Published: July 21, 2024 | Speaker: Mark Freitag | Series: Gospel of Mark - Part 109 | Scripture: Mark 15:39-47
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our father again we do ask that you might send the Holy Spirit to help us to to listen to the words of scripture to to understand these things to cause them
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to register in our minds and our hearts and we ask father that you would be exalted in these things and you would be lifted up and you would use them to build your church build our faith in
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Christ Jesus we pray amen was this the end was this death's
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victory over the man who claimed to be the Messiah we read simply in verse 46 that
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Joseph rolled a stone against the entrance of the Tomb it sounds pretty final Jesus was crucified at 9 in the
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morning on that day and after an agonizing 3 hours
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of him suffering for the sins of the world a supernaturally deep Darkness descended on the scene and 3 hours of that Darkness later
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he breathed his last the master was dead the men who placed his body in the Tomb wrapped him with a linen
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cloth they had some spices and perfumes that they put between the layers of the windings but they eventually left the tomb and rolled the stone in front of the
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entrance and there were a few women who had been at the crucifixion scene they had come to see where the
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tomb was but we can imagine that as the evening Shadows began to overtake them so that they despair the days of the companionship
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they had with the man they called lord the man they called their friend were over
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did Death really claim a Monumental victory that victory that day Jesus voice was silenced that silenced that voice who many said he is not like the
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scribes and Pharisees because he speaks with such with such Authority but that man was dead Jesus healed many people but his
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Healing Hand now was motionless the one who had looked at the paralytic and said rise take up your pallet and walk that man who spoke those words was
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dead Jesus legs were no longer moving the man who walked on water walked no more because that man was
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dead there are of course theories that say that Jesus did not die Chief among those theories is the theory called the Swoon theory that Jesus did not die from the
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crucifixion but he simp simply swooned or fell into unconsciousness while hanging on the cross perhaps he went into a deep faint or maybe even
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descended into a coma and later while he was in the Tomb he recovered from his injuries and was
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resuscitated the purpose of course of the Swoon theory that Jesus did not actually die is not to dispute that he died but rather it seeks to disprove his
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resurrection if Jesus didn't rise from the dead then he's not God the man who said destroy this Temple and in 3 days I will
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raise it up again was a liar and so other theories existed and we'll have opportunity perhaps to look into the other
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theories again if we can prove that he did not die we can prove that he did not
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again but what is in the Tomb what was dead G Campbell Morgan and his commentary on Mark says that four
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things died that day four things of Christianity that we ought to
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understand the man who said to his to his disciples if you have seen me you have seen the
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seen the father if he is dead then our conception of God is dead the way we look at God and the way we understand him is
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dead the man who said I came to seek and to save the lost if he is dead then that passion for Redemption is dead
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and the man who said he who follows me will no longer walk in darkness but will have the light of life if he is dead then our ideal of what Humanity ought to be the way we
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ought to be as Believers in him is dead and the man who gave a summary of our religion the Christian religion what
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are the two greatest Commandments you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength and the second is like it and you shall love your neighbor as yourself that is a
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pretty good summary of our religion and if he is dead then our religion is
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dead but the scripture gives us bold Witnesses gives us bold witnesses that Jesus did die from the crucifixion that he was dead and he was
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buried and so all of those who say Jesus did not die but he was a good man he didn't die that kind of death on a cross
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he was simply a man he was simply one who gave us a way to live they are wrong he did die he did die from the crucifixion we
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have this one that many of the commentators say well he's he's just a pagan he he's a Roman Centurion the Centurion is a man who was over 100
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soldiers and the critics look at our verse 39 here when he exclaims truly this man was the son of God and they say no no no you the the Greek actually
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means he was saying he is a son of a god little G he was was a Roman soldier he was an ignorant Pagan how what would he know
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about Jesus but for me it's hard to believe that someone who was in Jerusalem at that Passover with all of these things that were going on it's hard to imagine that he was
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unaware of what was going on in the life of this one From Galilee but I think more importantly
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if he does not say truly this man was the son of God then our gospel writers have lied to us that that Mark has written something
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here that he knows is not true he didn't actually say that but I'm going to write it like it like that and then we would begin to question the word we would begin to question the
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witness of the Holy Spirit think about the Centurion the this was his job one of his jobs was to
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see that the Prisoners the criminals hanging on the crosses were actually dead think about how many he may have witnessed perhaps this was his first one
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perhaps he had seen many hang on the cross how many crucifixions had he witnessed and yet this one this one was
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different this one he could not help but exclaim this one he could not help but stop with exclamation
