Do You Believe

Scripture Reading

May we seat him. Will you please turn over in your Bibles with me to the book of Mark, Mark chapter 15. Mark chapter 15, we've been in the book of Mark for, oh, I don't know, it seems like three or four years, but we are, this is the second to last sermon in this series. Mark chapter 15, we'll be looking at verses 33 through 47 this morning. Mark chapter 15, beginning at verse 33. If you're using the Pew Bibles, you'll find that on page 901. Mark chapter 15, beginning at verse 33. Brothers and sisters, this is the Word of God.

Now, when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Alloui, Alloui, lama shabachthani, which is translated, My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?

Some of those who stood by, when they heard that, said, look, he is calling for Elijah. Then some ran out and filled a sponge full of sour wine and put it on a reed and offered it to him to drink, saying, let him alone. Let us see if Elijah will come to take him down. So Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed his last. Then The veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

So when the centurion who stood opposite him saw that he cried out like this and breathed his last, he said, truly this man was the Son of God. There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, the last son of Joseph, and Salome, who also followed him and ministered to him when he was in Galilee, and many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.

Now when evening had come, because it was the preparation day, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent council member, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, coming and taking courage, went in to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate marveled that he was already dead. And summoning the centurion, he asked him if he had been dead for some time. So when he found out from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph.

Then he bought fine linen, took him down, and wrapped him in the linen. And he laid him in a tomb, which had been hewn out of the rock, and rolled the stone against the door of the tomb. and Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of Joses, observed where he was laid.

Prayer for Illumination

This ends this portion of the reading of God's word. Brothers and sisters, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. And God, now we pray that during this time that we look at it, we examine it, we pray, Lord, that you would be examining our hearts. Lord, I pray that you would help me, a weak and often failing vessel. Lord, that it would not just be words, just words. But Father, we pray that your spirit would take your word and do an amazing work in our hearts to strengthen those who believe and to give life to those who would believe for the first time. Lord, we pray this in Jesus's name. Amen.

Sermon

I need to warn you right away that this is not just a history lesson. I'm going to go through this historical narrative with you, but I need to let you know that right away, this is a text that we have to do something with. When you read this story, this historical narrative in front of us, God's given it to us for a reason, because we've got to do something with it. Either you believe it, or you don't. Either it applies to you, or it's just dead words on a page that don't matter.

And some of you will walk away saying, I need a king like this who would be willing to die for me. Some of you are going to walk away from here knowing that this is the Jesus whom you love and has demonstrated his love for you, that he would be willing to die for you. Some of you will walk away from here saying, yes, that's my type of priest. Yes, that's my type of king. Yes, that's the one that I need and love.

Others of you here, though, may walk out of this room this morning saying, I don't need the help of some dead guy like this. I don't need a king. I don't want a king. I'm in control of my own life. I think all of us at times, whether we like it or not, sometimes we may even act that way. Some people may be tempted to say, I don't need anyone to help me. I don't sin. And I don't need anybody's charity.

Some people will object just in the culture that we live in and just say, you all are just taking sin too seriously anyways. Some of you in this room may feel that way at times. Some of you may not think that you need a priest. Some of you may come to a text like this today and say, I think I'm good enough to stand before God myself. This text, I hope you walk out of this room today and have to answer the question for yourself, did Jesus die for you? Is this just a history lesson dead on a page? Or is this true for you? So first, let's look at verse 33 through 37. Remember that this is not happening in a vacuum. Jesus didn't just one day die on the cross, but there's been a whole backstory to this that we've been looking at. Remember, they've celebrated the Passover meal. They've remembered the redemption of God's people out of the land of Egypt.

Jesus flipped the script telling them this was a new covenant in His blood. Jesus had gone up to the Mount of Olives and in His humanity, crying out to God that He knew that the cup of wrath was coming, that He was going to have to drink the full affliction from the Father, and yet He was willing to do it. He submitted to His Heavenly Father, not My will, but Yours be done. And He allowed one of His closest friends to betray Him, and willingly was tried, flogged, mocked, persecuted, and rejected, and now we find ourselves where as he is hanging there on the cross with the words, the King of the Jews hanging over his head, something happens in the cosmos.

Verse 33. Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, which is translated, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's the sixth hour, it's right about noon. This is when the sun is supposed to be high and hot. And yet at Jesus's death, even the sun for three hours seems to give, to stop giving its light.

Now people will try to explain this, right? Maybe there's a possible eclipse that happens. I don't know of any eclipse that lasts for three hours. Some people will say that this is just cloud cover over it. And I got to warn you that there are always people who try to explain away miraculous things, right? There's always people in our modern mindset, right?

