The Christians Hour

Guest (Male): You're listening to The Christians Hour. Thank you for joining us today; it's a pleasure to have you with us. The Christians Hour is a ministry of Gospel Broadcasting Mission where we proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth through radio and media until all have heard.

Can I ask you a question? Have you ever stopped to consider just how important the resurrection of Jesus is to the Christian faith? Not just historically, but personally? What difference does it make in your life today? The truth is everything Christianity stands upon rises and falls with one event: the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then our faith is empty and our hope is misplaced. But if he did rise, then everything changes.

Today we're going to be going to the very heart of the gospel. We'll see that Jesus truly died on the cross, he was truly buried in a tomb, but the grave was not the end of the story. On that third day, Jesus rose from the dead, defeating sin and death and opening the way to eternal life for all who believe in him.

As Aaron Brockett, lead pastor of Traders Point Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana, walks us through Mark's gospel account of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, we'll discover the evidence for the empty tomb, why the resurrection matters, and what it means to us today. Because if the tomb is empty, then Jesus is alive. And if Jesus is alive, there's hope, forgiveness, and life available to all who trust in him. Here's Aaron to share more.

Aaron Brockett: Have any of you ever read a book and you read the last chapter first? You do that? That's so weird. But that's what we're going to do. We're just going to skip ahead to the very end of Mark's account of the crucifixion and the resurrection. The text that we're going to pick up in, Jesus has already been crucified, and Mark describes the burial in a very significant way.

What he does from verses 42 to 47 is he is certifying. Have any of you ever received certified mail? It's like a guarantee. That's what he's doing here. He's certifying that Jesus really did die. He's going out of his way to make that point, and the reason why is to show that he really did rise.

The reason why I'm bringing that up is because some, in an attempt to explain away the resurrection, say, "Well, he didn't really die. He must have passed out. He must have taken a nap. He must have snuck over to the side and then woke up and regained his consciousness, and everybody thought that he died and resurrected." Mark is going to go out of his way to say no, he really did die.

There are good reasons for this. If you go over to Matthew's account of the resurrection, Matthew tells us that the leading priests and the Pharisees were getting really nervous after Jesus' crucifixion, and they go to Pilate. They say, "Hey, we remember Jesus talking a lot about being resurrected on the third day." If you actually go over to Matthew's account and read this for yourself, they actually refer to Jesus as "the deceiver," which is kind of ironic.

They say, "The deceiver said that he was going to resurrect on the third day. So let's seal the tomb." Matthew says it this way in verse 64 of chapter 27: "This will prevent his disciples from coming and stealing his body, and then they can tell everybody that he was raised from the dead. And if that happens, we'll be worse off than we were at first." So they knew what was at stake.

Mark is going out of his way to make sure that nobody can make up another story—that nobody stole his body, he didn't pass out, he didn't get buried in the wrong tomb. He was certifiably dead. That's the point Mark's trying to make. Let's pick it up in chapter 15, verse 42.

He says, "When evening had come, since it was the day of preparation, that is the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage"—it would have taken a lot of courage for him to do this—"and he went to Pilate and he asked for the body of Jesus."

Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died, and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock, and he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid.

Now I want you to note what we just read. What Mark is doing is he's stacking receipts. He's saying that Jesus really did fully, undeniably, 100% and then some, die. And this guy named Joseph of Arimathea, who was a respected member of the council—he's a respected dude in society. He's got a lot on the line: his reputation.

Think about this for a minute. They had just very publicly crucified Jesus as a criminal. Most did not want to be associated with him, including his own disciples; they bailed. But Joseph ends up coming out, and that's why Mark points out that it took a lot of courage for him to go to Pilate and say, "Hey, can I have the body?"

Because then Pilate could say, "Well, were you devoted to him? Were you a secret disciple?" And he could get in trouble—maybe even his life could be taken as well. And he takes the corpse of Jesus and he wraps it up, and he lays it in his own tomb. The reason why that is important is because there are some theories that say they pulled Jesus' body down off the cross and they were in such a hurry before the Sabbath to get it in a tomb that they just misplaced it.