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truly surely certainly this man was who he said he was he is no impostor he was the son of
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God and then we see some women looking on from a distance probably looking on from a distance because of all the things that were going on we've seen it before the soldiers probably clearing the path clearing the way around these
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three crosses on the hill called golgatha the crowds the mobs who were coming in the passers the passers by and then the Sanhedrin crowding up so
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that they can have their little laugh and point session so that they could kind of among themselves congratulate themselves saying look at this Christ let him come
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down from the cross he saved others but he cannot save himself but the women's motive for being
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there was more than just curiosity of course these women who had ministered to Jesus in Galilee and and the scriptures are very clear to tell us they had come
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up to Jerusalem with him they did not come specifically to the Passover but they came with him to minister to him as had been their
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practice for at least the three years of ministry their interests were personal their interest was Guided by
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their strong affection for their friend for their lord for their Master they had an honorable duty of providing for Jesus
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once Mark mentions three of them by name Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James the Le and Joseph and salomi and I will not try to unravel who these two Marys
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are of all the various marries in scripture because the commentators and the historians don't agree but what we do see is in verse 41
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there were other many other women who who came up with him to
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contributing to their own support out of their own private means so that they could minister to him what we see is that yes three are named but it it's not a little a little click it it's not just a few it's the
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many who ministered to them and they were there were there standing on the hill of golgatha they saw the
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saw the crucifixion and as we say as we know several of them went so they would know where he had been buried they witnessed that Jesus died on the cross that
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day and then we have this man not mentioned before in the Sanhedrin but he we find he is a prominent member of the saned
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some of your scriptures would say a prominent member some will say a counselor he was a Senator he was a member of this group that had just
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voted and pushed Jesus toward pilate to have Jesus have Jesus crucified but we find here that he and in the other gospels that he had not
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agreed to the trial he had not agreed to the crucifixion he had hidden or in the language I think of Luke he had concealed his
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concealed his faith but as one author writes trials illicit actions of Faith the trials that he had seen of this one that he believed
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in crucified on the cross he gathered up as Mark says gathered up his courage and went before Pilate to ask
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for the body of Jesus this man was waiting for the kingdom of God he was waiting for the Reign and the rule of the Messiah he was waiting for the Messiah to come in power
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and glory and grace and it says he was continuously waiting this was a man of Faith this was a man who in truth of like Simeon waiting for the
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consolation of Israel and yet we see that he had the means it's kind of a vulgar expression I guess in the in the Greek to say he was
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a prominent member it it basically says he was a rich guy he had the means and he had the property because he had recently had this
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Stone tomb dug out by the Workman y from the rock for his own purposes and we know that he did something that
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seems kind of incredible on the day the preparation day he went and he bought something he went and bought the linen to wrap Jesus
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in he saw that Jesus was dead and he gathered his courage and asked pilate and pilate we see was a little
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bit taken aback was he already dead and the reason he would ask is because many of those who hung on the cross would linger not for so many hours but for so
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many days and they would be left there until they were they were good and awfully dead and pilate wanted to know perhaps
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thinking about wow what have I done here is it is it over this that I agreed to reluctantly and sent this man to be
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crucified and he asked the Centurion and called him in before him and the Centurion confirmed yes this man is
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dead one of the commentators remarked on remarked on the writings of of Mark that there is a sudden change now in this passage beginning
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with verse with verse 39 that the incidents recorded in Mark again more detail than Matthew gives
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more insight into the little details that have gone on in the life of Jesus but we see a sudden change from
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language like in chapter 14 we read that Jesus warned and then told his handpicked disciples that that all of you the the shepherd will be killed and
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the Sheep will be scattered and we read in chapter 14 they all left him and fled and yet in chapter 15 we see the
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women of Galilee looking on to see where they laid they laid him the men left the women sought Simon of sirene the man who was
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pressed into pressed into service to carry Jesus cross contrasted with Joseph Amer maea who gathered up his
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courage and went to seek the body of Jesus the mocking cry from the saned let this Christ the King of Israel come down
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from the from the cross contrasted with the centurion's Wonder this man truly was the Son of God the insults of the soldiers and the
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hatred of the rulers contrasted with the tender affections of affections of friendship of Joseph protecting Jesus body from further
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desecration the scourging the spit the lashing of the whip those those sounds of sounds of death contrasted with the smell of the
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perfumes and the spices and The Honorable burial burial in this fresh tomb no one had yet been buried in it no
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odor of Decay was in it no corruption had laid in it the clownish old robe they put on Jesus and the Crown of Thorns of