There's the physical realm and it's a closed system, right? God created the world. If they'll hold that God created the world. But God doesn't intervene with the world. And people have been doing this for a long time. People explain away every miracle in the Bible. There's always a rational reason why you can even say, well, I don't need to hold to the miracles.

If there's a Nile River turning in the blood, well, that's just silting from up in the Ethiopian hillside up north. Maybe if there's a plague of flies and frogs and stuff, well, that's just an infestation. What about the hail? Well, the hail is just a meteorological phenomenon. That just happens. People even do this with Elijah. I remember watching the History Channel. Remember, Elijah goes up on the mountain and he prays and fire comes down from heaven and consumes? Well, they're on the History Channel. Literally, I'm not making this up.

They showed, well, if you take this chemical that looks like water and you put it on the fire, on the wood, and then you take this other chemical that looks like water and you put it on the wood, then it creates a fire. There's always an explanation around every miracle, isn't there? I remember reading a commentary where Jesus was healing a blind man and somebody said, this was like a rudimentary, ancient form of cataract surgery. I gotta tell you, it takes a lot of faith to explain away the miracles.

Mark certainly understood that when the sun went dark for three hours, that whether it was an eclipse or a cloud or whatever it is, that meant the sun, the brightest thing in this known solar system, bowed to Jesus. That when Jesus died, the heavens took notice.

The light of the Father's countenance had seemed to darken upon the Son of Man. It was at this moment that Jesus was drinking the cup of affliction, the wrath of his father, for sin. And the words of the prophet Joel were fulfilled, the sun shall be turned into darkness. Also the words of Amos chapter 8, the sun will be darkened. At Jesus's death, what seemed to be impossible, the sun going dark, happened. As at this moment, that Jesus identified with humanity, identified with you and me most closely.

When he cried out in a loud voice three hours later, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? David knew what that felt like. David, when he wrote Psalm 22, he wrote it because he knew what it was like for people to turn against him, to betray him, to attack him and want to kill him. David was speaking prophetically, though, of what Jesus knew was going to be most true about him. Jesus was the one who would have his father's face turn against him and his humanity. One writer explained this cry in these words.

All throughout the Psalms, when forsaken is used, it's never used in a context where God is somehow removing his presence. No, God is very much there at the crucifixion. Rather, forsake has to do with the psalmist feeling that God seems to be letting one of his own fall into the hands of his enemies for his own purpose until he deems it time for rescue. Jesus is falling into the hands of His enemies. It does not mean that He was abandoned by God in His divinity, or somehow the Trinity was ripped asunder, because He could not be separated from the Godhead.

Yet Jesus, crying out, is experiencing for the first time the displeasure in His humanity of His Father. Jesus' entire life was marked by those words that the father had said multiple times, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And Jesus' entire life, whether he was in the desert being tempted by Satan, or whether he was even on the Mount of Olives crying out that God's will would be done, he knew that it was still the Lord, his father who loved him, and whose face still shone upon him. But in this moment, In this moment, that great benediction that we remember each week that the Lord's face shines upon us, Jesus in his humanity felt his father's face turn away from him.

Jesus was experiencing the horror of an abandonment he didn't deserve and yet was willfully enduring for us. One commentator by last name of Taylor remarks this way, the depths of the saying are too deep to be plumbed. But the least inadequate interpretation are those in which find it in a sense of desolation in which Jesus felt the horror of sin so deeply that for a time the closeness of his communion with the Father was obscured. Some have felt that Jesus's cry of dereliction shows his utter agony in tasting for us the very essence of hell, which is separation from God. You see, for Jesus, to experience even for a moment the displeasure of his father was against his very nature as a human."

Now, there's going to be an objection to some of this. Some of you may say, Brian, I think maybe you've taken this too far. I'm not sure sin is really that bad. Maybe Jesus is just using hyperbole here. Are you just using hyperbole? No. No, because this is exactly what God meant when He said in the garden, the day you eat of this, surely you shall die. God wasn't mincing words or changing things around or lessening the severity of sin when He said in Romans chapter 3 that the wages of sin is death.

I'm talking about somebody decaying in the grave, death. That pain and the grief that comes with it. This is why the prophet Isaiah says that we have turned everyone to his own way. It is because of our sin, because of my sin, that Jesus hung on that cross, dying in pain. Our rebellion really is that bad. Our transgression really is that great. I doubt everybody in this room believes that.

