Christ Has Risen, Have You?
St. Mark the Evangelist Sunday (04-22-07)
Mark 16:14-20
14 Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen. 15 He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well." 19 After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. 20 Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.
I have a confession to make; as I've gotten older, I have trouble tolerating change. It's not that I dislike change I just have trouble tolerating it. It creates anxiety. I'd love to be able to say it's due to my breeding, stubborn German blood, bullheaded English blood, Welsh, Irish or Scottish heritage but that's not it. Over the years I've gotten use to the way things are done, day after day, week after week, year after year, you know - after a while it seems that ought to be the only way its done. In other words, if we do something long enough we assume it's right even if it's not. That's not all bad. It makes it convenient. For instance, I wake up every morning never having to figure out how I'm going to comb my hair. I've been doing it the same way for decades. When I open the closet, I never have to figure out which shirt I'm going to wear. I just reach for a black shirt. I come by this attitude towards change honestly. My grandparents were like that. Every morning my grandfather would sit at the breakfast table with a cup of coffee and his favorite newspaper. Grandma told us to never bother grandpa while he was having his coffee and reading his paper. It was always the same, 2 cups of coffee and the Fresno Bee. My grandparents were not the type to express their love verbally. I never once heard them say, "I love you." Not to us or to each other. But they did, they showed it. Grandma showed it by constantly feeding us, and grandpa by working hard so we could have things.
There's a joke that I shared in the past to describe my grandparents. On their 25th anniversary grandpa was sitting at the breakfast table like usual, slurping his coffee and reading his paper. Grandma came to the table and asked him, "George do you love me?" Yaw, yaw he responded never looking up and then taking another slurp of coffee. George, do you really love me, she asked? Yaw, yaw he responded never looking up just continuing to read his paper. George, she says, tell me you love me! Yaw, yaw says grandpa never missing a slurp of coffee nor a line of text on the paper. Finally in exasperation grandma tears the paper from his hands and says, "George, tell me you love me!" With that grandpa puts his coffee down and says, "Voman 25 years ago todays we stood at zie altar, and 25 years agos today I saz I loved you! If anything vould have changed I vould have told you!
Perhaps you see a bit of yourself in that story. Maybe you too have a little trouble tolerating change. But you're not alone! When something has been done a certain way for a long time we have trouble seeing what is right and what is just habit. We use our life experience as the measuring stick. And it's always dangerous to use our personal experience as the gauge of what is right or what is true.
In our text today the disciples faced this same dilemma. Let me read again a portion of the passage, Mark 16:14. "Afterward He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at 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." Did you catch that? Did you catch what they were doing? They used their personal experience as the gauge of what is true. People who are scourged and crucified don't rise from the dead. Dead people don't come back to life. All reason and all logic tells us that it just doesn't happen. But when it did, and when the others came witnessing to fact that Jesus had risen, they in dismissed it. They instead lean to their own understanding rather than trusting in the Lord. They had forgotten Proverbs 3:5 "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding." Notice that Jesus rebukes them for their unbelief and hardness of heart. Rebuke is actually a softer word than the original language, for He denounces them, He reproaches them, He scolds them, in the original language points to Jesus laying charges against them as in a court of law. Why such intense action? Because of the hardness of their hearts! Again the original language helps us here. The word hardness is also translated stubbornness. Jesus lays charge against them, because of their unbelief and the stubbornness of their hearts! That word stubbornness of heart means someone who is hard to teach.
Jesus sent people to share the Good News of His resurrection. They came to teach the knowledge of Jesus resurrection. But these disciples would have nothing to do with it, their hearts were stubborn, their hearts were hardened. They believed Jesus was dead. But Christ has risen, but have they? Did they rise to occasion with joy and enthusiasm? No, instead they leaned to their own understanding. It is always dangerous to use our personal experience as the gauge of what is right or true.
Even so Jesus doesn't reject them. He does reproves them; just as we might say to a person: Aren't you ashamed that you dared to do such a thing? In such a case our hope is to bring them to knowledge of self and make them blush with shame; that they might cease from their wicked deeds. We do this not to reject them, but to turn them in love from their error.
However, it is of great significance that the Lord rebukes the disciples, why? Unbelief is the greatest sin that can be named. Christ tells them the cause of their unbelief, their hearts are hardened; and yet He deals with them kindly and tenderly.
This passage is given for our comfort. For we too despair, when we lack faith, we doubt, we stumble and we fall; it is to help us to rise again, to strengthen our faith and lift up our hearts to God, that we may grasp and hold fast the confidence of God, who does not deal with us severely, but bears with us and overlooks much. And whoever believes Him to be a merciful God, He shows mercy to them. But a bad conscience and an unbelieving heart have no such trust in God, but flee from Him, and consider Him a harsh Judge and so He is to the unbeliever.
