The Hope of Jesus
The Hope of Jesus
Mark 16:1-8
Mutushiro Watanabe and Louis Zamperini’s lives became forever linked. Louis Zamperini was an US Oylmpian turned Air Force pilot who became one of the most famous POWs in American military history. Zamperini spent 47 days at sea after his plane crashed killing 8 of the 11 crew members. Zamperini was rescued by the Japanese and placed in Japanese prison camp under the control of Mutushiro Watanabe. Watanabe was born into a wealthy Japanese family on January 18th, 1918. He led a life of privilege and was not denied any of his heart’s desire. When he enlisted in the army, they did not consider his privileged upbringing and gave him the lowly title as corporal. He was humiliated by this apparent disgrace and became a bitter, angry, vengeful soldier. He earned the reputation as the ruthless ‘Bird’ known for his merciless punishment of his captives.
Watanabe used all sorts of psychological, emotional and physical torture to literally starve hope from Zamperini. Day after day of beatings, without food, mental and emotional torture, Zamperini barely held out hope for his release. Even though he was eventually released and the torment continued. He suffered from post traumatic stress and an endless barrage of nightmares. Zamperini suffered cruelly at the hands of the Watanabe and that harsh treatment caused him to become like his captor bitter, angry and vengeful. Two men, both bitter, angry and hopeless. Maybe you can relate with them.
Zamperini was a victim of war crimes, but he came to realize that he was also guilty of crimes against a higher authority. He was a criminal who robbed God of glory and needed a Savior. He gave his life to Christ, and chose love over hate, mercy over punishment. In 1998, 50 years after his release, Zamperini penned a letter to Watanabe, his ruthless, evil captor,
As a result of my prisoner war experience under your unwarranted and unreasonable punishment, my post-war life became a nightmare. It was not so much due to the pain and suffering as it was the tension of stress and humiliation that caused me to hate with a vengeance. Under your discipline,...it was a struggle to maintain enough dignity and hope to live until the war's end. The post-war nightmares caused my life to crumble, but thanks to a confrontation with God...I committed my life to Christ. Love has replaced the hate I had for you. Christ said, "Forgive your enemies and pray for them." As you probably know, I returned to Japan in 1952... I....forgave you and now would hope that you would also become a Christian.
Only in the power of the resurrection can replace hate with love, grief with hope, judgment with mercy. Have you experienced the power of the resurrection? Do you know this hope?
Many of you may not be able to share in Zemperini’s experience as a POW, but I am sure that many of you have felt starved of hope this past year. The last year has brought unbelievable stress and anger and visible hatred in our culture. Some of us will battle post traumatic stress from what we experienced through Covid and isolation from it, relational strife brought on in political and racial tension, and the challenges of theological drift and moral confusion. It has been a hard year full of sorrow, and sadness.
And yet in the midst of darkness, light shines the brightest. I do not know what trials you are walking through in your life, but I pray that you would find true and lasting hope in Jesus and an empty tomb. I pray love would replace hate, joy would replace sorrow, and life would replace death. My hope for you is the same that Zamperini had for Watanabe that you would discover true and lasting hope in Christ and the power of the resurrection.
Yet before we can discover hope, we have to realize how desperately we need it.
Starved Hope in the Death of Jesus
It is hard to imagine the pain of loss that rested in the hearts of the disciples the Saturday between Black Friday and Easter Sunday. Can you imagine the fear and the pain of the disciples? They walked with Jesus for three years. They ate together and served together. Their mighty leader brutally condemned and crucified. The eyes of the world, Jesus was cursed. Those disciples experience the worst Sabbath of their lives. It was full of fear and the unknown. Their master, their king, their friend was dead. Those of you who know grief, know it rises early in the morning. Mark 16:1–3,
[1] When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. [2] And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. [3] And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” (ESV)
And we begin Mark’s account of the Resurrection with, “When the Sabbath was past.” It was a Sabbath starved of hope, full of grief, but all was about to change.
One of the greatest signs of the veracity of the resurrection account is that all of the gospels give a prominent place to women as the first witnesses of the resurrection of Christ. In the first century, women would not have been ideal choices to fabricate a story because they were not looked as reliable witnesses. They were not even allowed to testify in court. Mark highlights the role of women of the discovery of the resurrection because that’s what happened.
Women were faithful in their ministry to Jesus throughout his life so it is expected that their faithfulness to him would continue in his death. We read in Mark 15:41, “When he [Jesus] was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.” The two Marys followed the body and saw the tomb where he was laid. It is impossible to share the story of the kingdom of God without the sharing of the faithful women who walked with and served Jesus Christ. And yet, these women, as faithful as they were during Jesus' life, still had lost hope in the Lord Jesus.
They had lost hope in Jesus being the Lord, because they were going to the tomb to see his dead body. They had brought spices to anoint the body for they believed he was still dead. They went to the tomb expecting the stone to be up against the entrance and the body of Jesus to be in the tomb. Mark recorded three times that Jesus explicitly told them what was going to happen that he was going to die, and he was going to be raised. The last time is in Mark 10:33-34,
[33] saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. [34] And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.”
