When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, that they might come and anoint him. Very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. They were saying among themselves, “Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?” for it was very big. Looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back.
Entering into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were amazed. He said to them, “Don’t be amazed. You seek Jesus, the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen. He is not here. Behold, the place where they laid him!
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv4–5 When they cast their eyes toward the sepulchre.
When they cast their eyes toward the sepulchre.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–4 1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene,…
1 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.
Ver. 1. And when the sabbath was past] As God on the first day of the week drew the world out of that abhorred estate of nothing, and brought light out of darkness, so did Christ, on that day, draw his people out of an estate worse than nothing, and "brought life and immortality to light by the gospel," 2Ti 1:10.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5 We are now come to the history of our…
We are now come to the history of our Saviour’s resurrection, his several appearances to and converse with his disciples, from the time of his rising from the dead unto the time of his ascension up into heaven, which was forty days. Of all the evangelists, St. John is most full in his relation of this part of the history of our Saviour, which we shall consider in order; for his two last chapters are wholly spent in this part of the history: in the mean time, as we did in our notes on Mat 28:1-20 take notice only of what Matthew hath upon that argument; so we shall, in the opening of this chapter of Mark, take notice only of what Mark hath not concurrent with, and completory of, what Matthew had before said (for what he hath of that nature, we shall refer the reader to our notes on Matthew). See Poole on "Mat 28:1", and following verses to Mat 28:20. And here we will also take in what Luke hath that tends to the fuller relation of any thing which Mark hath; not meddling with what John hath, but reserving that till we come to open the fuller account of this whole history, in the twentieth and twenty-first chapters of his Gospel.
Matthew saith, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week. John saith, they came early, when it was yet dark. Luke also saith, very early. But it is manifest from the history, that they came a second time, of which Mark may speak, passing over their first coming.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 The Lord of life was buried on the Friday,…
The Lord of life was buried on the Friday, in the evening of that day on which he was crucified, and his holy body rested in the silent grave all the next day, and some part of the day following. Thus arose he again the third day, neither sooner nor later; not sooner, lest the truth of his death should have been questioned, that he did not die at all; and not later, lest the faith of his death should failed.
Accordingly when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene getting the other women together, she and they set out before day to visit the holy sepulchre; and about sun-rising they get to it, intending with their spices and odours farther to embalm their Lord’s body.
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Here observe, 1. That although the hearts of these holy women did burn with an ardent zeal and affection to their crucified Lord, yet the commanded duties of the sabbath are not omitted by them; they keep close, and silently spend that holy day in a mixture of grief and hope. A good pattern of sabbath sanctification, and worthy of our Christian imitation.
Observe, 2. These holy women go, but not empty-handed, she that bestowed a costly alabaster box of ointment upon Christ whilst alive, has prepared no less precious odours for Saviour’s corpse. But what need of odours to perfume a body which could not see corruption? True, his holy body did not want them, but the love and affection of his friends could not with-hold them.
Observe, 3. How great a tribute of respect and honour is due and payable to the memory of these holy women, for their great magnanimity and courage; they followed Christ when his cowardly disciples left him, they accompanied him to the cross, they followed his hearse to the grave, when his disciples durst not appear; and now, very early in the morning, they go to visit his sepulchre, fearing neither the darkness of the night, nor the presence of the watchmen.
Learn hence, That courage is the special gift of God; and if he gives it to the feebler sex, even to timorous and fearful women, it is not in the power of men to make them afraid.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 Never was there such a sabbath since the sabbath…
Never was there such a sabbath since the sabbath was first instituted as this was, which the first words of this chapter tell us was now past; during all this sabbath our Lord Jesus lay in the grave. It was to him a sabbath of rest, but a silent sabbath, it was to his disciples a melancholy sabbath, spent in tears and fears. Never were the sabbath services in the temple such an abomination to God, though they had been often so, as they were now, when the chief priests, who presided in them, had their hands full of blood, the blood of Christ. Well, this sabbath is over, and the first day of the week is the first day of a new world. We have here,
I. The affectionate visit which the good women that had attended Christ, now made it to his sepulchre - not a superstitious one, but a pious one. They set out from their lodgings very early in the morning, at break of day, or sooner; but either they had a long walk, or they met with some hindrance, so that it was sun-rising by the time they got to the sepulchre. The had bought sweet spices too, and came not only to bedew the dead body with their tears (for nothing could more renew their grief than this), but to perfume it with their spices, Mar 16:1. Nicodemus had bought a very large quantity of dry spices, myrrh and aloes, which served to dry the wounds, and dry up the blood, Joh 19:39. But these good women did not think that enough; they bought spices, perhaps of another kind, some perfumed oils, to anoint him. Note, The respect which others have showed to Christ's name, should not hinder us from showing our respect to it.
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II. The care they were in about the rolling away of the stone, and the superseding of that care (Mar 16:3, Mar 16:4); They said among themselves, as they were coming along, and now drew near the sepulchre, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? For it was very great, more than they with their united strength could move. They should have thought of this before they came out, and then discretion would have bid them not go, unless they had those to go with them, who could do it. And there was another difficulty much greater than this, to be got over, which they knew nothing of, to wit, a guard of soldiers set to keep the sepulchre; who, had they come before they were frightened away, would have frightened them away. But their gracious love to Christ carried them to the sepulchre; and see how by the time they came thither, both these difficulties were removed, both the stone which they knew of, and the guard which they knew not of. They saw that the stone was rolled away, which was the first thing that amazed them. Note, They who are carried by a holy zeal, to seek Christ diligently, will find the difficulties that lie in their way strangely to vanish, and themselves helped over them beyond their expectation.