But God doesn't desire the destruction of mankind. He doesn't desire the destruction of unbelievers. So after addressing the disciples' stubbornness of heart, He sends them out. Verse15 "And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." This is not easy for the disciples. It's a challenge to do things differently than they had. In the past they simply followed Jesus they went where He went. But now, they were being asked to go on their own. It's important to put things in context here. To be an Israelite, to be a Jew was a birthright. The Jewish faith, by and large, at Jesus time and even today, doesn't really care to proselytize, in other words no evangelism. You are a Jewish if you are born to Jewish parents. Faith is talked about at the synagogue or at home or with other Israelites but not with strangers, not with the Gentiles. But what does Jesus say? "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." Not just the Jews but to all people, even Gentiles. Share the good news with everyone. Talk about a change.
Then Jesus gives this wonderful passage, “He who believes and is baptized will be saved.” Jesus doesn't say that he who obeys God’s law will be saved. The reason is that the Bible teaches that everyone stands condemned by God’s law. St. Paul puts it this way in Romans 3:19-20:
Now we know that whatever the law says it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Many people believe and teach that if you do your best to obey the law that will be good enough for God. Nowhere does the Bible teach that. The Bible teaches that the law always shows us our sin. Those who believe that their obedience to the law will save them aren't Christians. They reject the gospel. The gospel is not a new law given by Jesus. The gospel is the message, the good news (for that is what “gospel” means good news) that Jesus has done the obeying for us. He has obeyed the law perfectly as our substitute. He has suffered on the cross the punishment for our sins so that we won’t have to suffer it. This gospel is not something that can be obeyed. A gift cannot be obeyed. It can only be received or rejected. One embraces and loves and cherishes a gift. Or one rejects it. To turn the gospel into a law that must be obeyed is to despise the vicarious suffering of Jesus. It's to trample blood of Jesus under foot, as if His holy obedience all the way to the death on the cross was insufficient. Did Jesus fail? Was His obedience lacking? Was His love impure? Did He not die for us all? Or did God refuse to forgive us even though Jesus took away our sins? No, Jesus didn't fail. His obedience was perfectly sufficient. His love fulfilled God’s whole law for us all. God has forgiven us our sins because Jesus has borne them in His body on the cross. This is how we can know that the gospel is not a command to be obeyed. It is a promise to be believed.
“He who believes and is baptized will be saved.” Therefore, baptism is a gift. If baptism were our work, then Jesus wouldn’t have said, “He who believes and is baptized will be saved.” Baptism couldn’t save us if it were our doing. That would mean we are saved by what we do. But we are not saved by what we do. We are saved by believing in what Jesus gives us in the gospel. Baptism doesn’t save us as a legal requirement that we fulfill. Baptism saves us as God’s gracious gift that gives us salvation. It doesn't make sense to our human reason. How can this be so? But I remind you; it's always dangerous to use our personal experience as the gauge of what is right or what is true.
When we try to use our experience, our fallen nature to determine what is right or true we are trying to think with our old Adam. Jesus has risen from the dead, have you? Are you still relying on the old Adam, life's experiences, leaning to your own understanding? Or do you die daily by reminding yourself of your baptism, dying daily to sin and allowing yourself to be raised in Christ? Are you living a crucified life or a resurrected one?
Jesus continues in Mark 16:16 “But he who does not believe will be condemned.” Heed the warning. Living in sin without repentance and neglecting the gospel and sacraments will destroy faith. Listen to the warning, but even the warning contains a promise. “He who does not believe will be condemned.” Who will be condemned? Not the one who sins much for a long time; not the one who fell again into sin after confessing the faith; not the one who has hated, coveted, committed adultery, lied, killed, slandered, and mocked God. No, only he who does not believe will be damned. Unbelief is the only sin that does indeed damn us forever, because Jesus Christ has taken away all of our sin – all of it – all of the sin of all of the sinners in the entire world. He has taken it away. This is the gospel. This is what holy baptism gives us. Everyday our old Adams drowns and we are raised to a new life. So we return in humble repentance to our baptism every single day of our lives. In these holy waters we find the Jesus who died for us, who rose from the dead, and who ascended into heaven. He sits at the right hand of the Father. He lives to intercede for us. He is our Mediator. He pleads for us. Our Father hears His plea and graciously forgives us our sins and delivers us from every evil. By His divine intercession Jesus guarantees that we remain God’s children and heirs of everlasting life. For we are no longer under the law, but under grace! What a nice change. He that believes and is baptized shall be saved. Grant this, Lord, unto us all. In Jesus name, Amen!