If the women and the men along with them believed that Jesus Christ was the Lord, they would have trusted his word. They would have gone to the tomb with anticipation and excitement knowing that they would have seen the risen Jesus. Yet, they went to serve his body in death.
I wonder how many of us are like these women. We are serving Jesus. We are doing what we believe we should be doing, but the whole time, we do not believe and trust in his word. Our lives are more characterized by fear than faith, by worry than trust, seeing life through earthly eyes rather than through the eyes of the Spirit. Every time we do not believe and trust God’s Word, we are denying that Jesus is Lord. The Lord never breaks his promise. His Word never fails. Take your life this past week, has it been characterized by faith in the promise of the resurrection? Have you lived in hope of the life to come? Or have your greatest fears and anxieties overwhelmed you because you haven’t really trusted God’s word that he will care for you and be with you?
If you are not a follower of Christ, it may be hard for you to believe in the resurrection. It was hard for the disciples of Jesus even though Jesus explicitly told them it was going to happen. It was outside the possible their rational minds could understand. Maybe that’s where you are, you just cannot believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Maybe you believe Jesus said some good things and maybe even did a few apparent miracles, but you may believe his body was taken by his disciples and that the whole Christian religion is a farce. Or it could be, what you believe is farce, a lie? Many think in our day that they can do whatever they want and there will be no punishment. Eat, drink, be merry for tomorrow we die. I believe most people deny the resurrection of Jesus, not because they have studied the facts or examined history, but rather because they want to continue to do what they want to do. They do not want to follow Jesus as Lord because Jesus has demands for your life. He wants to be King and rule. He has a code of conduct, and obligations and work. But let me ask you, if you are not a Christian, what is your hope in death? Truly, when you die, (for you know that you will die), what will your hope be in death? Do you think you will cease to exist? Do you think that because your good deeds outweigh your bad ones that you go to heaven? You can try to ignore the question, but one day you will have to answer it.
We can see in these women, faithful disciples of Jesus, that it is hard to believe in the resurrection. These women went to the tomb not expecting a resurrection. They believed that Jesus was dead and lost and with him so was their hope. They were starved of hope until they looked up and saw the stone rolled away.
Saving Hope in the Resurrection of Jesus
Some of the greatest witnesses of the power of God are those who were not expecting to see the power of God. The women were not ready to see the resurrection, but they were the ones to first witness it, Mark 16:4-6,
And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back—it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.”
As they approached the tomb, the large stone was rolled away. They entered the tomb and turned to the right where the body should have been laid, but instead saw a young man dressed in white robe. Mark’s description along with the other gospel accounts inform us that the women saw an angel. This angel sees that these were alarmed.
The Greek word for alarmed here is common in Mark’s gospel. Mark uses it both as amazement or as terror. The translator decided to use the word ‘alarmed.’ I think there would have been a mixture of both amazement and terror as those women entered the tomb. They were expecting to see Jesus, but he was gone. The angel saw their fear whether by divine revelation or by observing their fear on their faces, and said, “Do not be alarmed.” The angel calmed their fears by sharing the truth of the resurrection. The truth of the resurrection should always calm our fears. Whether we are just beginning to inquire of Jesus Christ or whether we have been lifelong believers, hearing of the resurrection of Jesus Christ should calm all our fears.
The angel uses a very specific title for Jesus. He says, “You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.” Mark draws out the historical Jesus Christ. He confirms to the women that they were in the right place, but Jesus was not there. There are some who claim that Jesus’ resurrection was not a bodily resurrection, but merely a spiritual resurrection. In a society that is growing increasingly secular, the idea that a man could be raised from the dead is often too hard to grasp. The New Testament does not explain the resurrection in spiritual terms, but explains the resurrection of Jesus Christ as an event of history. The man Jesus from Nazareth, Mary’s son, who grew up in the region of Galilee of Judea, who was actually crucified on a real Roman cross on a literal day in history, Jesus of Nazareth, has risen. It is important to note that the New Testament teaches a literal bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. We should accept the historical record of the Bible explaining a real event in History.
Humans fear death. Just think of how the fear of death has gripped our world over the past year. The desire for survival is the greatest of human instincts. The resurrection of Jesus Christ should calm our fears because it solves our greatest problem. Through Adam’s sin, death came into the world. Romans 5:12, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” All human beings desire to survive because they know, in the deepest part of their hearts, that after death they will face judgment for their sin. We cannot escape the fear of death because we know that we are going to meet God. This is why the gospel is so good!
We can have hope in death because Jesus came to die for us. He came to take our judgment on the tree to be cursed for us. Galatians 3:13
[13] Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—
The resurrection proves to the world that God accepted Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf because he was a perfect man without any sin. The Bible says, 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake, he who knew no sin, became sin for us so that we may become the righteousness of God.” We rejoice in the literal, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ for it proves that Jesus literally took our punishment on the cross. He literally rose from the dead so he could be our real and only hope for salvation. If anyone turns from their sin and trust in Christ as their Lord, they will be saved.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is God’s stamp of approval of his sacrifice. Mark uses the Divine passive in Mark 16:6 implying that it was God that raised Jesus from the dead. God raised Jesus to calm the fears of the world by giving them the hope of the resurrection. If you have not trusted in Christ as your Lord and Savior, the resurrection is your invitation to turn from your fear of death and put your hope in Jesus Christ. God approved of Jesus’ sacrifice and now he is asking you to turn from your sins and receive his mercy so that you can be born again to a living hope through Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is undefiled, imperishable and unfading kept in heaven for us through faith in Him. Will you heed the words of the angel spoken to those women so many years go, “Do not be alarmed. He has risen.”
