Transcript

Lee Eclov told the following story, “Many years ago, my wife and I were vacationing in Estes Park, Colorado, and had breakfast in a coffee shop. It was empty except for four men at another table.

One was mocking Christianity; in particular, the resurrection of Christ. He went on and on about what a stupid teaching that was. I could feel the Lord asking me: “Are you going to let this go unchallenged?”

However, I was thinking, But I don’t even know these guys. He’s bigger than me. He’s got cowboy boots on and looks tough. I was agitated and frightened about doing anything. But I knew I had to stand for Christ.

Finally, I told Susan to pray. I took my last drink of water (which I think is funny to picture), and went over and challenged him.

With probably a squeaky voice, I said, “I’ve been listening to you, and you don’t know what you’re talking about!” I did my best to give him a flying rundown of the proofs for the resurrection. He was speechless, and I was half dead. I must have shaken for an hour after that. But I had to take a stand.

We cannot remain anonymous in our faith forever. God has a way of flushing us out of our quiet, comfortable places, and when He does we need to be ready to speak for Him.

1 Peter 3:15 tells us, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.”

Warren Wiersbe wrote: “The resurrection is not just important; it is ‘of first importance,’ because all that we believe hinges on it.”

The resurrection is the foundation of our hope and all we stand for and believe. It is the absolute truth that Christ rose again from the dead.

In our stand for our faith it is important to be able to defend the resurrection against those who would attack it or deny it.

And as we’re doing in this series, when you analyze all the accounts in the Gospels and the many proofs, it grows and emboldens your faith to be able to more confidently share and defend the truth of Christ’s resurrection.

Mark 16:1: “And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint Him.”

Referring to the weekly Sabbath on Saturday, Mark records that “the sabbath was past.” The Sabbath ended at 6:00pm on our Saturday evening. Around 12 hours later, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome came to the tomb.

Three women are identified by name here, a fourth one is identified in Luke 24:10.

All the women who are named that came to the tomb were from Galilee. Mark 15:41 says of them, “(Who also, when He was in Galilee, followed Him, and ministered unto Him;) and many other women which came up with Him unto Jerusalem.” The 4 named women with other women from Galilee came up to Jerusalem with the Lord for the Passover.

Mark tells us that Mary Magdalene came with the women very early on that Sunday morning. Later in this chapter in verse 9, Mary Magdalene is described as one “out of whom He had cast seven devils.” Where the idea got started that Mary Magdalene was the woman caught in adultery in John chapter 8, I’ll never know. That was not her.

In His love and mercy, the Lord had freed Mary from the control of seven demons who had possessed her. And out of her gratitude, she devoted her life to her Lord and Savior. We’ll talk more about Mary Magdalene when we look at John’s account of the resurrection.

Next, Mark refers to “Mary, the mother of James.” In the previous chapter, Mark calls her “Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses” (15:40). “James the Less,” is called so to distinguish him from the more conspicuous apostle of the same name, the James that was brother of John and often grouped with Peter and John: Peter, James, and John.

James the less was “James the son of Alphaeus” says Matthew 10:2, and was one of the twelve disciples. So we learn that Mary was married to Alphaeus. She was the mother of two children, James and Joses, one of whom Christ chose as an apostle, which was James.

Like his mother, James the less, was quiet and in the background. They both loved Lord and served Him inconspicuously behind the scenes. And both Mary and her son James was faithful. We know she was from Galilee, and with her son she followed the Lord.

When it came time for Passover, she, with her son James, and other women from Galilee made the trip to Jerusalem. This Mary was at the Cross and beheld all the events of Cross, including the darkness, Christ’s death, the earthquake, and then His burial.

Mark, as well as Matthew, both pointed out that “Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where He was laid” (15:47).

Out of their grieving love, these two women followed His body to the tomb and sat opposite it as His body was prepared for burial and they saw where He was buried.

Thus, in the darkness of that early Resurrection morning, it was Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joses that knew the way and led the way to His tomb.