III. The assurance that was given them by an angel, that the Lord Jesus was risen from the dead, and had taken leave of his sepulchre, and had left him there to tell those so who came thither to enquire after him.
1. They entered into the sepulchre, at least, a little way in, and saw that the body of Jesus was not there where they had left it the other night. He, who by his death undertook to pay our debt, in his resurrection took out our acquittance, for it was a fair and legal discharge, by which it appealed that his satisfaction was accepted for all the purposes for which it was intended, and the matter in dispute was determined by an incontestable evidence that he was the Son of God.
2. They saw a young man sitting on the right side of the sepulchre. The angel appeared in the likeness of a man, of a young man; for angels, though created in the beginning, grow not old, but are always the same perfection of beauty and strength; and so shall glorified saints be, when they are as the angels. This angel was sitting on the right hand as they went into the sepulchre, clothed with a long white garment, a garment down to the feet, such as great men were arrayed with. The sight of him might justly have encouraged them, but they were affrighted. Thus many times that which should be matter of comfort to us, through our own mistakes and misapprehensions proves a terror to us.
3. He silences their fears by assuring them that here was cause enough for triumph, but none for trembling (Mar 16:6); He saith to them, Be not affrighted. Note, As angels rejoice in the conversation of sinners, so they do also in the consolation of sinners. Be not affrighted, for, (1.) "Ye are faithful lovers of Jesus Christ, and therefore, instead of being confounded, out to be comforted. Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified." Note, The enquiries of believing souls after Christ, have a particular regard to him as crucified (Co1 2:2), that they may know him, and the fellowship of his sufferings. His being lifted up from the earth, is that which draws all men unto him. Christ's cross is the ensign to which the Gentiles seek. Observe, He speaks of Jesus as one that was crucified; "The thing is past, that scene is over, ye must not dwell so much upon the sad circumstances of his crucifixion as to be unapt to believe the joyful news of his resurrection. He was crucified in weakness, yet that doth not hinder but that he may be raised in power, and therefore ye that seek him, be not afraid of missing of him." He was crucified, but he is glorified; and the shame of his sufferings is so far from lessening the glory of his exaltation, that that glory perfectly wipes away all the reproach of his sufferings. And therefore after his entrance upon his glory, he never drew any veil over his sufferings, nor was shy of having his cross spoken of. The angel here that proclaims his resurrection, calls him Jesus that was crucified. He himself owns (Rev 1:18), I am he that liveth, and was dead; and he appears in the midst of the praises of the heavenly host as a Lamb that had been slain, Rev 5:6. (2.) "It will therefore be good news to you, to hear that, instead of anointing him dead, you may rejoice in him living. He is risen, he is not here, not dead, but alive again. We cannot as yet show you him, but hereafter you will see him, and you may here see the place where they laid him. You see he is gone hence, not stolen either by his enemies or by his friends, but risen."
4. He orders them to give speedy notice of this to his disciples. Thus they were made the apostles of the apostles, which was a recompence of their affection and fidelity to him, in attending him on the cross, to the grave, and in the grave. They first came, and were first served; no other of the disciples durst come near his sepulchre, or enquire after him; so little danger was there of their coming by night to steal him away, that none came near him but a few women, who were not able so much as to roll away the stone.
(1.) They must tell the disciples, that he is risen. It is a dismal time with them, their dear Master is dead, and all their hopes and joys are buried in his grave; they look upon their cause as sunk, and themselves ready to fall an easy prey into the hands of their enemies, so that there remains no more spirit in them, they are perfectly at their wits' end, and every one is contriving how to shift for himself. "O, go quickly to them," said the angel, "tell them that their Master is risen; this will put some life and spirit into them, and keep them from sinking into despair." Note, [1.] Christ is not ashamed to own his poor disciples, no, not now that he is in his exalted state; his preferment doth not make him shy of them, for he took early care to have it notified to them. [2.] Christ is not extreme to mark what they do amiss, whose hearts are upright with him. The disciples had very unkindly deserted him, and yet he testified this concern for them. [3.] Seasonable comforts shall be sent to those that are lamenting after the Lord Jesus, and he will find a time to manifest himself to them.
(2.) They must be sure to tell Peter. This is particularly taken notice of by this evangelist, who is supposed to have written by Peter's direction. If it were told the disciples, it would be told Peter, for, as a token of his repentance for disowning his Master, he still associated with his disciples; yet he is particularly named: Tell Peter, for, [1.] It will be good news to him, more welcome to him than to any of them; for he is in sorrow for sin, and no tidings can be more welcome to true penitents than to hear of the resurrection of Christ, because he rose again for their justification. [2.] He will be afraid, lest the joy of this good news do not belong to him. Had the angel said only, Go, tell his disciples, poor Peter would have been ready to sigh, and say, "But I doubt I cannot look upon myself as one of them, for I disowned him, and deserve to be disowned by him;" to obviate that, "Go to Peter by name, and tell him, he shall be as welcome as any of the rest to see him in Galilee." Note, A sight of Christ will be very welcome to a true penitent, and a true penitent shall be very welcome to a sight of Christ, for there is joy in heaven concerning him.
(3.) They must appoint them all, and Peter by name, to give him the meeting in Galilee, as he said unto you, Mat 26:32. In their journey down into Galilee they would have time to recollect themselves, and call to mind what he had often said to them there, that he should suffer and die, and the third day be raised again; whereas while they were at Jerusalem, among strangers and enemies, they could not recover themselves from the fright they had been in, nor compose themselves to the due entertainment of better tidings. Note, [1.] All the meetings between Christ and his disciples are of his own appointing. [2.] Christ never forgets his appointment, but will be sure to meet his people with the promised blessing in every place where he records his name. [3.] In all meetings between Christ and his disciples, he is the most forward. He goes before you.
