Mark 16:1-18 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices… I. THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 1. The morning of our Lord's resurrection. The first day of the week on which the events recorded in this section of the chapter took place was an eventful one. On the morning of that day we are placed side by side with some weeping women. They are Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome the wife of Zebedee. They had loved their Lord in life; they had stood by him in death; they had cleaved to him on the cross; and now his lifeless corpse is to them an object of affectionate concern. In the grey dawn of the morning twilight they quit their couch, they leave their cottage, and, setting out, come to the tomb (ἔρχονται, present, come, so St. Mark, graphically) with the spices and perfumes they had carefully prepared, the sun by this time having begun to rise. But lo! in their confusion and haste and sorrow they have overlooked an important fact; they have not known, or forgotten, the efforts of his enemies to make sure the sepulcher, already secured with a great stone, sealing it with the imperial signet and setting a guard. In their hurry they have forgotten all this - the stone, the seal, the sentry. Soon as the thought occurs to them they look anxiously at each other and sorrowfully inquire," Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulcher?" Of the stone, at least, they were well aware. 2. The rolling away of the stone. Not pausing for an answer, they press forward to the sepulcher. On reaching the spot their fears are disappointed and their expectations exceeded. An earthquake had shaken the place, an angel had descended; and when they looked up (ἀναβλέψασαι, another graphic trait) they see that the stone is rolled away. So is it with many another stone of huge dimensions - with many a stone of difficulty and doubt and danger. So with the stone that barred the entrance of the heavenly world against the sinner; so with the stone that closes the grave's mouth where the dear dead dust of loved ones lies; so with the stone that may be laid on the spot where our own ashes shall one day repose. The rolling away of this stone from the sepulcher of the Savior involves the rolling away of all these stones. 3. The evening of the same day. In the evening of the same day two lone pilgrims are traversing the pathway between the vineyards. They are journeying to a little village embosomed in vine-clad hills, and seven miles distant from Jerusalem. They are glad to escape from town; for a heavy heart seeks solitude. Their Master had been crucified, their hopes had been dashed, and their fond anticipations disappointed. They were returning home in sadness, for what was there in the capital to interest them now? All that had been dear to them there was now gone, and to all appearance gone for ever, for their Lord and Master was no more. The lovely scene around, the bright sky above, the cheerfulness of the season, but little harmonized with their sadness of heart and sorrow of spirit. "The spring in its beauty on Carmel was seen, And Hermon was dress'd in its mantle of green; While the pathway which led to Emmaus was made All fragrant and cool by the olive trees' shade; The dove in Jehoshaphat's valley was wailing, The eagle round Olivet proudly was sailing: But all was unheeded, for doubt and dismay Were distracting those two lonely men on their way." They walked and talked, and talked and walked, beguiling the difficulties of the way, and forgetting the lapse of time. They commune and reason together; they balance probabilities. They comment on the early visit of the women to the sepulcher, on the stone being rolled away, and the vision of the angels, and so for a moment they entertain a faint hope that their Master might have risen, and would now restore the kingdom to Israel. But that hope is like a brief glimpse of sunshine which the dark clouds soon blot again from the sky. Immediately it occurs to them that the words of the women had been treated as an idle tale. Their wish might have been father to the thought, while hope and love are proverbially quick-sighted. Why had Peter not seen the vision? Why had John not been privileged with the sight? A third traveler overtakes them. He joins their company. He asks the cause of the sadness pictured on their countenance; he inquires the subject of their communings; he converses with them cordially and confidentially; their heart was burning within them while he spake to them by the way and while he opened to them the Scriptures. These two scenes - one in the morning, the other in the evening of the same day; the former described by St. Mark and St. Matthew, the latter by St. Mark, but more fully by St. Luke (Luke 24:13-35) - occurred on the day of our Lord's resurrection from the dead. II. A VISIT TO THE SAVIOR'S TOMB. 1. The place where they laid him. "The place where they laid him," as St. Mark terms it, or the place where the Lord lay, was the tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea. We visit the tomb of an earthly friend; we venerate the place of our fathers' sepulchres; we gaze pensively on the green hillock that overlays the mortal remains of one we love; with willing hand we plant the shrub - the myrtle or the cypress ? which marks the place where the heart's treasure is enshrined; we snatch the early flowers of the spring and strew them on the grave of some dear one gone; carefully we wreathe the garland and place it on the spot or hang it on the shrub that points it out. Many a time have we stood in cemeteries more like a flower-garden than a garden of the dead, and admired the care, the tenderness, and the affection of