They put it in the wrong tomb, and then they forgot where they put it, and then they went to another tomb the next day and saw that it was empty, and then they made up the whole thing that Jesus resurrected. Joseph could have said, "No, wait a second. I put him in my tomb. I know where that's at."

The third thing he says is he goes to the Roman centurion, who was a professional executioner. The dude did it for a living. He was a pro. He put people to death daily. So he would have understood if somebody had just passed out or if somebody died. Pilate wanted to know, "Is he dead?" and the executioner's like, "Yeah, he died."

Pilate signs off on it. That would have been a legal confirmation of his death. It wasn't just the disciples saying he died; it was Pilate saying he died. Then Mark throws on top of that, "Oh, by the way, there were two women that were there, and they watched the whole burial go down." More eyewitnesses.

So Mark is basically saying this—don't miss this—Jesus didn't pass out, he didn't fake it, he didn't slip into a coma, he didn't almost die, his body wasn't misplaced. He was dead. And the reason why we have to stress that is because if he didn't really die, then he didn't really rise.

That's why the apostle Paul addresses this head-on in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 17. This is Paul putting all the chips in the middle of the table when he says, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is useless. You are still in your sins." I love the intellectual honesty of that verse, even though it makes you a little nervous because he's putting all the chips in on this.

In other words, he says the Christian faith rises or falls not based on its logic, not based on its morality, not based on its historicity, but based on an event. It's based on the resurrection. What that means is if the resurrection didn't happen, then all this is nonsense. Church is just silly. The Christian faith falls apart. There's no reason to gather, no reason to sing, no reason to pray, no reason to hope. All this is a sham if Jesus didn't walk out of a grave.

Now those are big stakes. However, the other is true too. If it did happen, oh man, that changes everything. That means that nominal Christianity is foolish. That means that "I believe a little bit but I'm going to live how I want during the week" is really dumb. You can't just treat Jesus like a holiday tradition and show up at Christmas and Easter, check a box, and then move on with the way that you want to live your life.

If the resurrection really happened, then Jesus isn't just a good idea; he's King. I'm going to follow him. I'm going to make him Lord of my life. And so now that Mark has established that Jesus really did die, now he's going to show that Jesus really did rise in verse 1 of chapter 16.

It says, "When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices so that they might go and anoint him." This should sort of be like their version of embalming the body. It was really, really fast what they had to do to rush to get Jesus in the grave before Sabbath, so they didn't do a proper job. They're going back to make sure the job was properly done.

Verse 2: "And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen"—and by the way, because of modern science and lunar eclipse stuff, we know it was 5:43 AM on April 5th, AD 33—"and they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, 'Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?'" Because the stone was massive and huge, and it dawns on them, "How are we going to get in? Because there's a stone over the tomb."

It's a really interesting question because what that means is the ladies were not expecting an empty tomb. They were not expecting resurrection. They were expecting Jesus' body to be there. One more case in point: they were going with spices to anoint the body to offset the smell of Jesus' decomposing body. If the ladies were expecting a resurrection, they wouldn't have gone with spices. They would have gone with a fresh set of clothes and maybe a snack and a juice box.

Verse 4: "And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back. It was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed." And he said to them, "Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him."

They came expecting to find a dead body. What they found were empty grave clothes. Mark keeps mentioning that they were alarmed. He says it not once, but twice. They really shouldn't have been alarmed because repeatedly in Mark's gospel, Jesus told them that he would rise on the third day. He did it in chapter 8, he did it in chapter 9, he did it in chapter 10, and knowing Mark is brief, he likely did it much more than that.

Yet they're still alarmed, even though Jesus had been telling them all along he would do this. It's almost as if they had had short-term memory loss or something. They had forgotten that Jesus kept telling them that he was going to resurrect on the third day.