IV. The account which the women did bring of this to the disciples (Mar 16:8); They went out quickly, and ran from the sepulchre, to make all the haste they could to the disciples, trembling and amazed. See how much we are enemies to ourselves and our own comfort, in not considering and mixing faith with that Christ hath said to us. Christ had often told them, that the third day he would rise again; had they given that its due notice and credit, they would have come to the sepulchre, expecting to have found him risen, and would have received the news of it with a joyful assurance, and not with all this terror and amazement. But, being ordered to tell the disciples, because they were to tell it to all the world, they would not tell it to any one else, they showed not any thing of it to any man that they met by the way, for they were afraid, afraid it was too good news to be true. Note, Our disquieting fears often hinder us from doing that service to Christ and to the souls of men, which if faith and the joy of faith were strong, we might do.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv2–6 And very early in the morning, the first day…
And very early in the morning, the first day of the week,.... See Gill on Mat 28:1.
They came to the sepulchre at the rising of the sun; of the sun of righteousness, as Mr. Mede observes; or rather, of the natural sun: for though it was dark when they set out, and when it dawned towards the first day, yet by that time that they all got to the sepulchre, the sun was rising; the Jews say (g), that
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"from the ascending of the morning, or break of day, until the sun rises, is an hour and a half.''
And so much time may very well be allowed the women, from their setting out, to their coming to the sepulchre. Moreover, they say (h), that
"from the hind of the morning, to the time the east is enlightened, a man may walk four miles, and from the time that the east is enlightened, , "until the sun rises", four miles.''
But women must not be thought to walk so fast: let it be observed, that Christ, who is called the hind of the morning, Psa 22:1 (title, "Aijeleth Shahar"), and the morning star, Rev 22:16, rose at this time.
(g) Piske Tosaphot in Pesach. art. 44. (h) T. Hieros. Beracot, fol. 2. 3. Bereshit Rabba, sect. 50. fol. 45. 2.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Matt. xxviii, 1; Luke xxiv, 1; John xx, 1.
Matt. xxviii, 1; Luke xxiv, 1; John xx, 1.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 6 Early in the morning after the Sabbath, the three…
CHAPTER XVI.
Early in the morning after the Sabbath, the three Marys come to
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the sepulchre, bringing sweet spices to embalm the body, 1-4.
They see an angel who announces the resurrection of our Lord,
5-8.
Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene, who goes and tells the
disciples, 9-11.
He appears also to the two disciples who were going into the
country, who also tell it to the rest, 12, 13.
Afterwards he appears unto the eleven, and commissions them to
preach the Gospel to all mankind, 14-16.
And promises to endue them with power to work miracles, 17, 18.
He is received up into heaven, 19.
And they go forth to preach and work miracles, 20.
NOTES ON CHAP. XVI.
Verse 1. And anoint him.] Rather, to embalm him. This is a proof that they had not properly understood what Christ had so frequently spoken, viz. that he would rise again the third day. And this inattention or unbelief of theirs is a proof of the truth of the resurrection.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 Mar 16:1. Mary Magdalene, &c., had bought sweet spices…
Mar 16:1. Mary Magdalene, &c., had bought sweet spices — These Galilean women, who had waited on Jesus in his last moments, and attended his body to the sepulchre, observing that his funeral rites were performed in haste, (the body being rolled in nothing but a mixture of myrrh and aloes, brought by Nicodemus, Joh 19:39,) agreed among themselves to come, when the sabbath was passed, and embalm their dead Lord, by anointing and swathing him in a proper manner. Accordingly, as soon as they had seen him laid in the sepulchre, and the entrance into it blocked up by a great stone, they returned to the city, and bought what other spices were necessary for that purpose. And very early in the morning they came unto the sepulchre — See note on Mat 28:1. At the rising of the sun — It appears, upon comparing the accounts given by the other evangelists, that they set out while it was yet dark, and came within sight of the sepulchre, for the first time, just as it grew light enough to discern that the stone was rolled away. But by the time Mary had called Peter and John, and they had viewed the sepulchre, the sun was rising.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On v1 See this passage explained in the notes at Mat…
See this passage explained in the notes at Mat 28:1-8.
Mar 16:1
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Sweet spices - “Aromatics.” Substances used in embalming. The idea of sweetness is not, however, implied in the original. Many of the substances used for embalming were “bitter” - as, for example, myrrh - and none of them, perhaps, could properly be called “sweet.” The word “spices” expresses all that there is in the original.
Anoint him - Embalm him, or apply these spices to his body to keep it from putrefaction. This is proof that they did not suppose he would rise again; and the fact that they did not “expect” he would rise, gives more strength to the evidence for his resurrection.
Mar 16:4
It was very great - These words belong to the third verse: “Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?” for, the evangelist adds, it was very great.
Mar 16:5
Sitting on the right side - As they entered. The sepulchre was large enough to admit persons to go into it; not unlike, in that respect, our vaults.