surviving relatives, as evinced in the plants and wreaths and flowers which ornamented the last resting-place of the departed. "Come, see the place where the Lord lay," was the invitation of the angel to the women in the parallel record of St. Matthew. The passage of the Gospel before us is thus a visit to a tomb - to the tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea, the tomb where Jesus lay, the tomb of the dearest Friend we ever had, the tomb of the most loving One that ever lived, the tomb of him who "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister," of the good Shepherd that laid down his life for the sheep, of him in regard to whom the believer can say, "He loved me, and gave himself for me." 2. Object of our visit to the Savior's sepulcher. The followers of the false prophet Mahomet make their weary pilgrimages from year to year to that impostor's tomb. We pity their delusion, we pray for their deliverance; but we admire their devotedness. The mighty military enterprises that roused the martial spirit of European peoples during the Middle Ages, and employed the hands and hearts of bravest warriors, had for their object the rescue of the holy sepulcher from the possession of the infidel, and the protection from injury and insult of all Christian pilgrims who might please to visit that shrine. The conception was a grand one, but somewhat gross - gigantic in one sense, and yet grovelling in another. The subject of our section leads us in the same direction; but our visit is spiritual, not literal; it is not to the mere geographical position, but to the glorious Person who made a brief repose there, and accomplished a triumphant resurrection therefrom. 3. The lessons to be learnt from this visit. When we visit in this sense the place where they laid him, the first lesson we are taught by it is (1) the lowliness of our Lord. It was wondrous condescension on his part to visit earth at all. For the Holy One to come into this sin-blighted world, for the eternal Word to be made flesh and dwell among us, for the Son of God to be made of a woman, made under the Law, for the King of saints to endure the contradiction of sinners, for the King of glory to make himself of no reputation, - in a word, for him who was in the form of God, and thought it no robbery to be equal with God, to take upon him the form of a servant, was surely most astonishing humiliation. But for that high and holy One, not only to empty himself and become obedient to death, and a death so painful and so shameful as that of the cross, but to enter the region of the dead, to be laid in the tomb, and to lie as a corpse in the cold grave where they laid him, - this may well challenge the surprise of man, as it commands the study of angels. We admire that patriot king who quitted for a time his throne and left his kingdom and traveled through the nations of Europe, visiting their dockyards, their workshops, and their manufactories, and actually working as a mechanic, in order that when he returned home and resumed the reins of government he might benefit his kingdom and improve his subjects. Still more are we astonished at Charles V., who had done daring deeds of chivalry, gained brilliant victories, achieved great successes, exhibited strokes of skillful diplomacy, and wielded a mighty power among the potentates of Europe, at length, as though wearied with royalty and fatigued with dominion and surfeited with splendor, giving up and resigning all, retiring into private life, and spending the remainder of his days in a cloister. But what was the temporary resignation of the Czar of all the Russias, or the final abdication of him who wore the imperial crown of Germany and swayed the proud scepter of Spain, compared with the King of kings and Lord of lords resigning the sovereignty of the universe for the stable of Bethlehem, the crown of glory for the cross of Calvary, the scepter of heaven for the garden sepulcher? "Though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich." (2) "Come, see the place where the Lord lay," and consider the lesson of his love, for it was his love that laid him there. It was love that made him submit to the indignities which, as we have seen, were heaped upon him - the scoffing, and scourging, and spitting, and smiting. It was love that subjected him to the insults of priests and people, to the sentence of an unjust judge, the torture of most cruel death, and the disgrace of an ignominious execution. It was love that thus nailed him to the cross and suspended him on that cursed tree, as the gazing-stock of earth and heaven. So was it love that bound him in the habiliments of death, wrapped him in the cerements, and laid him in the coldness of the tomb. Was it strange, then, that the sun suffered an obscuration when the Savior expired, that the sky put on mourning when the Lord of glory gave up the ghost, or that the frame of nature shook when the Divine Upholder of its system died? Was it strange that rocks rent as if in commiseration of what might rend even a heart of stone? Was it strange that graves opened and their ghastly occupants came forth, and with bloodless face and skeleton form entered the holy city, and moved through the streets in grand and solemn silence, or flitted as strange and fearful apparitions among the living population that passed along the thoroughfares, when he who was the living One, having all life in himself, entered the abode of death and was laid in the grave? Long before, a dead man had started into life, when he was laid in a prophet's grave and touched a prophet's bones. Was it strange if the dove cooed plaintively in the valley of the Kidron, if the vine drooped mournfully on the