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humiliation contrasted with the Pure White clean linen that Joseph purchased for his for his burial the mocking cry from the
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down to the despair the despair the Wonder the questioning of the few disciples who remained but why are these sudden
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changes important why do I mention them well the Roman custom as I said would be to let the body stay on the cross and rot until the birds had picked most of
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the flesh off the bones but to the Jews they would remember Deuteronomy 21 that they must remove the body and bury it before
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Sundown of that that same day in which the crucifixion took place and if he was not dead then and we see in one of the other
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gospels the soldiers come and ask permission of pilate can they break the bones of the men they would they would break their legs so they would collapse their their lungs and they would
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suffocate and die faster and the outcome would have been that jesus' bones would have been broken
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apparent accidents that Jesus early death was so remarkable because it took sometimes days for men to die lingering there a destroying death
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hunger thirst overtaking them exposure cramps festering wounds and yet Jesus did not suffer those
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and many believe it's in fulfillment of what we would read in Psalm 34 he protects all his bones not one of them is them is broken the Roman custom was that unless
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someone came and claimed the body on the cross came forward and said he's a relative of mine a friend of mine I have a place to bury him they would bury the
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criminals in a common grave in The Potter's field they would open a hole and they would put them in anonymously burying them and Jesus could have been
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buried with the criminals that he was crucified with but there was an honorable Sanhedrin Senator courageously coming forward to ask for jesus' body and
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pilate granted it to him as was his custom and many believe this is a fulfillment of Isaiah 53 his grave was assigned with wicked
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men yet he was with the rich in his death the women of Galilee were helpless imagine them we're in this city of
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Jerusalem and this is not our home we've traveled all the way from Galilee and now the man we came with to minister to
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dead and we don't know know how we're going to bury him and the Sabbath evening is quickly approaching but they had received the
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unexpected help that fulfilled the scriptures and God's Redemptive
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plan as commentator Linsky writes God took care of his son's body in death he saw that Joseph would be there he arranged for these things to happen that the scriptures might be
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fulfilled only one of the commentators mentions this and so I I tread carefully as I say these words but notice in verse
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43 at the end Joseph of ARA asked for the body of Jesus
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and in verse 45 after ascertaining from the Centurion that Jesus was dead pilate granted the corpse of Jesus now many of your translations say the body of Jesus
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many of people over the years have said you know the corpse it it's literally the word in Greek is different from one verse to the other it's corpse it's a
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cadav and many people have crossed out that word and put in the body the same as before but they different words Joseph asked for the body of
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Jesus what pilate granted to him according to Mark and I think he's very careful in using these two words so we would see the
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contrast he handed over the corpse of Jesus there's a difference a big difference what Jesus Joseph asked for the body of Jesus it's the word you would recognized as
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Som and it had come to mean in Greek the body sound and complete a body in its entirety and in all of its
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beauty and what pilate handed to him was the corpse the cadaver something that had fallen something that was ruined and so if we ask that question
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again what was in the Tomb and again I want to be very careful because I'm not sure that I understand all that Mark put into these two
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different words but if in the Tomb it's the body of Jesus then death has won the
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victory but if it's the corpse the ruin part the part the cadav than all of the hopes that we have to understand God he who has seen me has
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seen the father our concept of God is still alive to us when he says you will not walk in darkness but will have the light
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of life that ideal is still alive that Jesus came to seek and save the Lost
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that passion that he had for redeeming lost souls is for us and it is still
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alive Christ was the sacrificial lamb and his significance underlies all the other sacrifices of the Old Testament Christ is the righteous suffering servant who laid down his life
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for man but his death Works a Works a righteousness it works a true repentance it works that within our souls as the
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prophet Zachariah says they will look upon Him whom they have pierced and their souls will be pierced and they will be drawn as many
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of us here and I pray all of you here have been drawn into true repentance in your spirit because Christ is
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alive and I cannot stay with The Melancholy I must read one more passage out of Mark from the next chapter because we have read that he rolled the stone in front of the Tomb but we
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know on that great morning what the women saw and looking up they saw that the stone
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had been rolled away let us pray Our Father we do ask again that we might meditate upon these
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things meditate upon the reality of Christ's death and yet the reality that by his death there is the death death of death
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we thank you that you have done this we thank you that you did not allow your Redemptive plan to go AR but that it was fulfilled in Jesus on that day and we
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thank you and we praise you for it in Jesus name Jesus name amen you please rise for the benediction
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from the pen of the Apostle Paul he writes oh death where is your Victory oh death where is your Sting the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law but thanks be to God who
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gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ amen