Today we're up to page 67 is what I have. Is that right? Because we stopped at the bottom of 66. So we are up to... We looked at just maybe intro from last time. We were able to look at the courage of Joseph of Arimathea, right? That he found courage. Sometimes you have to go looking for it, right? And by the grace of God, He was able to have the courage to go and to identify with Christ before the man who had ordered Jesus to be crucified. And you're identifying with the condemned. And that's a huge thing. And we saw all of the details that Mark lays out for us, and the positive record of the ladies who are still observing, and all the male disciples have run and hid, so to speak. And so that ends Friday at sundown, which then opens up for the Jewish mindset. Saturday begins at sundown on Friday afternoon, right? So they have the evening first and then the day, right? There was evening and there was morning from the book of Genesis and that pattern carried over and still carries over to this day. But what we have is Jesus has been buried, and in between verse 47 of chapter 16 and verse 1, we have what is Well, yeah, Mark doesn't really address so much the evening, Saturday evening, but he does address Saturday, the Sabbath, and he is... These ladies have been waiting because they know they can't Because it's Sabbath, right? So there are just limitations to what you can do and what you can't do. And that's chapter 16 in verse 1, and when Sabbath has passed. So now we have gone to Sunday. Right? Sundown on Saturday would be the beginning of Sunday. That's what Mark describes. Now, Mark does not address the issue of what Matthew does, that the Jews were able to get guards stationed and to get the tomb sealed. For whatever reason, Mark chooses not to address that. Now, what Mark does record for us is that Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices. Now they wouldn't have been able to buy them until after sundown on Sabbath, right? Stores are closed. So we know that the stores are now open. They were able to go out and purchase these things. What did they do? They bought spices. They bought, literally the Greek word is they bought aroma. Now we think of aroma as something that people without colds can smell things and we say well there's an aroma. Well, for them, aroma was the thing that caused the smell, right? We think of it, it's the effect of the herbs and spices. That's the issue here. Now, it says that they went out and bought spices so they might come and anoint him. This is an unusual thing because he's the victim of a crucifixion. His body is in horrific condition. Physically his body, especially his back, is shredded. He's been whipped. He's been scourged. He has been sliding his torn back up and down the vertical piece of the cross just so he could breathe. Lifting himself up and doing that. And it's unusual for anybody to do what they're doing here, to bring spices, aromatic spices for the victim of a crucifixion. This tells us of their devotion to Christ. And it tells us that even though, even all that Jesus has went through, they still want to honor Jesus. Two things about these oils and salves that they're going to use. Number one, it's going to help cover the smell as that corpse decays. Now they didn't embalm. and some still do not embalm today. In fact, if you see news footage from the Middle East, it's one of the few accurate things that you do see on the news, is that when somebody is killed, they put them in a box right away and they carry them on their shoulders, usually through a crowd, because it's on the news, and they got to bury them the same day. And we don't obviously do that. Somebody has told us that we aren't supposed to do that because it's just better to give people time to come together for the funeral. And so somebody has said, well, then you need to embalm, right? You don't have to have, by the way, you don't have to have your loved one's body embalmed if you get buried within X number of hours. You don't have to pay for all the embalming. At least that used to be the case. But for them, we're going to bury him, but again, John 11. Don't open, don't move the stone away from Lazarus's grave. Why? Because he stinks, right? So, cover the odor of the decaying corpse. Now, I should back up. This is in addition to the 75 pounds of spices and salves that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus put on. Okay, so how much, whatever these ladies are going to bring, we don't know, but the point is it's in addition to. Secondly, it's to express their love, their loving devotion or their respect for their loved one. So these ladies are committed to Christ. Mark puts them in a very positive light. So for those you interact with people who say, well, the Bible hates women, take them to the book of Mark. Mark portrays the women in a very positive light. So people are going to think what they want to think, but they can still be wrong. It's their choice. All right, so they've purchased the spices. They want to come and anoint him. They're going to do this probably after sunrise on Sunday. And if the chart that I looked at is accurate for Jerusalem, sunrise is going to be 623 in the morning on this day of the year. So they've purchased them, and they'll show up Sunday morning to add spices. All right. We turn the page, if we can, and head on to April 5th. It's an important day, isn't it? April 5th. Isaac's birthday, right? Gabe's birthday. All right. It's actually the day that I got saved was April 5th as well. So it's just not this April 5th. Not quite that old. So. All right. That's the verse 2. And very early on the first day of the week, so we've already described that, that is Sunday, April 5th, about 630-ish in the morning, they come to the tomb when the sun had risen. And they have a practical question there. Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb? There's no good answer to that, right? The men are all gone. The men are all hiding. So who is going to do it? Now that tells us how heavy the stone was. Right? It tells us that this was your typical, ordinary, rounded stone. And the ones that we saw when we were in Israel were four or five inches thick. And they were roughly three foot or a little bit more in diameter. So they're a pretty good size. It's more than just picking up a paver stone from over at Menard's, right? Putting it on your cart. Talking about almost the size of a section of concrete on your sidewalk. You think of it that way. Except for with rounded, right? It's rounded. But that's heavy. And the ladies recognize that. Now this is not a condemnation of them. This is not saying, oh, this is putting them in a negative light. It's just they don't know what they're going to do. And verse four says, and looking up, Perhaps they have been, well, isn't this the way we do it? When it's still, the sun is up, right? The light, you can begin to see the light in the sky. First light is before actual dawn. So they can see, and yet, you're in a garden. Right? You're outside the city walls, well that means whatever sun is, light is coming over the amount of olives is going to be obscured because there's a city wall. So you're in the shade. And it's early morning. And so what do you normally do when you're walking in those kind of conditions, right? You're normally making sure you don't trip over something or slip on the ice, right? As somebody did in our family this morning. Not my wife. Because I was not looking down, right? But we do that, right? Just kind of making sure we step in all the right spots. Maybe it's because of all the cats around Jerusalem. I don't know. But the point is they were carefully walking and they look up and they see what? The solution has already been provided. Right? See, they're making an assumption. They had observed on Friday and that is still the reality in their process of thinking. So they're saying it hasn't changed any by the time we get there Sunday morning. I mean what possibly could happen between Friday night and sunrise on Sunday? There's been Sabbath in between and But we do that, don't we? That's what we do. We remember those last things that we perceived, and we assume that those things are still the way they are. And God has already provided the solution. And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, although it was very large. This tells us that even the ladies, and even though the ladies have been portrayed in the kindest and in the best of light, they're still not thinking about what Jesus said. And after three days, the Messiah will be raised again. Now, that doesn't mean to condemn the ladies, because the men aren't thinking that way either, right? All of Jesus' disciples, his learners, have failed to grasp the lesson. After three days, I will rise again. And he's told them that on more than one occasion. Can you kind of picture the setting and verse five? Now, this is not an easy thing to do when it says that they entered, and entering the tomb, Now, again, assuming that this was a consistent, a constant in their culture, the tombs that we observed in Israel, and archaeologists have observed, there's a consistency that the top of the entrance to the tomb is about right here. So, in order to get in, you need to humble yourself. Crawl on your hands and knees inside, and then you can stand up. I don't know why they don't make taller doors. I don't know. It's just what they did. Maybe because they knew they could roll the stone in front of it. And besides, who wants to go in? Right? Just the oldest son has to go in after the first year and gather up his parents' bones and put them in the bone box and stick them on the shelf, so to speak. But either way, what this does, though, So they've observed Sabbath, they've observed Passover, they've observed Sabbath, and now on this first day of the week they've come to show honor and respect to Jesus, and yet his tomb is open. So again, it's another perception, and what does your mind do, right? Well, Why? And how? So, for them to enter into this tomb, they seem to have pushed aside the reality that if they go into that grave, they become ceremonially unclean. They're going to have contact with the corpse. They're going to have contact, well, as Jesus talked about the whitewashed sepulchers, right? They would, in Israel, in certain parts of the certain parts of the country, because the tombs are the same color as the rest of the hill, so you wouldn't contaminate yourself, they would encourage people to paint the face of the tomb around the door, paint that white, so you would know to stay away. Right? It's a little warning sign. and before Osha came up with something on it, but that was their way of protecting people from being ceremonially defiled. These women just pushed that aside. This is courage. Again, it's devotion. It's love for Christ. So, I don't know if they stood there and said, who wants to go first? We don't know. But, they entered the tomb and now Mark tells us they see somebody they didn't expect. At the same time, they did not see someone they did expect. Whose tomb is