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Home , Mark 15, Mocking of Jesus

! Week 15 – Crucified, Jesus Risen! (-16) Discussion Questions

1. What difference does it make to you that Jesus died on the cross? What is so ‘good’ about ? 2. What difference does it make to you that Jesus rose from the dead? What are the implications for the world?

Read Isaiah 53:1-6 3. How does this passage point to Jesus? 4. In what ways is the violence shocking? How about the reason for Jesus’ death? 5. What does it mean that Jesus would be a guilt offering? 6. How is the depth of ’s love for us declared in the cross? How is grace so much more beautiful than the concept of karma?

Read Mark 15:1-39 7. What most stands out for you in this chapter? Was there something that particularly struck a chord with you this Good Friday? 8. What was the irony in the ‘he saved others, but he can’t save himself’? 9. Which temple would be restored in three days following its destruction? (cf. v.29) 10. What was the significance of a Roman centurion declaring Jesus to be the ‘Son of God’? 11. Why do you think most people would prefer just to think of Jesus as a lovely teacher? 12. All throughout the of Mark people have been confused about who Jesus is. Some thought he was a liar, others a lunatic, and finally some thought he was Lord. Do you have confidence about who Jesus is? What is your response to this? 13. What do you think today most people in Australia think about Jesus? How can we help show them who the real Jesus is?

Read :1-8 14. How is Jesus’ resurrection the defeat of death? When will death be destroyed? 15. What is significant about the angel’s declaration in verse 6? Why do you think the women were afraid? 16. How is our mission similar to the instruction to ‘go and tell’?

17. What have you appreciated the most or found most significant from studying right through Mark’s gospel this year? How have you grown through our Mark series?

St Bart’s Anglican Church

Talk 15/15 (The Gospel According to Mark): 05/04/15 “He is Risen!” by the Rev’d Adam Lowe

Bible Passage: Mark 16:1-8

INTRODUCTION \\ & DEATH

All throughout the , people struggle to understand who Jesus is. And it comes down to this: • Either Jesus is a nobody, of no relevance. • Or there was NO BODY at the • That space makes all the difference.

• Everything hangs on the resurrection. // [B] • CS Lewis put it like this, "Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important."

• Friends, I’m absolutely convinced that Jesus rose from the dead. // • The tomb was empty. • No dead body could be produced by the authorities. • Jesus appeared to many, including 500 people at one time.

!2 • A group of disciples went from being scattered, disillusioned and depressed, at the death of their teacher, to launching the greatest mission the world has ever known. • Being willing to even die for it, because they had encountered the risen Christ. // • We have all the evidence you would expect if Christ rose from the dead. • And Jesus’ resurrection changes everything.

I just want to share three brief implications with you today: Jesus’ resurrection means that: 1. Death has been Defeated 2. Death will be Destroyed 3. Our Lives have Changed Forever

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DEATH DEFEATED \\ PART 1

First, death defeated. The Judaeo-Christian worldview, has always had a an understanding that death is an enemy (cf. Jeremiah 9:21, 1 Corinthians 15:26). • Saying death is an enemy might seem really obvious, but actually in our culture, the way we deal with death rarely addresses it in such a way.

When it comes to death there three common approaches: denying death, defending death, or trying to defy it. • Let’s just take the denial of death. How’s that working for you as a strategy? • It might seem odd, yet denying death is absolutely pervasive in modern society. • One of the most frequently quoted sermons at funerals in the twentieth century is also one of the most misleading… it goes like this:

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. (Canon Henry Scott)

!4 • I don’t think that’s helpful of course things have changed, pretending it doesn’t exist doesn’t allow people to grieve, it doesn’t help us face our own mortality. // • If you’ve ever lost someone, you know the pain it causes. Of course it’s changed. • If you’ve ever witnessed someone die, part of you rails against it and desires life. /[B] • I think we deny it as a culture, because we’re more scared of death than we have ever been.

Yet here’s the amazing news - Christians can be free from the fear of death. • Paul’s audaciously says:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).

• This is like the ancient version of nah-nah-en-nah-nah… • How is that possible? Because Jesus has died and rose again. [B]

• The logic is very simple, it goes like this: • Death entered into our world with sin.

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Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned (Romans 5:12)

• Paul is making it very clear here: Sin and death are linked. And as sin entered the world through Adam, so did death. And as all have sinned, death comes to all.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23)

• B) But because on Jesus all that sin was laid, once and for all, we were reconciled to him. • Any payment notice that might have come, has been paid. Jesus fulfilled it, because of his incredible love for you. // • AND death could not hold him down. • The resurrection is the very confirmation of the work of Jesus on the cross. [B] • Sin: defeated. Death: defeated. Fear of death: defeated.

!6 DEATH DESTROYED \\ PART 2

But death is not only defeated, it will also be destroyed.

