with justice, and the proof of this is the resurrection of Jesus! That is, one day every right will be wronged, and every wrong doer – I mean people like me – will be brought to justice. That is a terrifying thought for me because I know some of the things I’ve done wrong and I’m ashamed of those; my family knows a whole lot more of the things I’ve done wrong, things to which I am blind or to which I’ve blinded myself because of pride; and the Lord God who sees the depths of my heart knows every impure motive behind even the best looking deeds I’ve done…(Proverbs, “A man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord judges the heart.”)
3. I read that computer memory is getting so advanced, and so cheap, that soon there will be terabyte memory drives – and, as one commentator put it, that’s enough memory to record all of your life, every single detail, day and night for all of your life! But would you want that? What if there was not ‘cut’ or ‘erase’ feature? No editing! There’s too much in our lives that we’d just as soon throw away.
a. We all love “justice” when it is applied to others – we say, “Where are the cops?” when someone speeds by our driveway and we fear for our kids, but when the cops stop us we complain about how we were trapped, how unfair it is. But one day we will all face justice.
4. But Jesus’ said he endured death for a reason: to offer forgiveness to people like me. To cover the cost of my sins for the day of justice. So Jesus’ death is to settle the accounts on my behalf. Graham Stains and what his wife and daughter sang at the funeral.
Piper sermon http://www.soundofgrace.com/piper92/04-19-92.htm
By the Court: Is there any reason why you couldn't serve as a juror in this case?
By a Potential Juror: I don't want to be away from my job that long.
The Court: Can't they do without you at work?
Potential Juror: Yes, but I don't want them to know that.
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