it? Well, let's back up. It's Joseph's tomb. Well, Joseph is still alive, because we just saw him, you know, the other day. So now it's Jesus's tomb, because Joseph doesn't need it yet, right? It's a borrowed tomb, just like Isaiah describes for us. But they expected to see what? Jesus's corpse. Which tells us, again, they did not believe what Jesus, they hadn't grasped the teaching of Jesus about his resurrection. And yet they do see somebody, but somebody they did not expect. And it says, they saw a young man sitting on the right side wearing a white robe. Here's an understatement in the book of Mark. And they were amazed. So, I think that's a legit response. Right? You come in, you're expecting to see Jesus, and we don't know what side of the grave Jesus would have been laid on. But this guy is sitting on the right side. And there's probably... What's the best way to draw this? So if it's a cave, they're all rounded because that's the only thing I can draw here. And there would have been this walk-in. Some of the graves have, let's do this from, we turn this sideways. Some of them had steps down into a lower area. Does that make sense from here? And then there was a shelf on this side and there would have been a shelf on that side. So the young man's sitting on the right. Now under these shelves there would have been, there's an opening, at least again the ones we saw, there's an opening so that when the corpse has decayed sufficiently you can just toss all the the remains down into this hole. And when we were the ones in Jerusalem, what you can expect to find in there were candy wrappers and pop cans. I don't think that was the case in their time frame. I'm making an assumption. But that was just, no, we showed respect. He's decayed. He's been gathered to his father's. Throw them in with the rest of them and eventually those will decay and they'll move on. So that is, if that makes sense, that's the situation here. They're greatly perplexed. They're amazed at seeing this guy. Again, they've come in with presuppositions and their presuppositions have been blown out of the water. That's not a bad thing. So, verse 6. And he says to them, now again Mark does not record there's a second angel here, but that doesn't mean that Mark is wrong, it doesn't mean that Matthew is wrong. They just have a different emphasis. Right? It's not a contradiction. So what does this angel say to them? The first thing is, don't be amazed. How do we stop that? Right? That's very similar to Do not fear. Get a grip. You need to back up and process this in light of faith. You've had the emotional response. You've come to this tomb and you're assuming all these things. You have all these presuppositions and now you step into the tomb and nothing is as you anticipated. So your emotions, your imagination is running rampant. You have all this stuff going on. And what does the angel tell them to do? Focus. Go back to what you know is true. That is the revelation that God has given to them. And so he tells them not to be amazed. Secondly, he tells them, I know why you're here. See that? You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene who has been crucified. And they're probably nodding. Yeah, yeah, that's why we're here. And then he reminds them of what Jesus said would happen. He, literally, he has been raised. Not he is risen, which is an active, but it's a passive. He has been raised. the Father raised him from the dead, right? But other passages in the New Testament tell us that Jesus raised himself. In fact, Jesus himself says in John 10, I lay my life down and I take it up again, right? So it's not a contradiction, it's just what the angel is saying here, that he is no longer here, he has been raised. And I've given you several references there on the father's resurrecting work and the son's resurrection work. Robertson says of Jesus here, do not be amazed for you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, the crucified one. the shame of having been crucified, but the necessity of having been crucified to pay the penalty for our sins. And what Robertson points out here is that this is a description, this description of his shame has also become his crown of glory. He is the crucified one. So when we think of Jesus being crucified, we don't, as Gentile believers now, we do not see that as a thing of shame. We see it as something that is glorious. That he paid the penalty by being crucified. Sproul made a comment, by the way, that, and that's why I said this contradicts Sproul's commentary. Sproul says it was only the father is identified as the one who raised Jesus from the dead, and I think Sproul was wrong. So I pointed that out for you. So what does the angel do for us here? I know why you're here. tells him he has fulfilled his word. He has been raised. He is not here. And then he tells them, you can observe this for yourself. Behold the place where they have laid him. So if he's sitting on the right side, I guess you can look at this a couple different ways. Maybe the angel can just say, look at the rest of this right side, or he can just point across the hallway of the tomb, so to speak, and say, see, he was on the left side, that's empty. Empty of his body. So then he says, what, verse seven, but go and tell his disciples This is an interesting way of saying this, right? Tell his disciples and Peter. Now, what was the last time we saw Peter? He was weeping over his denial of Christ. And I think Peter is like the rest of us, or we're like Peter. When we've sinned something that we think