hillside, if the brook murmured dolefully as it rolled over its pebble bed that night? Was it strange that the disciples hung their heads in sorrow, in sadness, and in silence, when their Master was entombed? "Come, see the place where they laid him," and "where the Lord lay;" and will not love beget love? Will you not love him who thus loved you, or rather can you forbear loving him who thus loved you first of all and best of all? Who ever heard of love like this before? "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends;" but while we were yet sinners, and therefore enemies, "Christ died for us." (3) "Come, see the place where the Lord lay," and reflect on a third lesson which is taught us there. This lesson respects the light that is thus shed into the gloom of the grave, and into the dreariness of that dark and narrow, house. Darkness had reigned in all deathland before, but then life and immortality were brought to light. In some places, where railways run beneath high hills, all at once you pass out of the light of day into a dark subterranean passage. In a moment or two you find that tunnel so dark as at first you thought it; the lamps on either side relieve the gloom and interrupt the darkness. By-and-by you quit the tunnel and emerge into the light of day, brighter and more beautiful, you think, than before because of the very contrast. The grave was a dark subterranean passage once; no light entered it, no ray brightened it; but now lamp after lamp is hung up in it, and on the other side the Christian finds himself in the everlasting light and unclouded brightness of heaven. III. THE GRAVE WHENCE THE LORD ROSE: THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 1. Honor shown Christ in death. "Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him;" and mark the honor paid him there. Even in death he was not unhonored. A few faithful females, a few devoted though dejected disciples, refused to believe that the past was only a delusion, the present merely a dream, and the future altogether darkness. They entertained an undefined expectation, and that expectation now glimmered before their mind's eye like the meteor of a moment, anon disappeared, leaving the gloom still denser. It was a dark hour with the disciples of our Lord, but it was the hour before the daybreak. These few faithful followers, however, ceased not in their attention to the body and attendance at the grave. They watched and waited, and visited the spot. The Jewish ruler Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathaea, a rich and honorable counsellor, as we saw in the preceding chapter, failed not in tender devotedness and affectionate dutifulness to the lifeless corpse. 2. Honor of a higher king. Greater glory awaits that body. The resurrection work of wonder takes place. Scarce had the morning of the third day arrived, scarce had the morning-star announced its early dawn, when the mediatorial reward began to be bestowed, and the faithfulness of the eternal covenant became manifest. Come once more, and see the place where the Lord lay, and as it can never be seen again. There - O wondrous sight! - lies the Prince of life; he is sleeping the sleep of death - silent and still as the grave where they laid him. Satan exults, the hosts of darkness hold jubilee, all pandemonium triumphs, hell cannot contain its satisfaction, if aught like satisfaction ever enters there. But hark! a voice from heaven echoes through that sealed sepulcher; it is the voice of God. The words "Awake, arise!" resound. In an instant the grave-clothes drop from off the body; without the help of human hand they are wrapped together and carefully laid aside; the napkin falls from the face; the stream of vital fluid circulates through the veins; the limbs that a moment before had been stiff and stark in death are in motion. The form of sinful flesh - of a servant and a sufferer - is laid aside for ever. The Savior rises; he rises in glory indescribable; he rises by his own and his Father's power; rises triumphant over death, and the Conqueror of the grave. The angels of God come down to do him honor; one of them rolls away the stone and opens the sepulcher; the keepers shake and become as dead men; earth becomes tremulous for joy under the feet of its risen King; all nature puts on its fairest spring attire and joins in celebrating the Redeemer's triumph. Thus on all sides are re-echoed the words, "He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay? 3. Positive proof of his resurrection. If you have any doubt of this, you need not go further for proof, and proof to demonstration, than the lie of the adversaries. "His disciples," say they, "came by night, and stole him away while we slept." What! eleven disciples overpower a company of Roman soldiers armed to the teeth, or roll away the huge stone in silence, or enter the tomb in secrecy, or range things so securely there? Or, granting this, how could they carry the body unnoticed through the streets of Jerusalem, while thousands bivouacked in or patrolled those streets and thoroughfares at that Passover season, and while the full-orbed moon shone down upon the scene? Or, allowing this, is it likely that Roman soldiers would sleep on guard while death was the penalty, or that a whole detachment of them should all fall asleep at the same time? Or, conceding even this, suppose they slept, how could they see the purloiners of the body, or how could they say whether disciples did it or not? We need not stay to answer these questions; they sufficiently show the truth of the statement, "He is not here: for he is risen." IV. REASONS FOR THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD. 1. It was necessary for