Mar 16:7
Tell his disciples and Peter - It is remarkable that Peter is singled out for special notice. It was proof of the kindness and mercy of the Lord Jesus. Peter, just before the death of Jesus, had denied him. He had brought dishonor on his profession of attachment to him. It would have been right if the Lord Jesus had from that moment cast him off and noticed him no more. But he loved him still. Having loved him once, he loved unto the end, Joh 13:1. As a proof that he forgave him and still loved him, he sent him this “special” message - the assurance that though he had denied him, and had done much to aggravate his sufferings, yet he had risen, and was still his Lord and Redeemer. We are not to infer, because the angel said, “Tell his disciples and Peter,” that Peter was not still a disciple. The meaning is, “Tell his disciples, and especially Peter,” sending to him a particular message. Peter was still a disciple. Before his fall, Jesus had prayed for him that his faith should not fail Luk 22:32; and as the prayer of Jesus was “always” heard Joh 11:42, so it follows that Peter still retained faith sufficient to be a disciple, though he was suffered to fall into sin.
See this passage explained in the notes at Mat 28:1-8.
Tell his disciples and Peter - It is remarkable that Peter is singled out for special notice. It was proof of the kindness and mercy of the Lord Jesus. Peter, just before the death of Jesus, had denied him. He had brought dishonor on his profession of attachment to him. It would have been right if the Lord Jesus had from that moment cast him off and noticed him no more. But he loved him still. Having loved him once, he loved unto the end, Joh 13:1. As a proof that he forgave him and still loved him, he sent him this “special” message - the assurance that though he had denied him, and had done much to aggravate his sufferings, yet he had risen, and was still his Lord and Redeemer. We are not to infer, because the angel said, “Tell his disciples and Peter,” that Peter was not still a disciple. The meaning is, “Tell his disciples, and especially Peter,” sending to him a particular message. Peter was still a disciple. Before his fall, Jesus had prayed for him that his faith should not fail Luk 22:32; and as the prayer of Jesus was “always” heard Joh 11:42, so it follows that Peter still retained faith sufficient to be a disciple, though he was suffered to fall into sin.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5 Saturday evening, after the sun was set, for the…
Saturday evening, after the sun was set, for the sabbath began and ended with the setting sun.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 Mark Chapter 16
Mark Chapter 16
The last chapter is divided into two parts-a fact that has even given rise to questions as to the authenticity of Mar 16:9-20. The first part of the chapter, Mar 16:1-8, relates the end of the history in connection with the re-establishment of that which has always been before us in this Gospel -the relationship of the Prophet of Israel, and of the kingdom with the people (or at least with the remnant of the chosen people). The disciples, and Peter, whom the Lord individually acknowledges in spite (yea, in grace, because) of his denial of his Master, were to go and meet Him in Galilee, as He said unto them. There the connection was re-established between Jesus in resurrection and the poor of the flock, who waited for Him (they alone being recognised as the people before God). The women say nothing to any others. The testimony of Christ risen was committed only to His disciples, to these despised Galileans. Fear was the means employed by the providence of God to prevent the women speaking of it, as they would naturally have done.
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Mar 16:9-20. This is another testimony. The disciples do not appear here as an elect remnant, but in the unbelief natural to man. The message is sent to the whole world. Mary Magdalene, formerly possessed by seven demons-the absolute slave of that dreadful power-is employed to communicate the knowledge of His resurrection to the companions of Jesus. Afterwards Jesus Himself appears to them, and gives them their commission. He tells them to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. It is no longer specifically the gospel of the kingdom. Whosoever throughout the world believed and joined Christ by baptism should be saved: he who believed not should be condemned. It was a question of salvation or condemnation-the believer saved, he who refused the message condemned. Moreover, if any one was convinced of the truth but refused to unite with the disciples confessing the Lord, his case would be so much the worse. Therefore it is said, “he who believeth and is baptised.” Signs of power should accompany believers, and they should be preserved from that of the enemy.
The first sign should be their dominion over evil spirits, the second, the proof of that grace which went beyond the narrow limits of Israel, addressing itself to all the world. They should speak divers languages.
Besides this, with respect to the power of the enemy, manifested in doing harm, the venom of serpents and poisons should have no effect upon them, and diseases should yield to their authority.
In a word, it should be the overthrowal of the power of the enemy over man, and the proclamation of grace unto all men.
Having thus given them their commission, Jesus ascends to heaven, and sits at the right hand of God-the place from which thus power shall come forth to bless, and from which He will return to put the poor of the flock in possession of the kingdom. Meanwhile, the disciples occupy His place, extending their sphere of service unto the ends of the earth; and the Lord confirms their word by the signs that follow them.