There's many in the world who would treat Jesus the same way today. There are many people, even as Jesus was dying, the centurion goes and he grabs a bunch of sponge and he gets some wine in it, some sour wine, some cheapo wine, and he runs to Jesus, puts it on a stick and tries to have him drink it. Why? So that way he'll live a little bit longer. Maybe we'll see a miracle. He's mocking Jesus, even in his death. There's many in this world who would even if they did see a miracle like Elijah coming. By the way, the idea of Elijah coming, Jesus told us before, that was John the Baptist who had already come.

But there's many people in this world, it doesn't matter if the sun went dark or any miracle happened in front of their eyes, even if somebody rose again from the dead, they're not gonna believe. They're just not gonna believe. There are many in the world who would have done the exact same thing, getting that sour wine and trying to hand it to Jesus. And so there's really only two groups of people. Those that saw Jesus and believed Him, saw the miracle of the sun going dark around them and understood what was going on, at least to an extent. And those that saw Jesus, disbelieved Jesus and could live with their denying and just explaining away everything that had happened.

And maybe there's skeptics in the room today. I don't know your heart. Maybe there's some of you. Would a miracle even ever convince you? But the darkening of the sun wasn't the only sign that happened that day. Look with me down below at what happens. Verse 37 through 39. And Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed his last.

Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The scene transitions from Jesus outside the city walls, dying and being dead, to it seems like it's a quick pan, straight to the east, to the temple itself. And there in the midst of the temple is the temple curtain, right? See, the temple is really, the heart of the temple is really one big structure with two rooms, the holy place and the holy of holies. And between these two places in the temple, there's a veil thickly woven, right? One commentator thinks that it might have even been as much of a hand's breadth thick And when Jesus dies and breathes His last, as it's the ninth hour, when that afternoon sacrifice that's finally finished, from top to bottom, the temple curtain is torn in two. The priests are no longer mentioned in our passage. Why? Because they're back at the temple. They're making the sacrifice. But what's really going on here? The true sacrifice, Jesus Himself, the Lamb without blemish, was offering His life for us. And once the true Lamb had cried out and breathed His last, the temple's torn, notice the direction.

Not from bottom to top, it's not like somebody was able to reach down with a knife and cut it and pull it. No, from top to bottom. It's as if God the Father himself reached down with his hands, grabbed the temple curtain, and said, there's no more division. There's no more separation from you with me, but you will come to me.

The Lord had accepted his son's sacrifice, received him as a vicarious offering for our sins. The heir of the temple, was from this point on fading away and when indeed the temple would be destroyed. It's at this moment that the centurion confesses. Look with me at verse 39. So when the centurion who stood opposite him saw that he cried out like this and breathed his last, what did he say?

Truly this man was the Son of God. He gets it. He understands it in this moment of God-given clarity. The man who had stood by and been cruel to Jesus, the man who had divided Jesus's... didn't want to divide His clothing, but instead cared more about the cost of a fabric than the cost of Jesus's life, looked up to the one who had just died on that cross and said, This was the son of God. He wasn't a liar. He was who he said he was. He is actually the king. He realizes Jesus was no fraud and is the first Gentile to identify the true nature of Jesus.

But again, there might be skeptics. There may be skeptics. Some people believe they're very smart and they're not going to be manipulated by sentiment and by no means do I want you to be manipulated by sentiment either. There are those who will say it is perfectly reasonable. Right?

Because Matthew tells us that when Jesus died, there was also an earthquake, and so there was just a random seismic event, and it's personally reasonable, during this random seismic event that happened, just happened to happen when Jesus died, that the seismic event put tension on the curtain and it pulled and tore.

It's the same thing they do with the story of Joshua leading the army of Israel across the Jordan River. It just happened to be at the very moment when they were the whole army right at the Jordan River, the priest stepped his toes in and there was a landslide up above. It just happens, guys. It takes a lot of faith.

No. No, it could have been coincidence, but I sure don't think so. It could have been just coincidence that just as Jesus died, the thickly woven curtain in the temple tore from top to bottom. That would be quite a coincidence, I've got to tell you. Many people feel free to just explain this away. But if we believe what Mark says here, I don't think Mark understood it as just a coincidence. No Christian ever understood it that way. But by faith we believe that this was God's demonstration of His own love towards us, that He sent His Son to die for us. We believe that this was God accepting Jesus' sacrifice.

This was the beginning of the shift from the temple to the tabernacle in heaven. This was the beginning of the shift from the Levitical priesthood to Jesus's priesthood. This was the shift from the sacrifice of bulls and goats, which could never actually take away the sins of the world, to the acceptance of Jesus's sacrifice that paid for every one of our sins. This was Jesus becoming our Passover lamb.