justification. We have visited the empty tomb, and now we may inquire why he lay there and rose thence. It was in the first place for our justification. "He was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification." "By his death," says one, "he paid our debt, in his resurrection he received our acquittance." Another says, "Had no man been a sinner Jesus had not died, had he been a sinner he had never risen again." In other words, his death shows his sufferings for sin, his resurrection proves full satisfaction made by those sufferings. The meaning of his death is summed up in the words, "God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh;" the meaning of his resurrection runs thus: "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." His resurrection was thus his acquittal from the obligations he had come under, and our absolution through him from the debt we owed, so that, once united to him by faith, our persons are justified, our sins remitted, and our services accepted. Thus we see the meaning of that empty tomb. It is as though the voice of the Eternal proclaimed in thunder-tones through all the universe, "This is my beloved Son," in whose person and work, in whose life and death, "I am well pleased." His resurrection is the full recognition of the Redeemer's work. It is the protest of Heaven against the accusations with which he was loaded. It is the vindication of him whom Jew and Gentile condemned as deserving of death. It is the authoritative announcement that the work was finished, the debt paid, justice satisfied, the Law fulfilled, obedience rendered, punishment endured, wrath exhausted, sin put away, righteousness brought in, Satan vanquished, and God glorified. It is the consent of Heaven to the cancelling of the handwriting that testified against us. Therefore "all power is given unto him heaven and in earth." And had he not all power, as Jehovah's Fellow, from everlasting? Yes, but now he has it as our Mediator; he holds it on our behalf, and exercises it our benefit. Therefore "he received gifts." And why needed he gifts in whom all fullness dwelt, and who shared the Father's glory? As Head over all things he received them for his people's use, "even for the rebellious, that the Lord God might dwell among them." "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again." And did not God love him when he was in his bosom, before all worlds? Yes, but now he loves him as our Representative, and us in him; and consequently the apostle prays so earnestly to "be found in Christ." He is "crowned with glory and honor." And why? That he might communicate to us that glory which, as God, he had laid aside, and as Mediator resumed, and thus make his own peculiar privilege the common property of all believers. 2. It was necessary also for our sanctification. "Planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection;" "As Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so should we also walk in newness of life." To live habitually in any known sin is to deny practically that sin is death; to indulge presumptuously in sin is to ignore the fact that Christ has risen from the dead; to persevere in sin is to resist the influence of Christ's resurrection, and shut our ears to the loud call that comes from the empty tomb, saying, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." We turn to some practical illustrations of the subject of sanctification. What is a saint? He is one that is risen with Christ, and acts accordingly, seeking the things that are above. Though in this world, he is not of it; he is above it. His conversation, treasure, heart, hope, home, - all are in heaven, whence he looks for the Savior. Among the currents in the Atlantic Ocean is the great Gulf Stream; it has been called a river in the ocean. The water of this stream is on the average twenty degrees higher than the surrounding ocean; it preserves its waters distinct from those of the sea on either side, so that the eye can trace the line of contact. It retains its physical identity for thousands of miles, casting branches and fruits of tropical trees on the coast of the Hebrides and Norway. It greatly influences the Atlantic, keeping one-fourth of its waters in constant motion. The sanctified person - that is, the saint - is like that Gulf Stream; he is in the ocean of this world, but he has no affinity with it; he is not conformed to it; he has a higher temperature, for "the love of God is shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost which is given unto him." Nevertheless, his influence is great and always for good; he keeps the dead waters from stagnation and in healthy movement. "With Christ the Lord we died to sin, With him to life we rise; To life which, now begun on earth, Is perfect in the skies." 3. The resurrection of Christ is necessary for our resurrection. "Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the Firstfruits of them that slept;" "He has destroyed the last enemy, and that is death." During the reign of Augustus Caesar a reverse befell the Roman army in the densely wooded valley of the Lippe. It was led by Varus to quell an insurrection of the Germans. The legions got embarrassed amid the entanglements of the forest; they fell into disorder; a violent tempest coming on at the same time aggravated their difficulties; four and twenty thousand of them were cut to pieces, and the general fell upon his sword. Six years after succeeding legions reached the plain, where lay the bleaching bones of former comrades, strewn in disorder or piled in heaps as they had fought and fallen. Fragments of weapons, limbs of horses, heads of men stuck on trunks of trees, were to be seen on every hand. In groves