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 The Resurrection of the Lord. The Great Victory, and…
PART FIFTH
The Resurrection of the Lord. The Great Victory, and the Appearance of the Victor in the Company of the Apostles, to bring to Completion the New Church. His Ascension (Last Withdrawal) to complete His Conquest of the World
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_____________
FIRST SECTION
THE RISEN ONE AS CONQUEROR ON BEHALF OF THE CHURCH; OR, THE INTRODUCTION OF THE BELIEF IN THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. THREE EASTER MESSAGES: THE ANGEL, THE WOMAN, THE TWO MEN
16:1–13
(Parallels: Mat_28:1-15; Luk_24:1-35; Joh_20:1-18)
________
1. The Resurrection. The Angelw Message, and the Women. Mar_16:1-8
1And 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. 2And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. 3And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from1 the door of the sepulchre? (4And when they looked [up], they saw that the 5stone was rolled away,) for it was very great. And, entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted. 6And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted. Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him. 7But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you intoGalilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you. 8And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed [trembling and ecstasy held them]: neither said they anything to any man; for2they were afraid.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
See the parallel passages in Matthew and Luke.—This portion, considered in itself, is manifestly a fragment; for no treatise, especially no Gospel, can conclude with ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ. Upon the critical question, as to the authenticity of the following part, compare the Introduction. In this section, we have followed the remarkable division of the Pericope; but we would point out that this part might most properly be united with the following, under the common idea with which we have designated the section. Mark gives the day of the resurrection in such a way as to supplement the other Gospels. The early morning is termed by him the sunrising. He is the most accurate in the account of the women who came to anoint Christ’s body, stating their number to be three, and giving their names. He agrees with Luke, in saying that the women came for the purpose of embalming the Lord’s body. The representation of the moment of the resurrection, and the revelation to the women as they were returning from the grave, of which Matthew gives the details, is omitted by him; and we find here, moreover, but a brief notice of the meeting of the risen Lord with Mary Magdalene. He alone remarks upon the anxiety of the women, as to how the stone was to be rolled from the door of the sepulchre. Only one angel, according to his account, appears to the women; and the same is true of Matthew. This was the first appearance, whereas Luke and John relate a later appearance (see Matthew). In describing the return of the women from the grave, the Evangelists differ the most from one another. Matthew states: “And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy, and did run to bring His disciples word.” Luke similarly. Mark, on the contrary: “And they said nothing to any man; for they were afraid.” The circumstances, however, are different. These women who were afraid, are Mary the mother of James, and Salome, who had gone into the grave after Mary Magdalene had hurried forth on finding the grave empty. The women, however, who departed quickly with great joy to declare what had taken place to the disciples, form a larger group, composed of those who had been the first at the grave with the materials for embalming, and of those who had followed them. (See Matthew.) Mark omits this fact in order to introduce the separation of Mary Magdalene from the other two women. And yet he makes it appear that the first impression produced on the women was a mingling of fear and ἔκστασις.
Mar_16:1. And when the Sabbath was past.—That is, on Saturday evening, after sunset. Luke says, 23:56: After their return (when they came back), they prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment. It is not said, “and thereafter,” but, “and of course rested;” so that it is intended as a special explanation of the preceding. We have no contradiction, accordingly, between Luke and Mark, as Meyer would make out. The antecedent embalming, Joh_19:39, is not excluded by this. Neither is the fact excluded, that some of the women purchased the spices as early as Friday evening, before sundown; only the two Maries had remained too long at the grave to do so, and hence they could not make their purchases till the Sabbath had passed. (See Lange’s Leben Jesu, ii. 3, p. 1623.)—Spices, ἀρώματα.—“Aromatic herbs to mix with ointment.” Meyer. The ἀρώματα are not necessarily dry substances. “The ointments were seldom simplicia (e. g., the nard); they were generally composed of various substances (Job_41:22; Plin. 29, 8),—of olive oil (that much-praised product of Palestine), and various fragrant, especially foreign (Eze_27:22), vegetable extracts,—namely, oils and resins, such as nard and myrrh. Such ointments were, in part, very expensive, and special articles of luxury. Amo_6:6.” Winer.
Mar_16:2. When the sun had begun to rise.—We translate thus somewhat singularly, because De Wette (and, following him, again Meyer) maintains that ἀνατείλαντος τοῦ ἡλίου can only mean, when the sun had risen, not, as it was rising.3The words, “very early,” immediately preceding, contradict this view. But between the beginning of the sunrise and its ending is a considerable interval, as between “eve” and “evening;” and according to this distinction has Mark conceived of the matter, as he previously distinguished the two evening seasons. The sunrise, accordingly, had begun: oriente sole. Meyer discovers in this passage not only a discrepancy between Mark and John, who indeed says it was still dark, but in a certain measure between the statements of the Evangelist Mark himself (“very early, when the sun had risen”).—Beza’s conjecture, οὐκέτι ἡλίου ἀνατ., is quite unfounded.
Mar_16:3-4. From the door of the sepulchre... when they looked up... rolled away... it was very great.—These are all accurate statements, which are characteristic of Mark’s clear view of things. The stone was lying in the hollow cut deep into the rock, so as to form the door, and must accordingly be rolled forth from this recess outwards; hence “rolled away.” The rock-tomb, however, itself lay upon a height; hence the women saw the stone when they looked up. That upward glance, accordingly, does not form a mere contrast to the supposed circumstance, that before this “their eyes were cast down to the ground.” And because the stone was very great, they could even from a great distance see it lying. This latter explanation of Meyer, respecting the stone, is to be preferred to the reference (by Cod. D., and Wessenberg) of the clause, “for it was very great,” to the clause, “who shall roll us away the stone?”—although this conveys a natural meaning.
Mar_16:5. A young man.—The angel is described in these terms, because of his external appearance. Similarly does Luke express himself: “Two men in shining garments.” The facts, as they occurred in point of time, must be distinguished in the following way: First, the appearance of one angel in the tomb, who showed himself to the two Maries after Mary Magdalene had hurried forth to inform Peter and John (Mark); then, two angels who manifested themselves to her upon her return (John). These two appearances of the angels are given only generally by Luke, (they appeared “to the women which came with him from Galilee.”) Finally, we have the appearance of the angels before the tomb upon the stone, which was seen by the larger group of women who assembled in the garden at a later period (Luk_24:1 :“And certain with them”). This construction commends itself, if we adopt the view that Luke’s account is not designed to give an exact description. The first point then is, that there are three women who are witnesses: Mary Magdalene hastens back to tell the disciples, and the other two Maries see an angel in the sepulchre. The second point to be considered is, that the Magdalene sees two angels in the tomb, then the Lord, while the two Maries wait irresolutely for the other women, or go to meet them. The third point is, that the assembled women, among whom also is Johanna, first see the angel upon the stone (or two angels,—one of them in the sepulchre); then, as they are returning, the Lord Himself.
Mar_16:6. Be not affrighted.—In the liveliness of the words, we find by asyndeton the copulatives omitted.
