The Empty Tomb (Mark 16:1-8)

On Friday, things couldn't have been any worse. Jesus Christ, who had been preaching and healing for three years, had been completely abandoned by even his closest friends. One of the twelve people closest to him had betrayed him. One of his three closest friends had cursed, saying that he didn't have anything to do with Jesus. Not even his family believed. The story was over. Jesus had joined the history heap. He was just one of countless messiahs who came, built up a following, and then flamed out. If the Gospel of Mark ended at chapter 15, then Jesus would have been nothing more than a footnote of history, maybe getting a line or two in some ancient text but nothing more.

But just when things are at their worst, everything changes. In just 8 verses Mark shows us that everything has changed. In these 8 verses we're going to see that Easter was a surprise; that Easter includes us; and that the Easter story continues.

First: Easter is a surprise.

If you had lived at the time of Jesus, you would have understood that Jesus was just one of many messianic figures who came, and ended up dying disappointing deaths. For instance, Simon bar Kokhba led a revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 AD. He set up an independent Jewish state, and ruled for three years as ruler. But his revolt was eventually crushed, and today his name is hardly known. After the failure of the revolt, rabbinical writers began referring to him by a new name. Instead of calling him Bar Kokhba ("Son of a Star") they started calling him Bar Kozeba ("Son of the disappointment"). If the story of Jesus ended in Mark 15, this would have been the story of Jesus as well. Disappointment. Failure. End of story.

Now, Jesus had told his disciples over and over again what was going to happen.

"We are going up to Jerusalem," he said, "and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise." (Mark 10:33-34)

Here it is the third day, and absolutely nobody has even considered the possibility that what Jesus said would come true. His disciples are scattered. In verse 1 of this passage, three women come as soon as they can, early in the morning, with spices to anoint the body of Jesus. These spices would be very costly. They were designed to help deal with the stench that a decaying body would create. Nobody is expecting a resurrection. They expect to find a bloodied and decaying body there. Not a single person expected anything other than a dead body. As far as they were concerned, the story was over. Theologically, they didn't even believe that a resurrection could even take place in this age. That is something that the Jewish people believed would take place at the end of history. They certainly didn't expect Jesus to be risen from the dead.

Sometimes we make the mistake of reading the Bible and thinking that of course ancient people could accept the story of someone rising from the dead, and now we're so much more sophisticated. What you need to understand is that nobody back then expected the resurrection of Jesus. They didn't even have categories for it. When other leaders were killed, nobody thought to make up a story of resurrection.

The people in Mark didn't get it either, and yet something happened to transform them completely. A group of first-century Jews who were scattered and defeated and had no category for the resurrection were suddenly changed to emboldened witnesses who were prepared to give up their lives speaking about what they'd seen. As Pascal put it, "I [believe] those witnesses that get their throats cut." Virtually all of the disciples and early Christian leaders gave up their lives testifying to the resurrection of Jesus. Something happened on Easter morning that nobody had expected that changed everything.

If you're here this morning and you have a hard time believing the resurrection, join the club. There's not a person in the Gospel of Mark who expected it to happen. But something happened that changed everything - and is still changing everything today. Easter is a surprise.

But then, secondly, we see:

Easter includes us.

Mark 16:1 says, "When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body."

It's easy to miss how shocking this is. These women had been witnesses of Jesus' death. "Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome" (Mark 15:40). Two of them, according to Mark 15:47, witnessed where Jesus was buried. Now these three women are about to become the first witnesses to the empty tomb, and to the message of the angel.

What's so surprising about this? In Jesus' day, women were viewed as being unreliable witnesses. Their testimony was not considered admissible evidence. N.T. Wright makes the point that if you were inventing the story of the resurrection, you never would have made the first and best witnesses to be female. It would have been too inconvenient. The only reason you would say that women were the first and best witnesses is because that's what actually happened. It's there because it's true.

But it's surprising for another reason. The readers of Mark's Gospel would have understood that one of these three women, at least, was a woman with a past. Mary Magdalene was somebody who had previously been demon possessed. Luke 8:2 calls her "Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out." At least one of these three women is somebody who has a history.

What does this tell us? Mark is showing us how the gospel turns things upside-down. People who are excluded, who are pushed to the side, are the first and best witnesses of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. The least likely people become part of the Easter story. You may be here this morning thinking that you're the least likely person. The first to be discounted in human society are the first to be included in divine society.

And just in case we get ahead of ourselves, Mark still points out that we won't get it right away. These women go to the tomb. They enter into a small chamber in the tomb and see a young man sitting there. This young man - an angel - announces the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They're told to go tell the disciples. All along, Jesus has told people not to tell people about him. Jesus commanded people to silence, and they spoke. Now, they're compelled to speak, and what do they do? Verse 8 says, "Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid." Easter is for the least likely people, but even the best of us blow it. The Resurrection changes us. The gospel changes us. But it's a process. Easter includes people like us, people who are the least likely to be included, people who still blunder in our responses to God and who don't get it right away.

What about the disciples? The angel told the women, "But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you'" (Mark 16:7). Before Jesus was betrayed, he told his disciples:

"You will all fall away," Jesus told them, "for it is written:
"'I will strike the shepherd,
and the sheep will be scattered.'

But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee." (Mark 14:27-28)

The disciples had completely blown it. Jesus had told them over and over again what was going to happen, and they just couldn't get it. And when put to the test, they caved and they fled.

And out of all the disciples, no failure was more dramatic than Peter's. Peter had sworn emphatically, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you" (Mark 14:31). But when the moment came, Peter denied even knowing Jesus. Out of all the disciples, except for Judas, Peter knew that he had let Jesus down profoundly.

Yet the message was, "But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.'" You see what this means? Jesus hasn't written Peter and the other disciples off.

Easter includes unlikely people. It includes people who blunder. It even includes people who have completely and utterly failed. Easter includes people just like us.

That's what Mark has been showing us so far. Easter is a surprise. It caught everyone by surprise. Nobody expected. And Easter includes us - the unlikely ones, the blundering ones, the failures. There's one more thing Mark shows us:

Finally: the Easter story continues.

You'll notice this morning that we've looked at verses 1 to 8. There's a reason. The oldest and most reliable manuscripts end at verse 8. Early church fathers don't seem to know of anything beyond verse 8. It seems like the last verse we have that authentically and originally comes from the pen of Mark is verse 8. Verses 9 to 20 seem to have been added later as a way to smooth out the ending.