The women lived in fear because they did not trust the words of Jesus. Friend, allow Jesus to calm your fears by trusting in his words. Believe in his resurrection and have true and lasting hope.
Sharing Hope of the Resurrection of Jesus
The resurrection demands a response. It is so miraculous that we must respond to it by telling everyone we know about it. The angel told the women how they were to respond, “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” The angel confirms the word of Jesus himself. Go and tell the disciples that he will be waiting for you in Galilee, just as he told you. Jesus’ word is true because he is the Lord. His Word is always true and therefore it is worth sharing.
The last verse seems strange as the women are gripped with fear and silence. Mark 16:8, “And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” The earliest Greek manuscripts do not include Mark 16:9-20. It is believed that someone added the last section of Mark’s gospel because it appeared that the ending was too abrupt. It did not make sense to the earliest Christians that Mark’s gospel would have ended with the women being afraid. Scholar James Brooks, provides three reasons why he believes that Mark’s gospel ends so abruptly and is fitting with the rest of the book.
First an ending with references to trembling, bewilderment, flight, and fear is not surprising or out of place as many have thought because Mark previously recorded similar reactions when people observed the power of God being manifested in Jesus. (All throughout Mark’s Gospel, people respond to God’s power with fear and amazement.)
Second, the abrupt ending is quite in harmony with the abrupt beginning of the Gospel. Just as Mark recorded very little that preceded the ministry of Jesus, so he recorded very little that followed it.
Third, Mark had a definite purpose in his ending. He apparently wanted an open ending to indicate that the story was not complete but was continuing beyond the time he wrote. He wanted his readers/hearers to continue the story in their own lives. By stating that the women told no one, he challenged his readers/hearers to assume the responsibility of telling the good news to everyone.[1]
I especially appreciate his last observation. Christianity does not end with hearing about the resurrection, but with Christians going and sharing what they have seen and heard.
Mark ended his Gospel with the women fleeing in silence. Their silence challenges our silence. How often are we silent when it comes to the resurrection? How often are we silent when speaking to our neighbors and coworkers and family members about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Do we truly believe in the resurrection? If we believed that Jesus literally, bodily rose from the dead for the salvation from sin and death, how could we not share it?
The women left the tomb in silence, but we know they didn’t remain silent. They may have left in fear, but on the way home something happened. They remember the words of Jesus Christ, the Lord, their Master and King. Luke 24:8-10, “And the women remembered Jesus’ words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles.” They remembered.
Jesus’ resurrection was promised. Jesus’ resurrection happened. Our resurrection is promised. Our resurrection will happen. Beloved, this is the great hope of the world. If we are in Christ, we will experience a resurrection like his. We will be raised to eternal life. And we are overcome by fear and worry and anxiety and sorrow and grief, we must remember. We must remember Jesus Christ. We must remember his death for our sins. We must remember his resurrection from the grave. We must remember that as He was raised from death so will we. The resurrection is not meant only for Easter morning. The resurrection is for every day.
The resurrection frees us from death and from the fear of death. It should also free us from the fear of sharing this hope with the world. Beloved, Jesus is risen. There is no greater news in all world!! Do not be afraid, remember the resurrection and share the hope of Christ.
My unbelieving friends, what could make the disciples who ran away in fear before the crucifixion gladly and joyfully willing to face death for their faith? The resurrection. What could make saints willing to be burned at the stake? The resurrection. What could make believers give their lives to the call of the gospel in a land far from home? The resurrection. What could make Louis Zamperini forgive his tormentor for years of abuse and torture? The resurrection. What can free you from the fear of death? The resurrection.
Beloved, what can help you overcome sin? The resurrection. What gives you the power to persevere in difficulty? The resurrection. What frees you to love people who are difficult? The resurrection. What gives you hope in the midst of grief? The resurrection. How can you persevere in any and all trials? The resurrection.
The resurrection frees us from fear and worry. The resurrection frees us to suffer with hope. There is power in the resurrection.
Romans 8:18 - [18] For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us...IN THE RESURRECTION
2 Corinthians 4:14,16-17 [14] knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence..[16] So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. [17] For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison...IN THE RESURRECTION
1 Corinthians 15:51–53 [51] Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, [52] in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed....IN THE RESURRECTION
Do you know the power of the resurrection? The key to all of life is remembering the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Beloved, He is risen. Never forget. Always Remember. He. Is. Risen. If and only if you are in Christ, you will be raised too. Hope is always there for us in the resurrection. Do you believe in the power of the resurrection? Christ is Risen, he is risen indeed. Let us never forget. Let each and every day be governed by the hope of the resurrection. Jesus is alive!