Mar_16:7. And Peter.—Especially. Meyer (following De Wette): “Because of his superiority, not because Peter as denier required a mark of forgiveness (as is the common opinion).” But the superiority of Peter had ceased for a time. It must be first, according to John 21, restored to him. So it is, accordingly, a gracious token to unfortunate Peter.—He goeth before you.—̔́Οτι introduces the message.—As He said unto you.—See Mar_14:28. Upon the apparent contradiction between this announcement, that Jesus would precede the disciples, and His appearing unto them so shortly after, consult the commentary on Matthew. The first message applied especially to the Galilean disciples in a body. They, as such, first saw the Lord in Galilee again. Secondly, it was in a more special sense a preparation of the disciples for the approaching appearance of the Lord, which was by no means excluded by the message. And thirdly, the return of the disciples to Galilee was delayed, contrary to the wish of the Lord: first, through their own unbelief; secondly, through the unbelief of Thomas. See Leben Jesu, ii. 3, pp. 1664–5–6.
Mar_16:8. They trembled and were amazed.— The term εἶχε δὲ is intended without doubt to express the idea, that, even when out of the sepulchre, their former feelings held fast possession of them. These feelings were the opposing sentiments of trembling and ἔκστασις, which latter cannot be possibly conceived of as horror. It is the parallel to the phrase in Matthew: With fear and great joy. The ecstasy indicates always, that one is not master of oneself; and here it indicates such a state of feeling, in opposition to the extreme measure of fear, τρόμος. It is a state of transition from trembling and amazement; and while this play of feeling continues, men find it impossible to act.—Neither said they anything to any man.—De Wette maintains that this is contradicted by Matthew and Luke. It certainly does not mean simply, that they said nothing to any one by the way (Grotius), nor yet to any man beyond the circle of the Apostles; but, nevertheless, there is no contradiction. The intention of Mark was to lay hold of the fact of their indecision, and to unite it to the two following manifestations of hesitating unbelief. The women did not act upon the message of the angels, the individual disciples did not act upon the women’s message, the assembled Apostles did not act upon the message of the men and of the disciples who had been met upon the way to Emmaus. The intention of our history is this, to bring out prominently the barriers which unbelief throws up, by which the ever-increasing urgency of the pressing messages is repelled. In the first instance, the weak faith of the two Maries prevented them from fulfilling their mission. The Magdalene met them in this state, and they did not allow themselves to be cheered by her information till they had met the other women (see Luke), and with them had seen the Lord. Now, their message was naturally a new and different one. Meyer distinguishes thus: They related the message at a later period, but it is self-evident that they had not fulfilled it. We distinguish thus: They did not fulfil their original commission, but, at a later period, the related, along with the other women, the earlier and later occurrences in one united narrative.—They were afraid.—This can only mean: The occurrence was so new to them, great, unheard-of, that they ventured not in the full confidence of faith to publish it, and that they, still more, did not expect to find any faith among the disciples.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Consult the parallels in Matthew.
2. The entire chapter in its one central idea: Christ risen in perfect certainty and in the might of His resurrection, the destroyer of all unbelief in His people, and thereby the destroyer of the kingdom of darkness throughout the world; or, Christ appearing in His triumphal glory, able to redeem to the uttermost by that unlimited power which He acquired through His victory.
3. The three grand divisions of the chapter are—the Risen One as Conqueror for the Church, in the Church, with the Church.
4. The contrast in the chapter: The annunciations of the resurrection of the Lord to the Church, by the angels, by the women, by individual disciples, are not sufficient to overcome fully the unbelief of the disciples; the circle of disciples becomes a believing Church only when Jesus Himself reveals Himself personally in their midst. And this is, indeed, the thought underlying the entire Gospel of Mark, which is founded upon the mission of Peter—of that Peter whom man would and will make the head of a new Church in which, by the tradition of an Apostle, angel-voices, holy women, and visions to women, should be made to represent Christ Himself.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Upon the whole chapter, consult the superscription and the Doctrinal Reflections.—Upon the Section, Mar_16:1-16 : The Church has not arrived at the full belief in a risen Saviour by even the most glorious messages, but by the personal revelation of the Risen One Himself.—Upon the Section up to Mar_16:13 : The three Easter-messages of Jesus to His Church in their progressive effect: 1. Through the angels to the women; 2. through the women to the amazed disciples; 3. through the two amazed disciples to the assembled company.—Upon the Section before us: The [Jewish] Sabbath is passed away, the [Christian] Sunday has appeared; or, a new arrangement of the periods of rest and labor has been made by Christ. Man proceeds no more to the holy day from his labor, but from the holy day to his labor. 1. So is it in the life of the glorified Christ: first sitting at the right hand of God, then ruling, then coming again. 2. So is it in the life of the Church: first Sunday, then the consecrated working-day.4 3. So in the life of the believer: first justification, then sanctification. Conclusion: In this form, Christianity is the beginning (the principle) of the glorified world.—Our conversation is in heaven.—The walk of the three women to the grave is a symbol of the separation between the old and the new world in the history of the Passover: 1. The three women with their solicitude [Mary Magdalene in the deepest emotion; the others, two mothers of five Apostles, two aunts of Jesus of Nazareth, calmer, quieter]; their unconsciously-entertained hopes of life, and their ointments for the dead corpse. 2. The rising sun, but the heavy stone of their anxiety. 3. The angel appears, but the Lord has disappeared. 4. The resurrection of Christ declared, in the distant prospect of His re-appearance, out of the mouth of the grave. 5. The delightful commission to proclaim these good tidings; but their souls are oppressed by the overmastering feelings of fear and joy.—“And Peter” [Peter could never forget this addition, and hence Mark records it].—How the sinner ever thinks of the word which shows that the Saviour thought of him.—The first Easter-message, a message from the Prince of Life given by angelic lips to the women who wished to anoint the dead.—This message is not carried to its destination; but in the contending feelings of the women, between their fear and joy, is left unfulfilled.—Why the female disciples, even now, do not come up to that evangelizing faith which the message enjoins: 1. They are not yet able to give themselves up to that obedience of faith, because the fact overcomes their feelings [could not believe for joy]. 2. They cannot yet give themselves up to the confidence of faith, because their feelings amid the signs of the fact are not yet stilled [they cannot believe for fear; they miss the Lord, whom they have not seen; and they are still afraid of finding among the disciples no faith to receive their great news]. 3. They cannot yet give themselves up to the peace of faith, because these conflicting feelings are contending in their hearts.—As Christ is elevated above the angels, so is the certainty of the resurrection elevated above the testimony of the angelic appearance.—Since Christ died, a new heavenly activity is demanded, which lies far above all the visions of the old economy.