In verse 7, this young man says to them, "But go tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you." And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

See, Mark, what he's doing is essentially saying this: there wasn't anybody that was expecting a resurrection at all. In fact, the angel had to remind these women, "You will see him just as he told you multiple times." And he says, "Go tell the disciples," because the disciples weren't anywhere around.

I think that's kind of odd, because as frequently as Jesus told them that he would be raised on the third day, you would think that at least one or two of the disciples would have said, "You know, we should probably show up there just in case." But they weren't there. Wouldn't you think they'd get some sleeping bags and just sleep outside the tomb to say, "Hey, Jesus kept talking about this. I don't know if it's really going to happen because we've never seen somebody resurrect from the dead, but if it's true, we want to be the first ones here"?

If you were trying to fool everyone with a credible piece of fiction, you would have written all of this differently. Quite honestly, it's embarrassing to all of them. Repeatedly Jesus told them that he would rise, so you would think the disciples would show up at sunrise with a DJ and party hats, counting down as the stone rolled away: 10, 9, 8...

If you were trying to fool everyone, you wouldn't have had the very first eyewitnesses and proclaimers of the resurrection be women, because as many of you know, in ancient societies, women were marginalized and their testimony wasn't given much credibility at all. It was not admissible in court.

For example, there was this Greek philosopher by the name of Celsus who lived in the second century AD, highly antagonistic to Christianity. He wrote a number of hit pieces trying to list arguments against it. His primary argument, ironically, was he said the resurrection can't be true because the first written accounts were based on the testimony of women.

Which precisely is the big reason why it should be considered true. Because Mark and the other gospel writers, I mean, they would have known that. And if they were making it up, as they're writing it out, they would have been like, "Hey, we can't have the ladies be the first ones to notice the empty tomb. Let's have Peter or John be the ones." They got into a footrace there.

Or maybe the Roman centurion. That would be a good—how about Pilate himself? He shows up at the grave the next day, and he sees that it's empty, and we write him into the story. Guys, if you were making it up, you would write it completely differently.

In the remaining verses in the chapter, you see there is this tug-of-war struggle of belief. In verses 9 through 11, Mary Magdalene goes and she does what the angels tell her to do. Look at what it says in verse 10: "She went and told those who had been with them, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it."

Have any of you ever experienced something and you go and tell somebody, and they're like, "I don't believe you"? Isn't that so hurtful? Like, you're essentially saying you don't believe my testimony about what I've experienced or seen. That's what they did to her. In verses 12 through 13, Jesus himself appears to two.

In verse 12 he says, "After these things, he appeared in another form to two of them as they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them." For some of us, a matter of belief is not evidence; it's a matter of, "I want to live my life the way I want to live it."

Because if God ripped open the sky and went, "Hello!" you might believe for a little bit until you decided you wanted to do what you wanted to do again. Jesus appeared physically to these people—"Hey man, we saw him, we talked to him." They didn't believe him. Verse 14: "Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at a table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen."

And once again, if you were making this story up, what you would have done is you would have had all the disciples believe immediately. Why put it in there that they doubted? I'm just pointing this out because I'm just guessing the number of people that are listening to this right now—there's somebody listening to the sound of my voice and you're struggling to believe it. I totally get that.

In fact, I think we all have. That's where faith comes in. Mark tells us that some of the people that were the closest to Jesus had doubts. So you and I, living 2,000 years ago, of course we might have some doubts about this. And I don't think that it was the disciples that doubted—I don't think it's because they didn't want to believe.

I think they wanted to believe, maybe like some of you. Like, "I want to believe, but I mean, come on, I don't know." Like, "I don't want to be fooled." And I think that's why they struggled to believe, because they didn't want to be fooled. They saw him die once. They didn't want to be disappointed twice.

I don't know that it was so much that they were doubters; they were just realists. And I don't blame them. Typically speaking, dead people don't come back to life. That's why Jesus appeared physically to over 500 eyewitnesses over the course of 40 days.