I don't want to get into all the theories this morning about why Mark ends the way it does. Some think Mark meant to end this way. Others think that something happened - Mark wasn't able to complete his book, or what he originally wrote was lost. In a sense it doesn't matter. We learn a lot about what happened from the other records. No doctrine is affected no matter what we conclude about the abrupt ending of the Gospel of Mark.

But you have to agree that it's a strange way to end. Women come to the tomb and find the stone rolled away. They meet an angelic messenger who tells them that Jesus is risen, and he gives them a message to pass on to the disciples. Jesus is alive, and he's going to reconvene his community. The story continues. And then: "Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid." The end. Amen. Let's pray.

What a strange way to end the book! You can see why they'd try to neaten the ending and smooth it out.

But let's think for a minute. Those who first read Mark's Gospel would have known that this wasn't the end of the story. They would have heard the stories of Jesus' resurrection appearances. The very fact that the Gospel of Mark had been written would have been evidence that this wasn't the end of the story. Easter Sunday had set in motion a series of events that had transformed the disciples. Somebody points out that you have all the raw materials you need: an empty tomb, the young men's message, Jesus' indication that he's not done with his disciples yet. It's left to us to pull it together and to trace the line from what happened then to where we are today.

No matter how you understand the ending of the Gospel of Mark, it points out that Easter Sunday was not the end of the story. It's only the beginning. The resurrection of Jesus set in motion a new story that has not yet finished or resolved. It's a story that includes us today.

In a sense, Mark's Gospel ends at verse 8. For all we know, there was more, but we don't know. What we have ends, though at verse 8. But the story that Mark has begun to tell is a story that continues right to the present day. Jesus has been raised from the dead. It's taken us all by surprise. And Jesus is calling the most unlikely people - people who have let him down - to join his community of followers, and to announce the good news that Jesus is alive and has finished his work. The Gospel of Mark is over, but the story isn't. The story continues to this very day, and it includes you.

I'm glad that Mark ends with the disciples scattered and the women scared. I'm glad because we know that it doesn't end there. God transformed them into a group of people who, through the power of the Spirit, turned the world upside-down.


But it gives me hope, because some of us are scattered and afraid today. There's hope for us too. Easter may be a surprise, but the Easter story includes you in. It pulls you in so you see that Jesus has risen, and is alive, and the story continues. And it's a story that includes you.

Father, thank you for Easter. We've seen that Jesus bore our sins and our shame. But we've seen today that this isn't the end of the story. Jesus also rose to give us new life. You vindicated him, and he now sits at your right hand as King.

But you take us - those who are caught off guard, those of us who don't matter, who blunder in our responses, who flat-out fail you - and you pull us into the story. You take us and use us to change the world, not because we're strong, but because Jesus is risen.

So change us. Would you draw some of us even now into this story. We thank you for Jesus, for what he did. We thank you that he lives. And we pray in his name, the name of the risen and reigning King. Amen.

The Death of Jesus (Mark 15:21-47)

At first glance, the death of Jesus looks like a horrible defeat. In the passage we just read, Jesus is alone and abandoned. Instead of defeating the Romans as the Messiah, he's killed by the Romans. His own friends abandon him, and he's surrounded by mockers and strangers. And he dies with a loud cry, and it's over, and then he's buried. Why would Christians celebrate this death? Why do we call this Good Friday?

But you'll notice as you look at this passage that there's more than meets the eye. Because in this passage Mark tells, first, us that history's changed. Not only that, Mark tells us that our lives can change as well. Finally, Mark shows us, what took place at the cross is not a defeat; it's actually something that's worth celebrating.

First, History's Changed

Let's see how Mark shows us that history has changed by what takes place in this passage. In verse 33, right before Jesus died, we read: "At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon."

This detail - the darkness - is so important that it's mentioned by three of the four gospels. This couldn't have been an eclipse. Why? For one thing, an eclipse only lasts for a few minutes. Passover - which is when Jesus died - took place during a full moon, and eclipses only take place when it's a new moon. So this was no eclipse. Some people think it might have been a dust storm, but a dust storm would have been unlikely at this time because it was the wet season.

What Mark is telling us here is more than a weather report. Mark is showing us the significance of what happened. In the Bible, darkness means judgment. In Deuteronomy, God warned Israel:

However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you...At midday you will grope about like a blind person in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you. (Deuteronomy 28:15, 29)

One of the Hebrew prophets foretold a day when God would judge the nation of Israel. Amos predicted that God would call his people to account for their injustice. He said:

"In that day," declares the Sovereign LORD,
"I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight."
(Amos 8:9)

What Mark is saying is significant. We're going to look at the other events that take place around the cross. You're going to see that a lot is going on. But for three hours, the focus is not on any human activity, but on unnatural darkness. And it's not a darkness that goes to midnight. It's a darkness that ends at the death of Jesus. For three long hours, time passes as the death of Jesus takes place in unnatural darkness. Judgment. Isaac Watts wrote:

Well might the sun in darkness hide
And shut his glories in,
When Christ, the mighty Maker died,
For man the creature's sin.

What's going on at the cross? This isn't simply somebody's death. This is something far more than that. This is divine judgment. At the cross, Jesus bears the full weight of divine judgment for sins that we had done. God finally judges - but instead of judging those who had done wrong, God bears the judgment himself for all that we had done. As one person puts it, "Christianity is the only faith system where God both makes the demands and meets them" (Tullian Tchividjian). That's what happened at the cross.

But there's more. Verses 37 to 38 say: "With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom."

At the very moment that Jesus dies, something unbelievable happens. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. There were actually two curtains in the temple. One, the outer curtain, separated the sanctuary from the outer porch. The other was the inner veil that separated the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. Only the high priest could enter in, and only once a year for a moment. The curtain was 60 feet high and 30 feet wide. We don't know which curtain it was, but Hebrews identifies it as the inner curtain.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body... (Hebrews 10:19-20)

At the cross, Mark is saying, Jesus bore the judgment of God. And something happened at the temple which showed that the death of Jesus changed everything. At the cross, Jesus took the punishment for the sins we had committed. He experienced the judgment that should have been ours. At the death of Jesus, something happened that made the temple system of sacrifices and priests and all that it involved obsolete. This wasn't just an ordinary death. History changed at the cross.

But it's not just history that changed. Mark shows us something else in this passage. Here's the second thing that Mark shows us:

Secondly, Mark says, Our lives can change as well.