Starke:—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—What does not love do, when it is strong?—Through woman was life lost at first; by women must it be first sought, found, and revealed.—(The stone.) Hindrances in the way of salvation.—Men often make to themselves unnecessary anxieties: before they actually meet them, the Lord has helped them already.—If we look with believing eyes into Christ’s grave, all our anxiety falls into it; for Christ’s resurrection is our resurrection.—God will comfort the penitent, and will make their anguished hearts joyful again.—Christ’s heart is as compassionate after, as before, His resurrection—God’s promises pass certainly into fulfilment, and that too more gloriously and sooner than their mere form would lead one to expect.—Osiander:—Untimely fear often hinders from fulfilling one’s office.
Braune:—No shrine is made of the grave, and no worship from the contemplation of it; but the women are bidden to carry the good news and to awaken faith.—Weak sentimentalism avails nothing in the kingdom of God which has been established in the earth by the death of Jesus.—Brieger:—The resurrection, which is also a birth, is a mystery, like every birth. It is also an act of God’s omnipotence, like every other birth.—If we are because of sin related to death, which is so foreign to our being, much more are we related to life.—Heubner:—The morning of the resurrection of Jesus: 1. Distinguished by heaven itself; 2. bringing a glorious reward to Jesus Himself; 3. fearfully condemnatory as regards His foes; 4. joyfully quickening as regards the disciples of Christ.—Dietzsch:—The mingling of fear and hope which the thought of death and immortality is wont to awaken in us.—Schultz:—The first witnesses of Christ’s resurrection: 1. They were strong [their love is manifested in their going to the grave]; 2. they were weak [their sorrow, their fear].—Thiess:—The cross of Calvary illumined by the rays of the Easter-sun.—Rautenberg:—Easter at the graves: 1. The stone of the curse is rolled away; 2. angels inhabit them; 3. the dead are risen.
Footnotes:
[1][Mar_16:3.—Codd. A., B., Tischendorf read ἐκ; i. e., upwards from the descending entrance. With this corresponds the reading ἀνακεκύλισται in B., L., Tischendorf.]
[2][Mar_16:8.—Codd. B., D., Lachmann, Tischendorf read γαρ instead of δε.]
[3][The English version agrees with Lange’s: “At the rising of the sun.”—Ed.)
[4]Sonntäglicher Werketag: a secular day into which the spirit of Sunday is carried.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5 1. And Salome — Besides the three women here…
1. And Salome — Besides the three women here mentioned, Luke mentions a fourth, Joanna, the wife of Chusa, adding that there were others, of women from Galilee. It was, therefore, a numerous party. Sweet spices — Consisting of myrrh, aloes, and other preventives of putrefaction, and odorous perfumes. These spices had been prepared upon the previous Friday evening. Previous to this, the sacred body had been embalmed by Nicodemus with spices to the enormous amount of a hundred pounds in weight, inclosed within the linen cloth that enwrapped him. Why was this exceeding copious amount of spices lavished upon the Lord’s body? The ancient Egyptians adopted the practice of embalmment with the idea of preserving the body undissolved and unmarred for the day of resurrection. Did these friends of Jesus provide these ample preservatives under a somewhat similar conception? As Mary unknowingly anointed his body for his burial, so these disciples seemed half unconsciously to be embalming him for his resurrection. It is almost impossible to suppose that some thought of his prediction of his rising again should not cross their minds, and it seems naturally to have shown itself in this munificent honouring of the sacred body.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–6 Ch. Mar_16:1-8. The Resurrection
Ch. Mar_16:1-8. The Resurrection
1. And when the sabbath was past] Friday night, Saturday, and Saturday night passed away, three days according to the Jewish reckoning (comp. (a) 1Sa_30:12-13; 2Ch_10:5; 2Ch_10:12; (b) Mat_12:40; Joh_2:19; Mat_27:63), and He, Who had truly died, lay also truly buried.
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bought sweet spices] Meanwhile the holy women, whom a love stronger than death had drawn to observe the spot on the evening of His burial, had returned in order that they might complete the embalming of the Body, which had necessarily been done in haste, as the Sabbath drew on (Luk_23:54).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–6 (1-8) And when the sabbath was past.—See Notes on…
XVI.