This Mary had seen Christ’s body prepared and placed in that tomb. Then on Resurrection Day she stood in that same tomb and saw that now there was no body in there.

Also present was a woman named Salome. A comparison of Matthew 27:56 with Mark 15:40 tells us that she was the wife of Zebedee and the mother of the apostles, James and John. She followed the Lord with her sons when the Lord was in Galilee.

When it came time for the Passover, Salome came along as well with the group that traveled to Jerusalem. Prior to this, in Matthew 20:20-21, wanting what was best for her sons, she made a bold request, asking the Lord, “Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom.”

Believing that Jesus was Israel’s Messiah and that His kingdom was soon to be inaugurated, Salome (probably a little selfishly so) wanted her sons to have prominence and seats of honor in Christ’s earthly kingdom.

The Lord answered her by telling her “Ye know not what ye ask.” Christ did not reject the request of Salome for her children, but corrected it in a way Salome and her sons did not anticipate.

The Lord explained that to be near Him on His throne in His kingdom, meant fellowship with Him in His sufferings and death. Suffering and death is something no mother would want for her children, which is why the Lord gently told her “Ye know not what ye ask.”

Salome’s faith in the Lord and devotion to Him led her to follow the Lord to Jerusalem, and to be present at His crucifixion. Her son John was also there.

And then Salome came with the women three days later to anoint the body of the Lord with spices, and was of the group of women who saw the risen Savior on this day and who fell down before Him when they saw Him, “and held Him by the feet, and worshipped Him” (Matt. 28:9).

Luke records there was also a woman by the name of Joanna. According to Luke 8:1, the Lord with the twelve disciples, went through the cities and villages of Galilee, preaching the good news of the kingdom.

Then Luke 8:2-3 tells that with the Lord and the twelve were, “certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto Him of their substance.”

One of the women who followed the Lord in Galilee was, “Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod’s steward.” We learn three things about Joanna in Luke 8:2-3.

First, we learn that Joanna was the wife of Chuza, the steward or manager of Herod the Tetrarch’s household. This was Herod Antipas, who was tetrarch and ruler over the regions of Perea and Galilee. Joanna’s husband held a prominent and trusted position as a steward in Antipas’s palace in Galilee.

Second, we learn that Joanna had been healed of an unknown infirmity by the Lord.

Third, she, with other women who had been healed by Christ, “ministered unto Him of their substance.” Christ had ministered to her by her healing of her physical infirmity and in turn she ministered to Him.

She and others helped to provide for the Lord and disciples from their means. By “substance” we are to understand that she gave material possessions, money and food.

Joanna honored the Lord with these. Knowing that He and the disciples accompanying Him had very little to support them, Joanna, out of her plenty, gave to their needs and exemplified the grace of giving.

Out of appreciation for her healing and love for the One to whom she owed so much, she devoted her life to the Lord and followed Him, and came up to Jerusalem with Him and the other Galilean women. And she was given the blessed privilege of seeing the empty tomb and having the Lord appear to her on Resurrection Day.

Following the Lord’s burial, Luke 23:56 tells us that the women who had followed the Lord to the Cross, “returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment.”

There’s a couple ways to understand Mark 16:1 in light of this. Either these women “had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint Him” three days before.

Or “when the Sabbath was past” after sunset the evening before the resurrection, they went out and bought more spices in addition to those they already prepared earlier. This is probably what took place, as their evaluation of the spices and ointments they had probably prompted them to make further purchases on Saturday evening.

Mark says they came to “anoint Him.” The purpose of the women comes with the spices was to add their fragrant ointments and spices externally as an expression of their love.

They would have done this earlier if the Sabbath had not intervened. Thus, they came as early as they could following the Sabbath and the first chance they got.

Days earlier, the living body of the Lord had been anointed in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, when a woman came with an alabaster box of expensive ointment of spikenard and poured it on His head.

The Lord said of what she did, “She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying” (Mark 14:8).

Here, these women from Galilee came to “anoint” His body following His death and burial. The only problem was, when they got there, there wasn’t a body to anoint!