hard by were the savage altars where tribunes and centurions had been victimized; while those who survived that fatal field pointed out the place where lieutenants were butchered, standards taken, Varus wounded, crosses erected for the captives, and the eagles trampled underfoot. In addition to all, in a night-vision the ill-fated Varus, smeared with blood and emerging from the fens, seemed present to the imagination of his successor, and beckoning him to a like defeat. The description of the whole scene by Tacitus, the Roman historian, is vivid and terrible in the extreme. Ever after throughout his reign the Emperor Augustus was heard at times to exclaim, "Varus, Yarns, give me back my legions!" So, when we reflect on the ruins of frail humanity - the wreck of generation after generation - we may well imagine Mother Earth appealing to Death in pitiful accents, and exclaiming, "Death, Death, give me back my sons and daughters; restore to me my children thou hast slain." That appeal shall be heeded one day, not by Death, but by him who was swallowed of Death - swallowed as a poison, and so destroyed the destroyer. Christ, by his resurrection, says to Earth, widowed and weeping over the graves of her children, "Weep not! I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death." To Death he says at the same time, "O Death, I will be thy plagues! O Grave, I will be thy destruction!" Further, he will not only raise us up, he will fashion the body of our humiliation and make it like his own glorious body, Plants and animals have their proper habitats; different species demand different situations; different vegetable tribes are allotted to different latitudes and different elevations. The palms of the torrid zone will dwindle and die in the temperate; the trees of the temperate, again, shrink into shrubs in the frigid. Such is the difference of latitude. That of elevation has a similar effect. A French traveler tells us that, in ascending Mount Ararat, he found at the foot the plants of Asia, further up those of Italy, at a higher elevation those of France, then those of Sweden, and at the top those of Lapland and the northern regions. Just so we shall be adapted to our future dwelling-place. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;" therefore the living shall be changed, the dead quickened, and all God's people, quick and dead, glorified together; "for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." V. PRACTICAL LESSONS. 1. Come, "behold the place where they laid him," and there see the fruits of Christ's death and the benefits of his resurrection; come, seek the pardon and peace which the justified possess; come, secure the holiness and happiness of the sanctified; come, entertain the "sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life." 2. We have considered the lowliness of Christ, and dwelt on his love, and now we may rejoice in the light he has shed on the tomb. We are hastening to that "bourn whence no traveler returns." As we advance, desire fails; a little longer, and the grasshopper will be a burden. Once we reach the summit we soon go down the hill, and it is well and wisely so arranged. "Heaven gives our years of failing strength Indemnifying fleetness, And those of youth a seeming length Proportion'd to their sweetness." 3. "Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified." So, too, we seek Jesus, though condemned as a Nazarene in the spirit of the contemptuous question, "can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" We seek Christ crucified, though to the Jew a stumbling-block, and to the Greek foolishness. We are not ashamed of the offense of the cross. Nay, like Paul, we glory in that cross. The day was when Paul gloried in his pedigree, for he was an Hebrew of the Hebrews; in his sect, for he belonged to the straitest sect of the Jews' religion, being a Pharisee; in his morality, as touching the Law blameless; in his learning, brought up at the feet of Gamaliel; in the seal of the Abrahamic covenant, being circumcised on the eighth day; in his Roman franchise, born free; in his citizenship, a citizen of no mean city - his native Tarsus, beautifully situated in the plain and on the banks of the Cydnus; in his persecuting zeal, haling men and women to prison. But once his eyes were opened, once his heart was renewed, once he obtained mercy, then his ground of glorying was altogether changed. "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." 4. We shall not see his face until either we stand on the sea of glass, or his feet stand again on Olivet; we cannot hold him as those who "met him by the way... and held him by the feet, and worshipped him;" we cannot minister to him as certain women in the days of his flesh; we cannot serve him at food like Martha, nor pour oil on his head like Mary. What, then, remains forus to do? How are we to express our love to him? We are to think of him, believe on him, pray to him, accept him for our King and submit to his laws, call on his name, take the cup of salvation and keep his memory green in our souls, show forth his death, glory in his resurrection, partake of the sacrament of the Supper - it is the memorial of his death; and delight in the sabbath - it is the monument of his resurrection. 5. "Come, see the place where the Lord lay," and let the sight encourage you. Dread not death; you believe in him that conquered it. Dread not the grave; you love him who lay in it. Dread not hell; you believe in him who rescued you from it. But dread sin and depart from it;. "go and sin no more." - J.J.G. Parallel Verses KJV: And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. |
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