It's not like he just appeared to a couple of them for 30 minutes and then went back to heaven. And then they're like, "Now wait a second. Did we really see him, or was it just the bad burrito from last night?" Jesus is like, "No, I'm going to appear to over 500 of you so you can all swap stories and talk about it. And I'm going to stay around for longer than a month, so you know it wasn't just a bad dream, so you know it wasn't just imagining things," to convince them that he had defeated death.

But even then, Jesus even acknowledges himself that we might struggle to believe, which is why I love what he says in John chapter 20, verse 29. Then Jesus, referring—I think he's speaking to Thomas—he says, "You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me." Who's he talking about? You.

He had you in mind when he said that. He said, "Blessed are all the people that these 500 eyewitnesses who get the opportunity to see me physically resurrected. But there's going to be millions and millions and millions of people in the next 2,000 years plus that aren't going to get the opportunity to see me physically. And there's a special blessing for them who believe."

I want you to know, this isn't a blind or a dumb faith. There's good reason to believe. Astounding evidence for—in fact, I would even go as far as to say you'd have to have more faith to not believe the resurrection than to believe it. Just check out a guy named Jeremiah Johnston and some of his work on this. It's absolutely amazing, some of the scientific, historical data that we have around a physical bodily resurrection of Jesus.

Christianity is not based on a story, a feeling, a set of morals, a religion, or a philosophy. It is based on an event. An event that most of the disciples gave up their lives for declaring. They believed that Jesus physically rose from the dead, they were proclaiming that, and their lives were taken from them.

So Peter was crucified upside down. Andrew was crucified on an X-shaped cross. Matthew was stabbed to death for proclaiming this. Nathaniel was skinned alive and beheaded for proclaiming it. Thomas was killed with a spear. The reason why I bring all that up is that people don't die for something they know is a lie.

And you might object and say, "No, man, people die all the time for stuff they know isn't true. That's why I have to take my shoes off at the airport." That's not what I said. People will die for something that's not true if they think it's true. People will die for something not true if they are mentally unstable. Nobody in their right mind will die for something they know is undeniably false.

They might initially want to believe so much that it's true. But eventually, here's the deal: some of the disciples, they went for the next 40 years proclaiming this message was true, and they were beat up and tortured and eventually put to death for proclaiming this message. Don't you think that at least one of them would have buckled?

Every one of these guys died for something because they had witnessed it. Here's the question, though: none of that really matters unless you come face-to-face with this question: Can he change you? Will you let him change you? So I got two truths for you: one you're going to completely agree with; the second you're not going to like. Here's the first one: the world right now is certifiably jacked up.

Would you not agree with that? It's a dumpster fire. We can't untangle ourselves or get ourselves out of this mess. We can't moralize ourselves out of this mess, we can't buy ourselves out of this mess, we can't rationalize ourselves out of this mess. It's a mess. All sorts of issues, man. We could just name them: relationally, politically, financially, economically, biologically, randomly—anything that else ends in -ly.

So that's the first truth; we all agree with that. So here's the second truth you're not going to like as much: you and I contribute to it. Like, we're to blame. See, there's this spiritual problem that cannot be solved any other way. Now, here's the thing: you and I have been brought up in whatever culture we've been brought up in. This is true even in other cultures. You and I are highly incentivized to view ourselves as a victim.

That's why whenever we talk about all these problems that we could list, most of the time, you never see this in online comments or conversation or anything like that: "Well, you know what, guys? I'm sorry, I'm to blame. Or my group, my tribe, my political party, we're to blame. I'm really sorry. We'll try to deal with that." No, what do we do? It's them! Whoever "them" is.

We don't like what they're doing. They're victimizing, we're victims. They're oppressing, we're oppressed. And we don't really frame it like sin; we frame it to where it's a little bit more palatable for us to swallow. "Well, I'm just not perfect. I just make a mistake. You know, nobody's perfect."