Do you notice the motley crew of characters in this passage?

In verse 21, we meet Simon of Cyrene. He's from north Africa. He stumbles upon the scene, and his family is changed as a result. Mark mentions his sons, Alexander and Rufus, presumably because his sons would have been familiar to the original recipients of Mark's book. A stranger from Africa stumbles upon the scene, and it evidently transforms his family.

Then there are three big surprises. In verse 39 we read, "And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, 'Surely this man was the Son of God!'" The centurion in this passage would have observed the death of many crucified criminals. He's the last person you would expect to be changed. But something about the way Jesus dies grabs him. He says that Jesus is the Son of God. The Romans called the emperor's son the son of god. This soldier transfers the title of the most revered figure in the Roman imperial cult to a Jew who's just been crucified. The first human witness to describe Jesus as the Son of God is not a disciple, not a Jew at all, but a Gentile army officer with no previous connection to Jesus. The disciples don't get it; the religious leaders don't get it; this Roman officer gets it. He may not have understood the full significance of what he said, but he gets that this is no ordinary insurrectionist. He understands that something more is going on. This is the true Son of God, who does not die in failure. He dies fulfilling his Father's will.

Then there are the women. Verses 40-41 say:

Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome. In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there.

What's surprising about this? In all cultures at that time, women were viewed as inferior. Their testimony was not accepted. Up until this point, women had played a very minor role in the Gospel of Mark. Mark doesn't mention any female disciples. But here, at the climax of the Gospel, the male disciples have deserted Jesus, and the women are still there, faithful to the last. They are the witnesses of all that takes place. They are the ones that saw Jesus die; they saw his body being laid in the tomb; they are the ones who find the tomb empty. They are the only eyewitnesses of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. God entrusts the message of the resurrection to them. This is one evidence, by the way, of the accuracy of the Gospels. If you were making a story up, you would never invent that women are the first eyewitnesses. You'd only write that if it were true.

Do you see what Mark is showing us? The death of Jesus is turning everything upside-down. It's changing families of a random person walking by; a Roman soldier becomes the first to grasp something of who Jesus is at the cross; women who are normally excluded are brought into the very center, and become eyewitnesses of the greatest event in redemptive history.

There's one more person who's changed in this passage. We read in verses 43: "Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body." Joseph, Mark says, is a prominent member of the Council, the Sanhedrin - the group that has just condemned Jesus. He has significant social standing in Jerusalem. And yet he risks his life here by going to Pilate and asking for the body of Jesus. Romans usually left bodies hanging on the cross until they decayed as a warning to other would-be rebels and slaves. And yet Joseph puts his reputation and life at risk by asking for Jesus' body. And even more shockingly, he prepares the body for burial himself. Preparing a crucified corpse for burial would have been an unthinkable task, certainly well below what a man like Joseph would ever do. It was a job that was usually left for those much lower than him.

Do you see what Mark is showing us in this passage? What happened at the cross changed history. At the cross, Jesus bore God's judgment, and he made a new way for us to approach God. But it didn't just change history. It changed people. At the cross, the death of Jesus changed the lives of the most unusual people, people who would otherwise have nothing in common. It's still changing the most unlikely people: people from all different nationalities; people who are religious and people how aren't; people who are prominent and powerful and people who aren't. The death of Jesus changes history, and it changes lives as well.

There's one more thing Mark wants to show us.

The death of Jesus is not a defeat; it's a victory worth celebrating.

In this passage, Jesus is remarkably silent. Mark records only two times that Jesus says anything. As he dies, Mark says in verse 37, he lets out a loud cry. And in verse 34 he cries, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

What is this about? At first glance it looks like the desparate cry of someone who's been completely abandoned by God. It is that, but it's actually much more.

If you study the gospels carefully, you'll notice that this is the only time that Jesus addresses God as "My God." Every other time that Jesus refers to God, he calls him Father. Jesus addresses God not in terms of the intimate relationship he enjoyed with God as his Son; he addresses God at a distance. And his cry, "Why have you forsaken me?" gets to the heart of what happened at the cross. On the cross, Jesus is experiencing the immense pain of divine abandonment. Centuries before, the prophet of Isaiah wrote:

Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save,
nor his ear too dull to hear.
But your iniquities have separated
you from your God;
your sins have hidden his face from you,
so that he will not hear.
(Isaiah 59:1-2)

Isaiah says that our sins have separated us from our God. The Bible teaches that God's eyes "are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing" (Habakkuk 1:13). On the cross, all of our sins were poured on Jesus. When he took on the sins of the world, "he became the most grotesque, most obscene mass of sin in the history of the world" (R.C. Sproul). And at that moment, God turned his back on Jesus. He hung in the cross cut off from the relationship he had enjoyed with his Father throughout eternity. He didn't just feel forsaken; he was forsaken. Phil Ryken put it this way:

It was as if God had taken a giant bucket and scooped up all the sins of his people - all the jealousy and the lying, all the rebellion and the stealing and the incest, all the hypocrisy and the envy and the swearing - and dumped them all out on Jesus Christ. "The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6). "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us..." (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Once he had done that, God the Father had to forsake all that sin. When Jesus was wearing our sin on the cross, God the Father could not bear to look at the sin or at his Son. He had to avert his gave. He had to shield his eyes. He had to turn his back. He had to condemn and reject and curse and damn that sin...When Jesus Christ picked up our sins, he became a curse for us, and when he became a curse for us, he was accursed by God. God was not forsaking his Son as much as he was forsaking the sin the Son was carrying.

I said this was good news. So far I haven't told you how this is good news, have I? It's good news in two ways. First: "The forsaking of the Son of God on the cross is a fearful thing, but it's good news for sinners who repent" (Phil Ryken). Why is it good news? Jesus was forsaken so that we don't have to be forsaken. He was rejected so that we can be accepted. At the cross, he was cut off from God so that we could be brought in.