Mark 16:2-4: “And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.

“And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great.”

Verse 2 says the women came “very early in the morning the first day of the week.” The Jews didn’t have words for days. They didn’t have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday words in Hebrew.

Instead they used numbers. And all numbers were related to the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week. They started numbering the day after Sabbath. The first day of the week, that is, after Sabbath, the second day of the week, the third day, the fourth, etc.

Verse 3 shows how the women hadn’t thought through everything in the haze of their grief. As they were walking to the tomb, very early on Sunday morning, at the rising of the sun, the women began wondering out loud, “Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?”

They had gone to great lengths to think ahead and prepare the spices, but the stone in front of the tomb was something that hadn’t thought about until they were on their way.

According to Mark 15:46, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joses had observed how Joseph of Arimathea had “rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre.”

It was a large, heavy stone. Mark 16:4 describes the stone as “very great.” It has been calculated that a stone needed to cover an entrance around 4 feet high like the Lord’s tomb would have had would have a minimum weight of 1 ½ to 2 tons.

So it’s no wonder that they were questioning how they were going to move it. It would’ve required several strong men to roll the massive heavy stone away from the door.

Coming with spices to anoint the body and wondering how they would move the stone tells us that they did not know about the Roman guard stationed there or that a Roman seal that had been applied to the stone. This obviously had taken place after they had seen Christ buried and they had left the tomb.

As they wondered aloud about the stone’s removal, verse 4 says they looked and saw that the problem had been taken care of.

The word “looked” in verse 4 means “looked up.” This could mean a couple things. Either their eyes were downcast as they walked in sorrow, and when they approached the tomb, they looked up they saw the stone rolled away. Or it could suggest that the tomb or the stone was at a slight elevation so that they had to look up to see stone rolled away.

All the Gospel records mention the removal of the large stone. And as we analyze and compare the accounts, it reveals something very dramatic about the stone, which is a significant proof for Christ’s resurrection.

In Matthew 27:60, we read how Joseph “rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre.” The word “rolled” is the Greek term “kulio.”

In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the preposition “apo” is added to “kulio” to make it the word “apokulio.” In Mark and Luke this is translated “rolled away.”

“Apo” means, “a state of separation, that is of distance.” It means to roll one object from another object in a sense of separation or distance from it.

Apokulio translated as “rolled away” is a good translation, because that great stone was rolled AWAY from the entrance to the tomb, a distance away, there was a separation between the entrance and the stone.

Then the Gospel of John sheds even more light on how far this stone was rolled away. John 20:1 says that when Mary Magdalene came to the tomb, she “seeth the stone TAKEN AWAY from the sepulchre.”

John uses a completely different Greek word to describe the position of the stone, and it’s the word, “airo,” which means “to carry off,” or “to pick something up and carry it away.”

You see our English word “air” in that Greek word, and that’s the sense: that the 1 ½ ton stone, got some “air” under it.

Putting the gospel accounts together we find that when the angel came and moved that stone away from the entrance, he launched it, he rolled it AWAY from, a great distance away from the tomb entrance, so far away that it looked like someone picked it up and carried it away.

So when you consider one of the theories of why the tomb was empty, that the disciples came and stole the body, why would anyone roll that big, heavy stone that far from the tomb entrance?

And then add the Roman guards into the question, why would anyone move a big, heavy stone that far away from the entrance and possible wake the so-called sleeping guards?

The answer to these questions is an obvious one: no one stole Christ’s body, He arose!

The part that struck the women as they approached the tomb, was that when they saw the stone was rolled away, as Mark adds, “for it was very great,” verse 4 says.

They were worried about moving the heavy stone, but when they saw the very great stone rolled so far away, they wondered why would anybody do that?

The answer is that the angel, by supernatural power, had moved that stone, so that the tomb entrance would be wide open so all could see that it was empty and Christ was risen.

Mark 16:5-8: “And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.

“And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.

“But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you.

“And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid.”

