Joy Came in the Morning (Mark 16:4-7)

“When a man dies, will he come back to life? If so, I would wait all the days of my struggle until my relief comes” (Job 14:14). The relief that Job, a man of sorrows, was seeking did come. Death was conquered when the one whom Isaiah called “Man of Sorrows” appeared. Jesus spoke to Martha, in her grief, concerning the death of her brother Lazarus and gave her hope. “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me, even if he dies, will live” (John 11:25). But did hope die on the cross for the three women who were present for the death and burial of Jesus?

Their eyes were swollen from the weeping they had endured in the night. It was still dark, and their minds were downcast with sorrow as they gathered together with their spices to anoint Jesus. In the twilight before sunrise they made their way to the grave, their hearts heavy with grief. But the darkness of night could not restrain the bright morning star, and the promise that had been given long ago was kept. Joy came in the morning!

When they looked up they found that the heavy stone they had feared would block their entrance had been rolled away. They entered the tomb, but to their amazement they found a young man dressed in a long white robe sitting there. “‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he told them. ‘You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has been resurrected! He is not here! See the place where they put Him. But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee; you will see Him there just as He told you’” (Mark 16:6,7).

What had He told them? On the night before His death Jesus had told His disciples that after He had risen He would go ahead of them to Galilee and meet them there. What else had Jesus told them? “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). Death could not conquer life. The grave was not victorious over the resurrection. In the words of John Mark McMillan, “The Man, Jesus Christ, laid death in his grave.”

Job had asked in his grief, “When a man dies, will he come back to life?” When Jesus died on the cross He paid the wages for our sin once and for all. When He rose from the dead He broke the curse of death. Hope did not die on the cross, it was established. Jesus promised that “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25). 

Walking in the Mystery

I’ve been working on a memory project. When I was teaching the book of Revelation I was struck by the promise of blessing given twice in the first chapter: "Blessed is the one who reads and blessed are those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep what is written in it, because the time is near!” I decided that if there was a blessing for those who read and those who hear and keep what is written that I would memorize it. So I stepped into the mystery, filling my mind with visions that I didn’t and don’t fully understand. 

Why? Many people have asked me this question. Many people have told me that though they read the Bible they avoid brought the prophets. I understand. So why am I memorizing the book of Revelation?!?

I see prophecy as an invitation to intimacy with God. In the book of Amos God states that He does nothing without first showing His  servants the prophets. Jesus was a prophet. His longest teaching was a prophecy about what to expect at the end of time. He told His disciples that He would no longer call them servants because a servant doesn’t know what his master is about to do. He called them friends and prophesied about the end of time.

As I pull back the curtains of heaven and gaze at the One seated on the throne and fill my mind with His thoughts, I am humbled to the core of my being. I have no time charts. I am simply walking in faith. I am like a young child gazing at things I don’t fully understand. But I am beginning to understand part of the blessing. I have found that when my focus is drawn to the eternal the temporal finds its correct place.

That surgery. I had difficulty waking up and was the last one in the recovery room. My husband was the only one left in the waiting room. Even the receptionist had left. When the nurse came back to get him, he asked if I was all right. She hesitated and then told him that they were having difficulty waking me up and that I was quoting the ninth chapter of Revelation. Steve smiled and told her that that was normal.

I am walking in the mystery with childlike faith, believing and anticipating the blessings promised. This week, while reading a children’s Bible to my grandchildren, I received one of those blessings. I was reading about the seven priests who were carrying the seven trumpets before the ark of the Lord. For seven days they marched around Jericho, the gateway to the promised land. The seven trumpets that the priests blew before the ark of the Lord proclaimed the end of one rule and the beginning of what God had promised. I think it was a shadow of what I memorizing about the seven trumpets before the throne of God heralding the end of Satan’s kingdom and the coming of the kingdom of God.

Faithful Worship (Mark 16:1-5)

“The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him” (2 Chronicles 16:9). The Lord was watching as Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome came together while it was still dark with one purpose in mind, to minister to Jesus. They had been there at the cross doing the only thing they could, being present. They did not leave until they had seen where Jesus’s body had been placed.