It's also good news because of where Jesus got this prayer: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Jesus is actually quoting Psalm 22. Psalm 22 is the prayer of someone who is being attacked, someone who feels abandoned by God. When Jews quoted the Hebrew Scriptures back then, quoting one verse would be enough to bring up the whole passage. So many of those hearing Jesus quote Psalm 22:1 would have remembered how Psalm 22 ends: it ends with vindication. It begins like this:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from the words of my groaning?
(Psalm 22:1)

But it ends like this:

For he has not despised or scorned
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.
(Psalm 22:24)

Jesus is saying that he knows the abandonment is not the end of the story. God will vindicate him. There's more:

All the ends of the earth
will remember and turn to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations
will bow down before him...
(Psalm 22:27)

As Jesus goes to the cross, there's more than meets the eye. At the cross, history changed. Not only that, but lives were changed. At the cross, Jesus was cut off from God so that we wouldn't have to be cut off. Because God did not reject him forever, neither will God reject us when he place our faith in Christ and understood what he did for us at the cross.

So help us see beneath the surface, Father. Thank you that on that Friday long ago, history changed. Thank you, though, that it's not just history that changed. For two thousand years now, you've been changing lives because of what Jesus accomplished at the cross. He bore our sins; he was cut off so we wouldn't have to be.

Help us see the cross. And I pray it would change us today. We pray in the name of the one who was rejected so we could be accepted, in the name of the one who gave his life so that we could live. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

Enduring the Shame (Mark 15:16-32)

We're in Mark 15 this morning. Jesus has been tried and condemned, and abandoned by everyone. We are now moments away from his death in this passage.

But before Jesus is killed, we have an interlude. And in this interlude we notice two things. One: that Jesus is mocked. Two: that in the entire time leading up to his death, Jesus does nothing to resist what's happening. He never raises his voice to defend himself. He willingly endures whatever comes his way as he moves closer to the cross.

As we look at this passage we're going to see three things. First: we're going to learn about ourselves. Second: we're going to learn about Jesus. And then lastly, we're going to learn about what Jesus accomplished for us not only in his death, but in the hours leading up to his death.

First: let's learn about ourselves in this passage.

What's shocking in this passage is the extent to which Jesus is abandoned. Look at this passage and what takes place immediately before:

• In 14:43, Judas - one of the twelve disciples that Jesus had chosen - betrays him with a kiss.
• in 14:51, another one of his followers runs away naked. Some think that this person is Mark himself. Whoever it is, it points to the complete failure of Jesus' friends to support him when the moment came.
• In 14:65, members of the Sanhedrin - the top religious leaders - spit on Jesus, covered his face, and struck him.
• In 15:13-14, the crowds call out for Jesus' death.
• In 15:15, Pilate had Jesus scourged. Scourging meant that Jesus was tied to a post and beaten with a leather whip that had pieces of bone and metal that would tear through the skin. Scourging itself was sometimes fatal.
• In 15:16-20, the guards sarcastically mocked Jesus as a supposed king.
• In 15:29-30, those who passed by the scene of the crucifixion mocked Jesus. They wagged their heads and taunted him.
• In 15:31-32, the chief priests and scribes joined the mocking.
• In 15:32, even those who were being crucified alongside Jesus joined in and mocked him.

It's absolutely shocking as we read this. Jesus is completely and utterly abandoned by everyone. Jews and Gentiles, religious and non-religious, leaders and ordinary folk, and even criminals join in the mocking. His own friends betray him.

What is this supposed to teach us? Martin Luther, a monk and Reformer who lived 500 years ago, wrote:

Let us meditate a moment on the passion of Christ. Some do so falsely in that they merely rail against Judas and the Jews.

Let's stop there for a minute. Luther was saying that 500 years ago, some would open up the Bible as an excuse to attack Judas or the Jewish people. In other words, the Bible became a tool they used to point the finger at others, and even to engage in racist behavior. Luther continues:

The true contemplation is that in which the heart is crushed and the conscience smitten...Take this to heart and doubt not that you are the one who killed Christ. Your sins certainly did, and when you see the nails driven through his hands, be sure that you are pounding, and when thorns pierce his brow, know that they are your evil thoughts...The whole value of meditation of the suffering of Christ lies in this, that man should come to the knowledge of himself and sink and tremble.

Do you see what Luther is saying? There are two ways to read this account. One is to read it and to shake our heads at the people who mocked Jesus. We look at them and condemn them. The other way to read this account is to contemplate that this is a passage that reveals our hearts. This passage shows us to be enemies of God who abandon and mock him, because nobody is excluded from this passage. Everybody joins the mocking. Everybody abandons Jesus. As Luther says, "The true contemplation is that in which the heart is crushed and the conscience smitten."

This passage both humbles us and raises us up. First, it humbles us. You know, it's easy to blame a group of people to which you don't belong. We've all been parts of groups in which we begin talking about the faults of others who aren't like us. But what if we are all put on even ground, and what if there is no difference between us? That's exactly what happens in this passage. Everyone is humbled. Everyone abandons Jesus. The religious mock him; so do the irreligious. Jews mock Jesus; so do the Gentiles. His friends abandon him; strangers shake their heads at him. Nobody gets off. Everyone is humbled as we read this passage.

But this passage also raises us up. What do I mean by this? Because we're all in the same boat, nobody here can claim superiority over the other. Everyone of us is equal in our need for Christ. We're all brought to the point of sinking and trembling. But we're going to see in a moment that there is hope for us in this passage as well.

This is the first thing that Mark asks us to see in this passage. Everyone is guilty. Everyone abandons Jesus. Everyone joins in the mocking. All of us are humbled. All our hearts our crushed, and all of our consciences are smitten.

Secondly, let's learn about Jesus.

If you've ever been falsely accused, you know how you want to respond. You are going to let people know the truth. There's no way that you are going to allow people to spread falsehood about you and to ruin your good name. Yet in this passage, Jesus is falsely accused and verbally attacked, and he says nothing. He's silent.

If you've ever been physically attacked, you know that we all instinctively either fight or flee. But in this passage Jesus does neither. He endures the blows and is beaten and shamed, and he doesn't raise a voice or a fist to defend himself.

This is especially significant because had Jesus stuck up for himself, he would have been very convincing. Adrian Rogers writes:

If Jesus had risen up in his own defense during his trials, I believe he would have been so powerful and irrefutable in making his defense that no governor, high priest, or other legal authority on earth could have stood against him! In other words, if Jesus had taken up his own defense with the intention of refuting his accusers and proving his innocence, he would have won!

We've seen that Jesus is incredibly convincing whenever he's had a verbal confrontation with anyone in this gospel. Jesus is never at a loss for words. But in this passage, Jesus says nothing in his defense, nor does he make any move to avoid what's happening to him. Centuries earlier, the prophet Isaiah had written of Jesus:

I offered my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;
I did not hide my face
from mocking and spitting.
(Isaiah 50:6)

In other words, Jesus willingly endured the mocking and the spitting. Hebrews 12:2 puts it this way: "For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame." It's here that we learn something very important about Jesus.