Since the entrance was wide open, the women went right into the tomb. Inside the tomb, they do not find Christ’s body, but they do find a young man sitting on the right side of the stone slab where Christ’s body had lain. This was an angel appearing in human form.

Every Gospel account has some angelic presence at the tomb. Matthew speaks of an angel rolling the stone away, sitting on the stone, and proclaiming the Lord’s resurrection.

Mark speaks of one angel as a young man in a white robe sitting on the right side of the stone slab proclaiming the resurrection of Christ to the women.

Luke describes two men in shining clothes in the tomb standing by the women proclaiming Christ as risen.

In John, Mary Magdalene returned to the tomb a short time later to find two angels sitting where Christ had lain, and they asked her why she was weeping.

What it seems to me is that two angels appeared in the tomb to the women but only one of them talked. Both Matthew and Mark focus on the one angel that gave the good news of Christ’s resurrection to the women.

The angel had an appearance as a young man. He was “clothed in a long white garment,” which we would understand as a white robe.

At the sight of him, the women “were affrighted.” Unlike the soldiers who fainted dead away at the sight of the angels, the women were fearful, but remained conscious.

Aware of their fear, and in response to their fright, the angel said, “Be not affrighted.”

These words are a negative command in the Greek, and it would be like us saying “Stop being afraid.” This wasn’t a time for being afraid, it was a time for joy.

The angel knew they were afraid and he knew why they were there: “Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified.” And then comes the explanation for why He wasn’t there, the three greatest words that have ever been spoken: “He is risen.”

As an emissary from God, the angel’s announcement was the testimony of God the Father. This was heaven’s authoritative explanation for why the tomb was empty. It is backed by the authority and truth of God who cannot lie.

The inspired account leaves no doubt about who had been in the tomb. It was Jesus of Nazareth. It leaves no doubt that He rose again. And because He is risen, we have hope, true hope, a living hope, eternal hope.

To reassure the women, who could hardly believe what they were seeing, the angel tenderly added, “He is not here. Look here is the place where they laid Him.”

He invited them to examine the scene, to take it all in, likely pointing to the empty graveclothes beside him on that stone slab as he did. Christ wasn’t there.

Next, the angel instructed the women to find the apostles and to tell them the good news.

There is grace and kindness in this instruction. When the hour of crisis came, the disciples all scattered. But yet, three days later, God sent the women to tell them that Christ is risen and to meet Him in Galilee. They didn’t deserve that.

Christ loved them with an unconditional love, like He loves each of us.

And notice how Peter is singled out. He is singled out because he was the leader and spokesmen of the apostles, but Peter also NEEDED to hear about Christ’s resurrection. He needed this reassurance and joyful news in light of his recent denials.

The Lord had predicted that they would scatter and He had told them about their regathering together in Galilee after His resurrection. Mark 14:27-28 reads,

“And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended because of Me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. But after that I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee.”

Verse 8 says the women went out quickly from the tomb and fled from it. The other gospel records tell how they went and told the apostles. Here it says that they didn’t say anything to anyone.

But what Mark is focusing on is their immediate reaction, not the final outcome. They were so frightened, confused, and amazed that at first they were silent.

They were afraid to tell anyone along the way, but when they found the apostles they privately shared all that had happened.

1 Corinthians 15:17-19 reads, “If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.”

If the resurrection is not true, the Apostle Paul says that our faith is empty and meaningless and we would be still be in our sins on our way to eternal judgment.

Believers who have died are then currently perishing, being judged for their sins in hell. Like Paul says, if Christ isn’t raised, we are of all men most miserable and wretched.

But then comes the good news, “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Cor. 15:20).

He is risen, and therefore, our faith is not empty or meaningless. It is real. It is the truth.

Having believed in Christ, we are not in our sins. All our sins are paid for and gone. And we are on our way to the blessings, joy, and peace of heaven’s glory.

Believers who have died in Christ are with Christ. Because Christ is raised, we have hope and we are of all men most joyful!