The need for that should be pretty apparent for us, because death is still happening - defeated but not yet destroyed. • And what is critical for us to understand is that the future life that Christians hope for, is a bodily, physical resurrection. • If it is any less than that, then death hasn’t really been defeated. • Or it’s been defeated in the spiritual realm, but not the physical realm.

When it comes to death being destroyed, we might be tempted to think as some disembodied spiritual realm, wafting about on a cloud, but that’s not what it is about. • An eastern view of the physical world says that matter is just an allusion. • A western view of the physical world (enormously influenced by the Romans and Greeks) says matter is bad and lesser. • But the biblical view says that God created the physical and spiritual and just as they both have broken, both will be redeemed. !7

We long for that. It’s a great human longing. • Who wouldn’t like a new body!? • When we’re not denying or defending death, society is often trying to defy it. • People chase after new, better, stronger, younger looking bodies. • Harvard geneticist Professor David Sinclair said: 'We are seeing the beginning of technology that could one day allow us to reach 150.’ • The problem of course is that despite all of the wonderful gifts of medicine, we’ll never be able to stop our perishable bodies from doing exactly that. • The last clutching of straws to defy death is the industry around having bodies or your head cryogenically frozen in the hope that one day there will be a cure. • I’m here to say: there is a cure. His name is Jesus. • We’re promised not only a perfect body, but an immortal one! • Sounds like every second infomercial! But this is the only one that can follow through. • Jesus promises of our bodies, redemption of our entire world. • God has not abandoned his good creation, but redeemed it in the person and work of Jesus because of his love. • He will transform and renew it. !8 Over the last couple of months on Facebook, I’ve seen a prototype of a new product - that a company is trying to get approved: they’re called ‘organic burial pods’. Basically, the notion is that you are buried under a tree, and as your body decomposes (I don’t think they use that word in the marketing) it feeds and grows the tree.

Their marketing spiel goes like this:

One thing we do know for sure is that not one of us will escape death, and so you might as well know how you want to be buried. No matter what your faith, or if you believe in an afterlife, these organic burial pods that turn loved ones into trees make the idea of death a little more comforting.

Friends, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a tree. [B] I don’t want to be absorbed into the ocean like one drop amidst trillions. I want to live. I want to feast. I want to dance. I want to be in God’s presence. I want to see the brokenness in our world overturned. I want to see the ill well. The poor rich. The hungry fed. The lonely loved. The marginalised embraced.

That’s all possible because of the .

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Just as Christ’s resurrection was bodily and transformed - so too is ours. • He ate. He spoke. He touched. • He entered into rooms. • He clearly asserted that he was not a ghost! • It is because Jesus IS risen that we can be confident of our resurrection. • Paul says, Jesus’ resurrection was the first fruits of the harvest (1 Corinthians 15:20). • Jesus’ resurrection drags our in its train. • Jesus’ resurrection - salvation through him addresses our entire reality.

And not just us, but the whole world too. From brokenness to wholeness.

..when Jesus rose again God's whole new creation emerged from the tomb, introducing a world full of new potential and possibility. Indeed, precisely because part of that new possibility is for human beings themselves to be revived and renewed, the resurrection of Jesus does not leave us passive, helpless spectators. We find ourselves lifted up, set on our feet, given new breath in our lungs, and commissioned to go and make new creation happen in the world.” N T Wright

!10 OUR LIVES ARE CHANGED FOREVER \\ PART 3

Jesus’ resurrection means that our lives are changed forever. • It means: that God loves you and welcomes you more than you can ever know. • It means: death has been defeated. • It means: when Christ returns death will be destroyed. • It means: that every believer can have complete assurance that our sins have been paid for. • That God likes the physical and spiritual and will redeem both. • It means that Jesus’ resurrection was a birth from death and dance of victory over death and over him who had the power of death! • It means that new life is bursting into our entire world. • It means that we have a job to show what that new life looks like. • It means that Jesus’ victory, can be your victory.// • It means we can live with a freedom, we have a hope, that is practically incomprehensible in its wonderfulness.// • And it’s bursting into our world today. ///

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All four record that the women came to the tomb. In less than 10 verses, Mark tells us the names of the women. He’s doing this to remind us that this is real, not imagined. And we see that they had no anticipation at all that Jesus would be alive. • We know that because they brought expensive spices, things with which to treat the body. • Despite all of Jesus’ foretelling that he would rise, no one actually anticipated it. The disciples didn’t say, hey, it’s day three, let’s check it out. • So expecting a body, they instead are greeted by a messenger. • They’re terrified. And this is what he says. • Don’t be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified, He has risen, he is not here. See the place where they laid him. • Now go and tell.

!12 Friends, is Jesus just a nobody to you, or do you believe that there was no body. That he was risen. If that messes with your minds, don’t worry, it did for the first eyewitnesses too.

If Jesus rose from the dead, he cannot possibly be just a little important. An entire new order of things, an entire new kingdom, has burst into the world through Jesus’ resurrection. And when you believe in him, when he’s your king, you’re part of that new kingdom. It just takes a heart that’s open to him.

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