What do we learn? In a sense, everything that is said about Jesus is true in this passage. They mock him as King of the Jews; ironically, they're right. He is the King of the Jews, except he's a king who suffers. Read verses 29-32:

Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!"

In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe."

What are they saying? They're calling on him to save himself. They accuse him of saving others, but not being able to save himself. And in a way they're right. Don Carson imagines what it would have been like if Jesus had taken them up on their challenge:

This would be a pretty remarkable and convincing display of power, and the mockers would be back-peddling pretty fast. But in the full Christian sense, would they believe in him? Of course not! To believe in Jesus in the Christian sense means not less than trusting him utterly as the One who has borne our sin in his own body on the tree, as the One whose life and death and resurrection, offered up in our place, has reconciled us to God. If Jesus had leapt off the cross, the mockers and other onlookers could not have believed in Jesus in that sense, because he would not have sacrificed himself for us, so there would be nothing to trust, except our futile and empty self-righteousness.

But then Carson explores the meaning of their statement, "He saved others, but he can't save himself." Carson says:

The deeper irony is that, in a way they did not understand, they were speaking the truth. If he had saved himself, he could not have saved others; the only way he could save others was precisely by not saving himself. In the irony behind the irony that the mockers intended, they spoke the truth they themselves did not see. The man who can't save himself--saves others.

One of the reasons they were so blind is that they thought in terms of merely physical restraints...But those who know who Jesus is are fully aware that nails and soldiers cannot stand in the way of Emmanuel. The truth of the matter is that Jesus could not save himself, not because of any physical constraint, but because of a moral imperative...It was not nails that held Jesus to that wretched cross; it was his unqualified resolution, out of love for his Father, to do his Father's will--and, within that framework, it was his love for sinners like me. He really could not save himself. (Scandalous)

Jesus was completely capable of saving himself - but then he couldn't have saved us. So he willingly chose to endure the mocking and the spitting. He willingly chose to suffer and die so that we could be saved. He chose death so that we could live.

What is this about? Maybe a movie from 1938 will help. The movie is called Angels with Dirty Faces. James Cagney plays the part of Rocky Sullivan, a celebrity criminal who is the hero of all the young juvenile delinquents in the city. He's about to go to the electric chair. The night before his execution, he's visited by his childhood friend Jerry, who is now a priest trying to save inner-city kids from a life of crime. Jerry makes a request of Rocky. He asks Rocky to disgrace himself so that his juvenile followers can live.

I want you to let them down. You see, you've been a hero to these kids, and hundreds of others, all through your life - and now you're going to be a glorified hero in death, and I want to prevent that, Rocky.

Rocky can't believe it.

You asking me to pull an act, turn yellow, so those kids will think I'm no good...You ask me to throw away the only thing I've got left...You ask me to crawl on my belly - the last thing I do in life...Nothing doing. You're asking too much...You want to help those kids, you got to think about some other way.

Jerry is saying to Rocky, "It's them or you. If you go down in glory, these kids are going to go down in shame. But if you go down in shame, if you're willing to throw away everything you have, your entire reputation, then they can be saved." But Rocky refuses.

The next morning he walks out to the execution chamber as Father Jerry watches. He comes out with a snarl. When one of the guards insults him, he slugs him. He's in control. He's going down in glory. But when he gets to the door of the death chamber, suddenly he begins to squeal like a child. "No! I don't want to die! Oh, please! I don't want to die! Oh, please! Don't make me burn in hell. Oh, please let go of me! Please don't kill me! Oh, don't kill me, please!"

Father Jerry, as he sees that happen, looks to heaven. The next day, the newspaper says:

At the fatal stroke of eleven p.m. Rocky was led through the little green door of death. No sooner had he entered the death chamber, than he tore himself from the guard's grasp, flung himself on the floor, screaming for mercy. And as they dragged him to the electric chair, he clawed wildly at the floor with agonized shrieks. In contrast to his former heroics, Rocky Sullivan died a coward.

You see what Rocky did? He substituted his life for the boys. He gave up his reputation so that he could save others.

You see, we are in that story. We are those boys whose life is about to go down. And Jesus is in the story too. He can either save his reputation and his life or save us. And in the most stunning reversal, he offers his life and his reputation so that we could be saved. He substitutes his life and everything he has for us.

Friends, we've seen ourselves in this passage this morning. We're crushed because we are the ones who mocked him. We've seen Jesus in this passage. He willingly endures the mocking and the spitting, because he can either save himself or us. He can't do both. And amazingly, he chooses to save us. There's one more thing we need to see this morning.

Finally, let's see what Jesus accomplished by enduring the shame.

Have you ever been shamed? I mean, really shamed? We see it happen with celebrities and politicians. Scandal hits, and somebody's good name becomes fodder for the late night comedians. We've seen it in business. You spend a lifetime building a good reputation, and you hit one rough patch and your name becomes mud. Think of the worst thing that you've ever done being made public. It would be enough to disgrace every person here.

What does that have to do with this morning's sermon? You've probably been told that Jesus died for your sins. I believe that this morning's passage also teaches us that Jesus did more than this. Adrian Rogers puts it this way: "The Bible teaches that when Jesus took our sin, he took all the punishment that goes with that sin. A part of that punishment is shame."

You see, Jesus assumed your sin. But in this passage he also assumed the shame. Jesus didn't just die; he was humiliated and shamed so that you don't have to be. Romans 10:11 says, "Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame."

As one person put it, "You don't have anything to prove to us or the world. The work is finished at Calvary, and that work has unlimited meaning and value. Keep your focus there" (Jack Miller). You have nothing to prove. You never have to be ashamed. Jesus took all the shame. And anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.

So Father, humble us this morning. We see ourselves clearly in this passage. We are those who mocked him. Everybody abandoned him. Our hearts are crushed, and our consciences are smitten.

But we see Jesus, who willingly endured the mocking and the spitting. He couldn't save himself and us at the same time, so he chose to save us. For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame.

Because he took the shame, we don't have to be ashamed. Help us to trust in him and in what he did. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.

