! Week 15 – Jesus Crucified, Jesus Risen! (Mark 15-16) Discussion Questions 1. What difference does it make to you that Jesus died on the cross? What is so ‘good’ about Good Friday? 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 God’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 mocking of Jesus ‘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 Gospel 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 Mark 16:1-8 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 \\ CHRISTIANITY & DEATH All throughout the Gospel of Mark, 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 tomb • 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 !3 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. !5 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 redemption 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.