And so if we mess up, it's very easy to say it's somebody else's fault. It's our parents' fault. It's our trauma's fault. We ate processed foods as a kid. Look, man, some of that is true. But Jesus said this: he must be crucified. On the cross, Jesus was saying, "This world is certifiably jacked up, and you're to blame, and only I can get you out of it."

And so he took the sin that you and I deserve to be punished for upon himself. What he is saying is that you and I—and I'm including myself in this—we are not just victims who have been sinned against; we are villains who have done the sinning. You'd be like, "Man, that's really offensive." Well, it would be if I was pointing fingers at you and saying you were the one. I'm pointing it at me, too. I'm in the same boat. We're all in the same boat. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. The problem is not out there. The problem isn't with them, whoever "them" is. It's in here.

And I've got to look in here, and I need a heart transplant. I don't need a heart adjustment, a transplant. And it's not something I can do myself. I'm not asking you what you believe about God, I'm not asking you what denomination you grew up in, I'm not asking you what tradition you feel more comfortable in. I'm asking you this: have you confronted the sin problem in your heart? You are a sinner in need of a savior. You are not a "mistaker" in need of a life coach.

Listen, Jesus is not just offering you the forgiveness of sins, man. He is offering you adoption into his family. And I want to give you two truths that will hopefully land on you and set you free. Number one: God is so holy that a payment for your sin had to be made. And God is so loving that he made that payment himself for you.

Verses 15 and 16 say, "And he said to them, 'Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel.'" What's that? What I just said to you. I'm proclaiming it to you. He says, "You proclaim that gospel to the whole of creation, to all of the 'thems,' to all of the people that you can't stand, to all the people that you think are the problem. Go declare it to them, go preach it to yourself. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. But whoever does not believe will be condemned." Condemned by what? Your own sin.

The gospel is a complete transformation. And it's a supernatural thing that ends up happening. Jesus was supernaturally brought to life. You need to be supernaturally brought back to spiritual life, and that's not something you can do on your own. And Jesus has already made payment, and he wants to clear your name and cleanse your heart.

Guest (Male): As we close today, let me ask you a question: have you responded to the risen Christ? The resurrection isn't simply a historical event to acknowledge; it's a truth that calls for a response. Because Jesus conquered sin and death, forgiveness is available. Because he is alive, hope is available. Because he is risen, new life is possible.

Have you placed your faith in Christ as your Lord and Savior yet? If not, don't put it off. The same Savior who walked out of the tomb is still calling people to himself today. He offers forgiveness for your sins, peace with God, and the promise of eternal life to all who believe in him.

As we celebrate the reality of the resurrection, we're reminded that this is good news. And it was never meant to keep to ourselves. Jesus commissioned his followers, us today, to go into all the world to proclaim the gospel. That continues. Here at Gospel Broadcasting Mission, we proclaim the same message of the risen Christ to people all around the world, including many who have never had the opportunity to even hear the gospel.

We believe that everyone deserves a chance to hear that Jesus is alive and salvation is found in him. If you'd like to learn more about how God is using this ministry to reach people across the globe, visit us at thechristianshour.org. If God is leading you to partner with us, you'll find opportunities there to help us continue taking the hope of Christ to those who are still waiting to hear. We'd be honored to have you join us in fulfilling Christ's commission to make his name known among the nations.

Our thanks to Aaron Brockett for sharing today's message. And our thanks from Acapella Ministries for their music of worship. If today's message encouraged you, we'd love to hear from you. You can email us at thechristianshour@gmail.com and share how God is working in your life.

If you'd like to hear this message again, visit us at thechristianshour.org. There you'll find today's message available to stream or download, along with a library of all of our past broadcasts from this year. You can also stay connected with us by following us on our social media platforms—just search for The Christians Hour on Facebook and Instagram. Well, thank you for joining us today. We hope you join us again next week.