Two Kingdoms (Mark 15:1-15)

We're in Mark 15 this morning. In Mark 15, the book of Mark is reaching its climax. Jesus has been betrayed by Judas and abandoned by his disciples. He has been arrested and beaten and condemned by the religious leaders. And now he's in his last hours. He's about to face his death, but before he does he's going to come up against Pilate, the Roman governor who was in charge of Judea. Only Pilate had the power to condemn Jesus to death. So as we approach this morning's passage, Jesus is bound and beaten, completely abandoned, and about to lose his life.

This morning's passage is really a contrast between two people. Mark has set this scene to contrast two types of strength, two kingdoms. One type of strength is the strength that we all aspire to; the other type of strength is what we'll avoid at all costs. Mark is going to show us what true strength looks like, and if we understand this, it's going to turn our church and our lives upside-down.

First, let's look at the strength, the kingdom, that comes from power.

When Jesus was alive, Rome was in power over the nation of Israel. Because Rome was so huge, they appointed governors in different regions to maintain order. The Romans allowed self-government, so that each nation felt like they had some of their identity and autonomy. But the real power belonged to Rome. They had the ultimate say. They had all the military and economic power, and what they decided is ultimately what happened.

So as we open Mark 15, Jesus is brought before the most powerful person he has ever met in his life:

Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, reached a decision. They bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.

"Are you the king of the Jews?" asked Pilate. 


"You have said so," Jesus replied.

The chief priests accused him of many things. So again Pilate asked him, "Aren't you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of."

But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed. (Mark 15:1-5)

Notice the contrasts.

Scholars tell us that these events took place early in the morning, because Roman officials began work at daybreak so they could be free by midmorning to pursue activities of leisure. Pilate was going to enjoy the rest of his day; Jesus was on his way to being killed later that day.

Pilate was connected to the most powerful people in the world at that time. He was a mover. At one point he was considered a possible future emperor. He had connections and knew how to access the levers of power. Jesus had no connections. His closest friends had abandoned him. He had no access to the levers of power, and was completely abandoned, even by those closest to him.

Pilate was sitting in a palace. The trial probably took place in Herod's Palace, which was used by Roman governors when they came to Jerusalem for the feasts like Passover. It was encircled with ramparts and towers. It was the largest and most elaborate of Herod's palaces. It had two huge and elaborate reception halls in which you could entertain hundreds of guests. One historian from the period said described it as "the king's palace, which no tongue could describe. Its magnificence and equipment were unsurpassable." The historian wrote that this palace had rooms that were even more magnificent than the Holy Temple, Herod's greatest edifice in Jerusalem. Pilate had free access to all of this magnificent palace. Jesus, on the other hand, came as a prisoner, bound and about to be beaten and condemned.

Pilate had troops at his disposal. It is written that he had "power even to execute." He hadn't been afraid to use his power either. Luke 13 tells us that he had once mixed the blood of Galileans with their sacrifices, perhaps in response to a riot. Pilate was the law, and he could essentially determine what was going to happen. There was no appeal, no supreme court to second guess his decisions.

In short, Pilate has wealth, connections, power, and leisure. Jesus has nothing - no money, no friends, no power, and no freedom. The contrast between Pilate and Jesus in this passage couldn't be more striking.

I want us to see this today because Pilate has everything that we can hope for in our own lives. Henri Nouwen wrote:

Our addictions make us cling to what the world proclaims as the keys to self-fulfillment: accumulation of wealth and power; attainment of status and admiration; lavish consumption of food and drink; and sexual gratification without distinguishing between lust and love.

I don't know about Pilate's sex life, but everything else that Nouwen mentions is what Pilate had, and what we long for too: the accumulation of wealth and power; the attainment of status and admiration; the best food and drink. Pilate had it all. He had everything that we spend our lives trying to get. We want the connections, the money, and the power. In this passage, Pilate embodies everything that we normally want for ourselves.

But notice what happens in this passage. Pilate has all the advantages, but it's Jesus who seems to be in control. We read in verse 10 that Pilate perceives that the real reason Jesus is on trial is because of the jealousy of the religious leaders. Pilate comes to an accurate conclusion about Jesus, and realizes that Jesus isn't guilty of treason. It's here that you begin to realize that what Pilate has is the appearance of power. He's not a free man. In verses 6 to 15 he tries to free Jesus, but the crowd won't let him. Look a little more carefully and you begin to see the problem with Pilate's strength.

He has access to the best that Jerusalem has to offer - but he hates the place. He has all the power, but he's learned from the past to pick his battles. He's already backed down from one battle with the Jewish people, and here again he gives in. It turns out he's really not in control after all. Eventually he is removed from office and and travels in haste to Rome to defend himself against charges. Before he could get there, the Roman emperor died, and so Pilate disappears from history. Nothing more is known about him. Pilate is a man who has everything, but even in this passage you see that there's really nothing there.

Listen. You and I will spend our lives chasing everything that Pilate had. Many of us are doing this right now. We want the money, the leisure, the respect, and the power. But this passage shows us the futility of this kind of strength. These things are idols that promise the world but that ultimately never deliver. Mark contrasts the strength of Pilate with the weakness of Jesus, which ultimately turns out to be the greatest strength that ever existed.

So let's look for a moment at the strength, the kingdom, that comes through weakness.

We've already seen the weakness of Jesus in this passage. He's bound and abandoned. The religious leaders turn the crowd against him. An insurrectionist and murderer ends up being more popular than him. By the end of this passage, Jesus is condemned and scourged. Scouring means that Jesus would have been bound to a pillar or post and flogged with whips made of leather that were sometimes weighted with pieces of metal, bone, or even hooks. There was no prescribed number of lashes, so scourging was sometimes fatal if they got carried away. At best it left you severely weakened and already on your way to death. There's no greater picture of weakness than in this passage.

Yet it's a chosen weakness. Jesus had a kingdom that far exceeded Pilate's kingdom. Rome could not compare to the riches or the power or the acclaim that Christ enjoyed. Yet he laid it all aside and chose to become weak for our sakes. He chose weakness.

The irony is that Jesus is bound and seemingly powerless, yet it's Jesus who is in charge not Pilate, and not the crowds. Jesus had predicted that this would happen. Jesus had said back in Mark 10:

"We are going up to Jerusalem," he said, "and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise." (Mark 10:33-34)

And Jesus could have put an end to it at any moment. But he didn't. Jesus chose everything that happened to him, because somehow his kingdom functions completely different from every earthly kingdom. His kingdom functions through weakness.