They had rested and wept on the Sabbath. The aroma of their worship had reached the very throne of God as they gathered the spices with which they planned to anoint Jesus’s body. As the sun began to rise, their silence was broken by the question, “Who will roll away the stone from the entrance to the tomb for us” (Mark 16:3)? But their love and devotion and desire for one last act of service was greater than any obstacle that stood in their way.

What does true worship look like? The God of the universe invites us to have a relationship with Him. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. By Him everything in heaven and on earth was created. “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made” (John 1:3). The almighty God who spoke the world into being became flesh. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome had been invited to have a relationship with Jesus by caring for His earthly needs. Their last act of worship would be to anoint His body which they had seen buried in the tomb.

The privilege of anointing Jesus’s body for burial, however, had not been given to these three women. It had been given to Mary of Bethany. When Mary had been criticized for breaking the alabaster jar and pouring its content of nard--worth almost a year’s wages--Jesus had come to her defense. He told them to leave her alone; that she had done what she could. He went on to say that she anointed His body for burial ahead of time. These women, like Mary of Bethany, had a heart of worship. They were doing what they could to express their love for Jesus.

Often our acts of worship meet with obstacles. For Mary of Bethany it was the disapproval of those who considered her worship wasteful. For the three women on the way to the tomb it was the large stone that blocked their entrance. However, the eyes of the Lord see our heart. Jesus saw Mary’s heart and told those who wanted to shame her that wherever the gospel was preached what she had done would also be told in memory of her. When the three women arrived at the tomb the large stone was already rolled away, and they were the first to receive the good news of Jesus’s resurrection.

No Longer a Secret Disciple (Mark 15:42-46)

The message Jesus had proclaimed that the kingdom of God was near had ignited a spark that became a flame of longing within the heart of Joseph of Arimathea. Nicodemus had shared with him what he had learned the night he had secretly gone to Jesus. “Unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). I believe Nicodemus and Joseph had many secret meetings as they watched Jesus’s ministry grow. 

Joseph of Arimathea was a prominent member of the Sanhedrin. We know from the Gospel of John that he was a disciple of Jesus, but not openly. He kept his belief in Jesus a secret because others in the Sanhedrin were vehemently opposed to Jesus. He was afraid. He could lose everything if he made his belief public.

Joseph had marveled as he listened to the answers that Jesus gave to the Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians. No one could find fault with Him, and Joseph had hoped that this would at last convince the Sanhedrin that Jesus was the Messiah for whom they had been waiting. All hopes were dashed when he had been awakened early in the morning for the illegal trial of Jesus. Though Joseph had opposed the Sanhedrin’s plans and actions, he was powerless to prevent them.

I wonder if Joseph and Nicodemus were together at the cross and if they remembered what Jesus had told Nicodemus when he had met with Jesus in secret under the cover of night. “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him will have eternal life. For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world that He might judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. Anyone who believes in Him is not judged, but anyone who does not believe is already judged, because he has not believed in the name of the One and Only Son of God” (John 3:14-18).

Joseph of Arimathea had not consented to what the Sanhedrin did. He had been unable to prevent what was happening; however, he did what he could. He went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’s body. He and Nicodemus were no longer secret disciples. Joseph placed Jesus in a tomb cut out of a rock. In doing this he fulfilled the prophecy, “He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth” (Isaiah 53:9). Joseph of Arimathea was no longer a secret disciple.

The Women at the Cross (Mark 15:40,41)

Grief alters time. The days become long and the nights are endless. No matter how many people surround you, they cannot change the feeling of being lost and alone, because grief is a solitary pain. My granddaughter’s life was eclipsed by grief this week when her father was suddenly killed in a motorcycle accident. I watched as her mother, my daughter, did what she could. It is the ancient art of nurturing. With deep humility I watched as my daughter encircled her daughter with love, knowing that she could not take away the pain she saw in her child's tear-stained eyes.