This was Jesus obtaining an eternal redemption. This was Jesus cleansing us from our conscience of dead works. This was Jesus making us able to serve the living and true God. This was Jesus becoming our only hope that we may receive the promise of eternal inheritance. We believe that Jesus didn't just die by accident, nor were all these signs just coincidence, but that God spoke from heaven in miraculous acts to give us assurance of faith that our sacrifice was accepted.

So I have to ask, Are you skeptically explaining everything away as just coincidence, or do you believe it? Right, there's people who don't believe it. The priests who were in the temple didn't believe it. They still didn't believe it. We shouldn't be surprised by that. But the centurion did believe it.

The question is, what will you do? Do you believe it? Or is it just words? Again, not everybody's going to be satisfied though. Right? There are people who have even might say, you know, well how do we know this is even historically accurate? How do we know this is even historically true? Right? But isn't it true that all of Jesus' disciples abandoned him? So how do we even know that this has actually happened?

Well, I'm so glad you asked. Let's look at verses 40 through 41. How do we know this actually happened? Now, this is a short point, but I'm sure thankful to the Lord for it. There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, the last, and Joseph, and Solomon, who also followed him and ministered to him when he was in Galilee, and many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem. How do we actually know that this happened?

Because we get eyewitness accounts that this happened. Because we know that yes, Jesus' disciples, all of them save one, abandoned Him. It was only John who was left there. But we know that the women were there. They had ministered to Jesus, they knew Jesus, they loved Jesus, and they watched all of this happening at a distance.

Who do you think Luke went to When he went to investigate everything, to write his historical narrative to Theophilus, he went to eyewitnesses' accounts, he went to Mary Magdalene, and he asked her, what did you see? He went to Mary, the mother of Joseph, and he said, what did you notice? What happened that day?

He did not believe it on the testimony of one witness, but made sure that he had the testimony of multiple witnesses of what happened so that we could believe that these things are true. They were not mistaken with what they saw. These are not nameless people.

Mark wrote this down and people could go find Mary Magdalene and ask, is this true? Did you actually see this? It's quite a thing to put somebody's first name and their relationships in there, right? There's a ton of Marys, by the way. It's a very, very common name, right? So if you just said, some Mary saw this, it'd be, yeah, right, who's Mary? But he says, no, no, Mary Magdalene, you know the one that Jesus cast all those demons out of?

That one. You want her address? I'll give it to you. You didn't marry the mother of Joseph? Oh, well, there's a bunch of Joseph's around. Well, she's also the mother of James the last and of Salome. You can go talk to her too. There are multiple witnesses that you can go and talk to. They are known to, these women are known by the early church, their testimonies lined up, their memories are clear, because this is a historical narrative.

This is not fanciful fable. This is not a made-up story, but this is what happened, which is why we have to do something with it. When there's a historical truth, a historical moment that happens, you have to deal with it. You can't just brush it off. So the question for you today is, do you believe these things are true?

Or are the Marys liars? See, we have a reasonable faith. Christianity is not just a leap into the darkness. It's not suspending your logic. There's a reason God wrote it in a book and gave us historical narrative because we can put a peg on the board and a date on the timeline and say, this happened. We believe because it's true. But faith in Jesus isn't always easy. And that's where we'll finish up this morning. Look with me at verses 42 through 47. Joseph of Arimathea showed courage. My question is, will you?

Now when evening had come, because it was the day of preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent council member who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, coming and taking courage, went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

Pilate marveled that he was already dead. And summoning the centurion, he asked him if he had been dead for some time. So when he found out from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph. Then he bought the fine linen, took him down, wrapped him in the linen, and he laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock, and rolled the stone against the door of the tomb. And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph observed where he was laid."

Joseph of Arimathea, this is a rich dude. This guy had money and he had influence. He was a member of the Sanhedrin, the council. And he had to show great courage. Why? We're told about his character, that he's waiting on the kingdom of God. Matthew tells us that he was a follower of Jesus. But it shows us either he missed that early morning trial of Jesus, where it wasn't supposed to happen, when it wasn't supposed to happen. Either he missed that meeting or not all the Sanhedrin agreed with putting Jesus to death. But no matter what, when Joseph of Arimathea comes and he sees that Jesus is dead, he does something crazy.

He goes to the Roman ruler and he says, hey, that guy who just was convicted and executed for seditious acts, can I have his body so I can honor him in his death? It took courage for him, and God goes out of His way to tell us that. He himself was a man waiting for the kingdom of God, And what did he have to do in verse 43? Coming and taking courage. He had to have courage to ask.