That's why, when Pilate asks Jesus, "Are you the king of the Jews?" Jesus answers: "You have said so." What kind of an answer is that? It's an enigmatic answer that means yes or no - or in this case, maybe it means both yes and no. Jesus says, in essence, that he is a king. But he's not the kind of king that Pilate is. He doesn't hold to his rights or his privileges. He's the king who willingly leaves his throne to come to earth unrecognized, to give his life for people who don't deserve his grace or return his love. Jesus is the kind of king who offers his life. He's the king who lays aside his strength and comes in weakness. Isaiah 53 says:

He was despised and rejected by others,

a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces

he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain

and bore our suffering,

yet we considered him punished by God,

stricken by him, and afflicted.
(Isaiah 53:3-4)

If that's the kind of king we have, what does that mean for those of us who are in his kingdom? It means that we too will lay aside our privileges so that we can serve others. We'll choose to be weak. Justin Martyr, an early church father who lived from 100-165, wrote:

We who used to value the acquisition of wealth and possessions more than anything else now bring what we have into a common fund and share it with anyone who needs it. We used to hate and destroy one another and refused to associate with people of another race or country. Now, because of Christ, we live together with such people and pray for our enemies.

Hear that? Willingly choosing to give up wealth and grudges. Clement, who lived around the same time, described a Christian this way:

He impoverishes himself out of love, so that he is certain he may never overlook a brother in need, especially if he knows he can bear poverty better than his brother. He likewise considers the pain of another as his own pain. And if he suffers any hardship because of having given out of his own poverty, he does not complain.

Nobody puts this better than John: "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another" (1 John 3:16). Jesus chose to be weak, and we'll choose to become weak as well as we follow him - willingly pouring out our lives for others.

Because it's not just a chosen weakness, it's a saving weakness. The end of this passage gives us a picture of what happened because Jesus chose to be weak. This man, Barabbas, actually had another name: Jesus Barabbas. Somebody was going to be free; someone was going to be condemned and killed. Pilate knew that Jesus Barabbas was guilty and deserved to die. He was an insurrectionist and a murderer. Pilate also knew that Jesus did not deserve to die. He was guilty of nothing. The only reason he was on trial was because of the jealousy of the religious leaders.

Unthinkably, the convicted murderer goes free, and the innocent Son of the father is condemned. Barabbas deserves to die, but Jesus dies in his place. The love of God does for us what we can't do for ourselves. It's a picture of what Jesus does for every one of us who trusts in him: he dies in our place, while we who are guilty go free. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

Mark is showing us two kings, two types of strength. One king, one type of strength, is how we normally live. It's about getting ahead and enjoying the best of life. As Nouwen said, it's what "the world proclaims as the keys to self-fulfillment." But it ultimately leads to the kingdom of self, a kingdom that ends in weakness.

But Mark shows us another type of king, another type of strength. It's a strength that willingly lays aside its rights, the strength of a Savior who's condemned for our sins so that we can go free.

Mark shows us two types of kings - but only one is a king who saves, and a king who will reign forever.

So Father, help us to see what Jesus did.

He left His Father's throne above,
So free, so infinite His grace!
Emptied Himself and came in love,
And bled for Adam's helpless race!

And I pray that all of us would trust in that kind of king.

And I pray it would change us, individually and as a church, so that we would lay down our lives for each other. I pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.

The Stone the Builders Rejected (Mark 11:27-12:44)

I'm sure that many of us have enjoyed the Olympics over the past two weeks. We all know that the real event is still to take place later this afternoon. You can enjoy your biathlons and bobsleds and short track speed skating. You can even have your curling, but we all know it's about the men's hockey. So today we'll be glued to our sets seeing who is going to win the gold medal.

I'm not about to predict who is going to win this afternoon, but let me be clear: the team that wins will have both talent and experience. To put it differently, if they passed out skates and sticks to a random group of people here today, I guarantee we would do worse than Latvia, a team that has won no games and has been scored against four times more than they've scored. In other words, it's no accident that teams like the United States and Canada end up near the top. We have the most experience in hockey. We have the deepest pockets of talent.

This may sound like the most obvious observation ever. Except I want to pose a question for you. We've been studying the Gospel of Mark, and today we come to a passage in which Jesus is in the Temple. Jesus is in the holiest place. He is at the center of faith and salvation for Jews and Gentiles around the world. Not only that, he is surrounded by the top religious leaders. This is like home ice with the top religious team present. You would think that we would be watching the equivalent of gold medal action as Jesus and the religious leaders talk, that this would be the spiritual equivalent of TED, when they bring some of the top minds in the world to talk about some of the most important ideas going. You would think this would be a thing of beauty.

But instead it's a train wreck. Last week we saw that Jesus took a look at this center of faith and its leaders and condemned it as lifeless. In this week's passage we have a series of confrontations between Jesus and these top religious leaders, who have devoted their entire lives to spiritual things. You have four different incidents in which the top religious leaders go after Jesus. And you have Jesus go after them with a story and a question before issuing a warning about the religious leaders.

To go back to hockey, it's like if the team that practiced most gets worse and worse the harder they try. It's like Team Canada being beaten by a bunch of five-year-old Timbits. It's like the higher they go religiously, the further they move away from God.

This isn't just an academic question, because there are a lot of us here this morning who are not quite at the level of these religious leaders, but we are pretty religious. This passage is a little like a warning label that comes with a prescription: side-effects of religion include the danger that you drift further and further away from Jesus until you're opposed to him and he condemns you as spiritually dead.

Because we face this danger, I'd like to ask you to look with me at a story Jesus tells us that will help us understand the danger we face. The story comes in four parts. Not only does it help us understand why religious people end up far from God, it also helps us understand the whole story of Scripture and where we fit into it.

So let's look at each of the four parts, beginning with part one.

Part One: The Vineyard

Mark 12:1 says:

Jesus then began to speak to them in parables: "A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place."

The story begins with a vineyard. It's a great picture, because the people Jesus was addressing would have been familiar with vineyards, and even though we're not exactly vineyard folk we can picture what this would have been like.

If you've done any gardening, you know the kind of work that it takes to turn a piece of land into something productive and beautiful. It takes planning, and then it takes work. Some of us know the opposite. We know it's not hard to go the other direction: to take something that was a thing of beauty and see it degrade into a wild patch of weeds.

The picture you get in this passage is of a vineyard that has received a great deal of care and attention from the landowner. This was a new vineyard, so it would take at least four years of work before a crop could even be harvested. It's a vineyard that has a wall, a pit, a winepress, and a watchtower. The owner has gone to a lot of work. He's invested a lot in this project.