is so grievous, what do we normally do? Well, I'm just done. God's done with me. And we just assume, well, we could maybe be forgiven, but we'll never be reinstated. Go and tell the disciples and Peter, What words of grace, words of mercy. Now again, this angel is not the angel of the Lord, it's an angel of the Lord. He doesn't have all perfect knowledge, but apparently the Father has told this angel what to say. Angels do not come up with their own, they're not inventors of information, right? Angels are messengers of God's revelation. So apparently the father told this angel, write this down. This is what you need to say. Go and tell his disciples and Peter. He is going ahead of you to Galilee and there you will see him. And notice then what he says. Just as he told you. Now, I think there's a mild, to some extent, a mild rebuke there. He's told you all this stuff ahead of time. And you haven't believed the first part about his suffering and his burial and his resurrection. Well, now that we're through all of that, he also told you that I'm going before you into Galilee. So at least remember that part, okay, just as he told you. And how did these women respond? Verse 8. And they went out and Which again, probably have to get back down on their hands and knees, unless they're really flexible. Well, they're shorter, right? So maybe it's not so far down for them to bend. But they were able to get out of the tomb, verse 8, and then they fled from the tomb. For what? Why are they running? What does it say there? For trembling and astonishment were gripping them. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. So, they disobey. And I put it in quotes there. Is it a really horrible act of flagrant disobedience? Well, they disobey the command to not be amazed. For, what did it say? For trembling and astonishment were gripping them. He had told them, Don't be, what did he say? Don't be amazed. Well, they still are amazed. But it's kind of his fault, right? If you know what I mean. When I was a little kid, it was the great dare among the young people of our town. Our cemetery was up on top of the hill. Not down in the river bottom where the rest of us, but they were up on top of the hill in this spot. And in the graveyard, our graveyard was all the old people from you know, the mid-1800s. And then, so that was over there, Civil War casualties and so on. And then there was on the west side and there was all the new people, so to speak. But on the north side, there was this really big tombstone that had metal plates on the side. And I'm not sure the whole point of it, but one of them, the bolts had come loose. So these metal plates on this tombstone, I dare you to go look in the tomb. Well, what are you going to see in there, right? Well, your mind says, oh, you know. And your siblings or the kids from town tell you all sorts of possibilities that you're going to see in there. Well, you're going to see what? A concrete slab, right? Because that's what the tombstone is sitting on, this concrete slab. So you're not going to see maybe some spiderwebs. But that's about it. But these ladies have come in. expecting to see the dead, the corpse of Jesus. And yet they find somebody who is very much alive. And for trembling and astonishment were gripping them. I think it's appropriate for us to cut these ladies some slack for disobeying the command to not be amazed. I think they're not doing this out of rebellion, right? Well, he told us to be. They're not responding that way. This is just natural. And secondly, they disobeyed the command to communicate with the apostles. Remember they were supposed to go tell the disciples, tell his disciples and Peter, right? And it says in verse eight that they said nothing to anyone. So they disobeyed. Now again, I don't think it's because of rebellion. You know, it's not a, they are here to honor Christ. Right? They are here to show their adoration and respect to Jesus's body. And yes, they are, Mark says, they are afraid. Technically, is it a sin? I would be hesitant to say it's a sin in the fact that a sin for something, for an action to move from just an action to being a sinful action, there has to be an act of the will that says, I'm going to do this. This is an emotional response. Now, is there an act of the will involved of running away from the tomb? Well, in a sense. But is it the same as I refuse? It's not rebellion. So are they disobedient? Yeah, but can we cut them some slack on that? I think so. I think it's understandable what happens here. So, Mark has been so gracious with these ladies, and I think we can imitate Mark in that regard. Well, that leads us, and I'm going to stop here, but if we can pick up with verse 9 for next time, and I've tried to deal with this. This is that section and there are those who will say you should never teach as scripture Mark 16 verses 9 through 20. because there's such a difference in the Greek texts on this. And I'm going to try, I've given you a whole sheet of paper on this, trying to explain this. That's why I want to spend more time. I think we can deal with this next time. So if you can read through that. There's different from verses 9 through 20. In the Greek text there are three possibilities when you're looking at the Greek text. You're going to see some of them will stop at verse 9. Some will have a little bit shorter ending, and then there are these that go from verses 9 through verse 20. I think we can work our way through that, and I don't want to belabor that, but I think we can deal with it.