“There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome, When He was in Galilee, they followed him, and there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem” (Mark 15:41,42). They had been there when Jesus had made His triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Their voices had joined in with the multitude as they cried out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” Their hearts, minds and souls were wrapped in wonder of the joy that lay before them.

Why had the women followed Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem? They were there to minister to His needs and those of His disciples. They were quietly taking care of daily needs. However, in the presence of Jesus no one was in the background. In the eyes of Jesus these women were His mother and His sisters. He Himself had said, “Whoever does the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sisters, and mother” (Mark 3:34,35).

Jesus touched each individual life. Mary Magdalene had been possessed by seven demons. Her life had been a living hell. Her actions had been dictated by the darkness that dwelt inside her. There had been no escape--that is, until she encountered the light of the world. The bonds that bound her heart, the shackles that had held her prisoner fell off, and she was free. Where once there had been darkness there was light; where once there had been death there was life. When the demons were gone she rose to follow Jesus, to follow wherever He would lead.

Often when you become a mother your name is lost. The mother of John and James had a name. Her name was Salome. She had dreams for her sons, and she felt close enough to Jesus to voice those dreams. She asked that her sons might sit on Jesus’s left and right when He established His kingdom. On Monday when she had joined the throng in joyful praise she had believed that Jesus would soon set up His kingdom, but by 9 o’clock Friday morning those dreams were dashed. There was Jesus, hanging on a cross. There were thieves hanging on His left and on His right. Salome did not walk away, because she was not only the mother of James and John, she was a follower of Jesus.

What do you do when you encounter sudden and unforeseen grief? How do you respond when the Sovereign Lord allows suffering you cannot comprehend? I believe when we encounter an altering of our stories and the stories of those we love that we are invited to humble our hearts and bend our knees. God alone is the author, but we find our place in the story by our presence and encircling those we love. In humble service we do the will of God. 

Redeemed! (Mark 15:38)

You don’t become a centurion by acts of kindness. He was coarse and vulgar. As an executioner, his heart had become as hard as the nails that he hammered into the hands and feet of Jesus. He had trained himself not to see the pain he inflicted on others. For three hours he had joined in the sport of mocking this man whom he had hung on a tree. He had wiped his blood-stained hands as he gambled for the Jesus’s clothing at the foot of the cross. The blood stained clothing still held the fragrance of the nard that Jesus had been anointed with. Something stirred within the centurion.

At noon, with the sun directly overhead, darkness fell. It was as if a shroud had covered the light. In the darkness the centurion could hear as Jesus struggled to breath. In the darkness he heard the words that began to shatter his hard heart. Words spoken from the cross were few because of the great effort it took to simply breathe. The words he heard created a flash of light within his dark soul, “Father, forgive them; for they don’t know what they are doing.”

Jesus had experienced nothing but cruelty. But just as the darkness could shroud but not extinguish light, so the cruelty Jesus experienced could not diminish His kindness. The thief who had hurled insults at Jesus earlier now asked to be remembered when Jesus came into His kingdom. With life-giving kindness Jesus spoke, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Years of treating others with ruthless brutality had hardened his heart until it had become like a tomb. But in the presence of relentless tenderness his heart began to soften.

Standing in the darkness, stained by the blood of the man hanging on the cross before him, an awakening began to take place. For years he had tried to put to death his blood-drenched conscience. He had been chased deeper and deeper into the darkness to escape the light that might expose what he had become. Standing guard at the cross he could no longer find refuge in the darkness. For three long hours he stood guard as the light of the world hung on the cross before him. 

When the work of redemption was completed, the centurion heard Jesus say, “It is finished!” Then, to his utter astonishment, he heard Jesus cry out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,” and He breathed His last. The ground beneath the cross began to shake, the earth slit open, and those who had been confined to their tombs were brought to life. “When the centurion, who was standing opposite Him, saw the way He breathed His last, he said, ‘This man really was God’s Son'” (Mark 15:39)!