And then he does what was common in those days. He rents out the vineyard to workers who will care for it in his absence. The workers won't own it; they will simply rent it. The price of rent would be some of the produce from this vineyard.

If you were one of Jesus' listeners, you may have remembered a similar image from Isaiah 5:

I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.
He dug it up and cleared it of stones

and planted it with the choicest vines.

He built a watchtower in it

and cut out a winepress as well.
(Isaiah 5:1-2)

What is this about? The vineyard is an image for God's people, Israel. It is, the Bible tells us, the object of his love and care. God has invested heavily, providing everything that his people need. If you look through Scripture in Genesis, you see that once sin enters the world things go downhill. Everything you can think of happens. It's like a garden gone wild. It's all in a state of chaos. But in the middle of that mess God promises Abraham:

I will make you into a great nation,

and I will bless you;

I will make your name great,

and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,

and whoever curses you I will curse;

and all peoples on earth

will be blessed through you.
(Genesis 12:2-3)

God keeps this promise, building and preserving a nation, and delivering them from Egypt, leading them into their land. So you have a beautiful picture here of all that God has done to prepare for his people. It's a care that extends to this day as well, to everyone who here who has heard the gospel and trusted in Christ's name. God has lavished his care on every one of us.

Part Two: Rebellion

But, Jesus explains, things don't go well. You get the most of the Old Testament, right to Jesus' day, summarized in verses 2 to 5:

At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed.

Despite all that the owner has done, these people do not respond out of gratitude, nor do they keep their commitments. Instead, there's a flat-out rebellion against the owner and his messengers. He keeps sending more and more messengers, and things get even worse. They start by beating but pretty soon they're killing the messengers.

Again, it reminds us of Isaiah 5:

Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,

but it yielded only bad fruit.
"Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah,

judge between me and my vineyard.
What more could have been done for my vineyard

than I have done for it?

When I looked for good grapes,

why did it yield only bad?
(Isaiah 5:2-4)

What is this about? Throughout the Old Testament, God had sent prophet after prophet to his people to remind them of the covenant, and to call them back to faithfulness. The people kept ignoring the prophets, and things kept getting worse and worse. The prophet Jeremiah put it this way:

From the time your ancestors left Egypt until now, day after day, again and again I sent you my servants the prophets. But they did not listen to me or pay attention. They were stiff-necked and did more evil than their ancestors. (Jeremiah 7:25-26)

Some of the prophets were killed, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micah, and Amos. The most recent prophet to have been sent and killed was John the Baptist. Jesus had just finished talking about him before telling this story.

What Jesus is saying is that God's people have a long history of rebellion, of ignoring his prophets. The religious leaders in the temple stood in a long line of people who had rebelled against God. We stand in the same tradition today. One hymn says that we're prone to wander, prone to leave the God we love. This begins to help us understand where the religious leaders of Jesus day went wrong - and where we can go wrong as well.

Part Three: Rejecting the Son

The story in Isaiah ends at this point. It ends on an awful note.

Now I will tell you

what I am going to do to my vineyard:

I will take away its hedge,

and it will be destroyed;

I will break down its wall,

and it will be trampled.
I will make it a wasteland,

neither pruned nor cultivated,

and briers and thorns will grow there.

I will command the clouds

not to rain on it.
(Isaiah 5:5-6)

Isaiah is talking about foreign invasion here, and national destruction for the nation of Israel.

But Jesus' story continues, and it takes a shocking turn.

"He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, 'They will respect my son.'

"But the tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. (Mark 12:6-8)

What kind of father would risk sending his own son to these rebels after what they had done to all of the previous messengers?

And that's exactly the point. God is that kind of owner. At incredible risk, God makes one final effort, one final appeal to his people. God does not give up on his people. He sends his own Son to them at the risk of his life.

But it's not just at the risk of the Son's life. It's at the cost of that life. Because, as Jesus tells the story, they plot against that his life and take it, and throw the body out of the vineyard. They don't even give the body the dignity of a proper burial.

This puts the arguments in Mark 11 and 12 in a completely different light. The religious leaders question Jesus' authority. They ask questions to try to catch Jesus in a trap. They give the appearance of having theological issues with Jesus. But those are a smokescreen for the real issue. The real issue is that they have long been in rebellion against God, and now they are plotting to take the life of God's very Son.

Mark is telling us that it's possible to be religious, to even be at the top of the religious heap - gold medalists - and to be in direct opposition to God. It's possible to be very spiritual, and yet oppose God.

And yet this passage tells us that God goes to every length to rectify the situation, going so far as to send his only Son, even at the risk of his Son's life.

Part Four: Judgment and Hope

The story ends in this passage - and for us as well this morning - on a dual note. There is a note of judgment as this story ends. "What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others" (Mark 12:9). To put it as simply as possible, to reject Jesus is to choose judgment. This is a horrible thing. To reject Jesus is to choose judgment.

But there's a stunning twist. Jesus says, "He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others." There are going to be new tenants, new beneficiaries of his care. Jesus then quotes a passage of Scripture that is often quoted about Jesus from this point on. It's apparently about a stone that was rejected as unsuitable as they were building the temple. Yet this very stone, originally rejected, ended up becoming the cornerstone. The one rejected ends up becoming the most important of all.

Haven't you read this passage of Scripture:

"'The stone the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes'?"
(Mark 12:10-11)

Jesus is saying that even his rejection and upcoming death accomplishes God's purposes. Jesus' rejection was foreseen, and God will even use that to bring glory to himself.

Do you see: Jesus is saying that even the most spiritual people, the most faithful attenders of church, can end up as enemies of God. But God has sent his own Son at the cost of that Son's life so that he could lavish his care on us. To reject Jesus is to choose judgment; to put our trust in Jesus is to receive all of his blessings.

This passage is depressing, because the spiritual gold medalists end up losing not only the game, but everything. But this chapter is encouraging because it ends with two people who unexpectedly seem to get it. One is a religious leader. Jesus says he's not far from the kingdom. There's hope even for the religious! The other is the least likely person of all, not a spiritual gold medalist, but a widow who gives everything - literally in the Greek, who gives her whole life, just like Jesus has done for us.

If you're a spiritual gold medalist, be warned. You're in danger. But there's hope for the most unlikely of people. There's hope for you.