Normally when somebody died of crucifixion like this, you just throw them in a shallow grave or just let the dogs eat them. You don't give them an honorable burial because they don't deserve the honor, but Joseph comes and he says, this man does deserve an honorable burial.

And now Pilate's shocked by this, right? I mean, crucifixion is supposed to be this agonizing long death. I mean, it's not supposed to take six hours. It's supposed to take six to 16 days. And Pilate is shocked by this. How is he already dead? That's not supposed to happen. And we know that Jesus is dead. Again, not that he was just sleeping on the cross or faking it. How do we know that? Because the other gospel tells us, when Pilate finds out about this, to find out if he's been dead a while, what do they do?

They take a spear and they shove it in Jesus' side. And I don't care how good you are at acting, if somebody shoves a spear in your side, you're at least going to wince with pain. But Jesus is truly dead, hanging lifeless on the cross. Water and blood come out of his side. And so, Pilate agrees. He gives him the body of Jesus. And Joseph is determined to spare no expenses to honor Jesus. He placed him in his family tomb.

This would have been buku bucks, guys. Like, a lot of money. I know that funerals cost a lot of money now. This would have been, like, huge. Land is scarce. Hillside land is very scarce. Digging out a tomb is extremely expensive. It's like one person does this for their family, and it lasts for generations. You've got to have a really, really wealthy person who's able to actually give you a family tomb, right? Because there's different shelves, and you would lay, you know, Grandma would go here, and Grandpa would go here, and then Mom and Dad would go further back, and this was generational, right? And it costs a lot of money, because it took a lot of work to do this. And it would have cost Joseph dearly.

Only a rich man could have afforded such extravagance, but Joseph was determined to show Jesus the highest honor, even in Jesus's death. And in doing this, the prophet of Isaiah, his words were fulfilled. Isaiah chapter 53, verse nine. And they made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich at his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth."

It took courage for Joseph to bury Jesus in his family's tomb. Joseph would have risked his reputation with the council, but he followed Jesus still. Joseph could have lost his seat in the council, but still he followed Jesus. Joseph could have shocked his family, but he still followed Jesus. Joseph could have faced the financial shock of this. Still, he decided to follow Jesus. You know, it takes a lot of courage to follow Jesus today.

It may cost you your reputation. It may cost you your place prominence it may cost you financially it may cost you in your family question is will you follow Jesus right if you believe that this historical narrative is true and Jesus is who he said he is and the Bible speaking of what this means is true my question is will you have the courage by the Holy Spirit to follow Jesus Will you explain away all the phenomena surrounding Jesus' death as just mere coincidence?

Or do you trust what the Scriptures say? Will you believe this was the Son of God who offered up His life as a ransom for many, as the Scriptures tell us? Will you not only believe that this is a historical event, but this is what I'm really pushing you towards. Do you believe that this is true for you? It's not good enough just to say that, okay, I believe that Jesus is God, I believe that Jesus is the King, I believe that Jesus really died on the cross. That means nothing if it is not you saying, I believe that Jesus died on the cross for me. Is this true for you?

Will you follow Jesus? Though it may take courage and cost you. Because I gotta tell you, Jesus lived a perfect life that we could never live. Jesus died the death that we deserve. Jesus gave of himself for us everything because he loves his people. Is it true for you? Do you join with the thousands of thousands in heaven that Revelation says this about Jesus. For you were slain and you have redeemed us to God by your blood. Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. Do you worship the lamb like that?

Or is this just words? Just words. For those of you who believe, I pray that you walk out of here, even though you may doubt at times and even though you may be weak, I pray that you walk out of here with a renewed sense of strength and assurance that Jesus died for you. I pray that you walk out of here with joy, knowing that God did not give you his secondhand goods, but he loved you so much that he was determined to show you that love by giving his only begotten son, that you may live forever.

Closing Prayer

And worthy is the lamb. Worthy is the lamb. Let's pray. Father, we are not worthy of your love. but you showed yourself bound and determined to show your love toward us that you sent your own son to die for us. Lord, you paid the price that we could not ever pay with the blood of your own son. You have bought our freedom and you have promised us security with you forever. Lord, we pray that we would be those who would believe and we would be those who would rejoice. For the Lamb was slain, and is worthy to receive all honor, glory, and power. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, let's stand. We'll sing Psalm 22, Selection C. Please stand if you're able. We'll sing together Psalm 22, Selection C.