(1-8) And when the sabbath was past.—See Notes on Mat_28:1-8. “Mary the mother of James” (not, as in Mar_15:40, of “James and Joses”) answers, as before, to the “other Mary” of Mat_28:1. “Salome” appears, as before, in St. Mark only.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–6 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and…
And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices (hgorasan arwmata) that they might come and anoint him. A hasty but lavish embalming of our Lord"s sacred body had been begun on Friday evening by Joseph and Nicodemus. They had "brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound weight". (Joh_19:39) This would be a compound the gum of the myrrh tree, and a powder of the fragrant aloe wood mixed together, with which they would completely cover the body, which was then swathed with linen cloths (oyonia), also steeped in the aromatic preparation. Then the sindon would he placed over all. Compare the enetulixen , of St. Luke, (Luk_23:53) as applying to the sindon, with the edhsan of St. John (Joh_21:4) as applying to the oyonia . This verse records a further stage in the embalming. What had been done on the Friday evening had been done in haste, and yet sufficiently for the preservation of the sacred body, if that had been needful, from decay. The remaining work could be done more carefully and tenderly at the tomb. Observe the aorist in this verse (hgorasan) "they bought;" not "they had bought.
Vers. 1-8. The empty sepulcher.
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In this passage there is no direct narrative of the Savior"s resurrection. The evangelist probably tells what, and only what, he had heard from credible and well-known witnesses. There were no such witnesses to the act of the Lord"s emergence from the tomb. But the Marys and Salome had stated what they had seen and heard. They declared that, although they went early to the sepulcher, they found it both open and empty. They related their interview with the young man, the angel, who informed them that Jesus had risen. And it is upon their testimony that the evangelist bases in the first instance his gospel of the resurrection.
I LOVE WILL FIND OCCASIONS AND WAYS OF EXPRESSING ITSELF. In our Lord"s ministry, devout and attached women had often provided for his wants. When the end of that ministry arrived, these affectionate friends were found faithful to their Master; they were amongst the witnesses of his crucifixion and his death. Nor did they then withdraw, but lingered by the lifeless body until it was deposited in the new-hewn tomb. Even then their love was not satisfied; it remained for them to finish the rites which had been so hastily performed by Nicodemus and Joseph, and so abruptly suspended by the sunset which was the commencement of the Jewish sabbath. Behold them, accordingly, in the garden immediately after sunrise. On the past evening they have purchased spices; and they have now, at early morning, come, laden with the fragrant preparations, to perform the last offices to the body of him they have long honored and loved. The incident reminds us of the grateful and most graceful tribute offered to Jesus by the sister of Lazarus, who poured the costly perfume over the sacred feet of her Lord, her Benefactor. In both cases the value and the charm of the services are owing to the love by which they were inspired. Love followed Jesus, not only in the way, and into the dwelling, but to the cross and to the grave. They who truly love the Lord Christ will find opportunities in abundance of proving their affection.
II WE IMAGINE DIFFICULTIES WHICH GOD HAS ALREADY SOLVED FOR US. NO wonder that these feeble women questioned one with another, "Who shall roll us away the stone?" Strong men had closed the entrance to the tomb by placing this huge stone against it; how should this barrier to the carrying out of their intentions be removed? They looked up, and lo! the stone was rolled away. This had been done at daybreak by the celestial messenger. Very similar is much of Christian experience. We perplex ourselves, it may be, with speculative difficulties. Nature and revelation teem with mysteries. To our finite and untrained, inexperienced intelligence it must be so. Our penetration is too dull, our wisdom is too short-sighted; our powers, knowledge, and opportunities are all unequal to the task. But all is clear to that Being who is infinitely wise; and when we lift up our eyes we shall in due time see the resolution of our doubts. We perplex ourselves, it may be, with practical difficulties. How shall we do our work that work being so vast, and we so hell, less? How shall we train our family, conduct our business, discharge our responsibilities? We cannot tell. But, looking unto him, we shall be lightened. He shall bring our way to pass. We perplex ourselves, "it may be, with difficulties as to the Church and kingdom of Christ. How shall the Lord"s people be awakened to zeal, or reconciled in unity, or qualified for the work assigned them in a dark and sinful world? Our mind is baffled by the problem, which we have no means of solving. Let us go on our way. When we come to our difficulty, we may perhaps find that it is gone. Let us leave the problems of the future to be solved by him with whom all is one eternal "now." Let us commit the distant in space and in time to him to whom belong alike the far-off and the near. There is no stone so exceeding great that he cannot roll it away; none that he will suffer to hinder or delay the execution of his own purposes.
III CHRIST MAY BE SOUGHT IN THE GRAVE, BUT HE IS FOUND IN THE RISEN LIFE, THE SPIRITUAL REALM. Notwithstanding that Jesus had foretold both his death and his resurrection, the disciples were overwhelmed with astonishment at his crucifixion, and were amazed and incredulous at the tidings of his triumph over the grave. The men do not seem to have come to the tomb until they were summoned; the women came, but they came to embalm the dead, not to welcome the living the risen, It needed that they should be assured "He is risen; he is not here]" in order that the current of their mournful thoughts should be arrested and reversed. In the tomb they did not find him, but they met him in his glorious resurrection-body. There are many who still commit the same mistake regarding our Savior. They think of his bodily and earthly life, of its outward incidents and of its tragic close. They think of him as if his ministry and his mediation came to an end on Calvary. They do not think of him as risen, as living in human society, as working in human hearts, as governing and blessing human lives. Yet, for us, what is the significance of the Redeemer"s rising from the dead? Is it not just this that the Savior"s resurrection-life is his moral and spiritual sway over humanity? It is not in his body that his presence consists. It is in the penetration of the world"s moral nature by his ever-present, all-pervading Spirit; it is in the transformation of the world"s moral life by the power of his sacrifice, his obedience, his self-denial, his benevolence. Many a king and conqueror has died, after a life of ambition, a career of slaughter and of oppression. The death of such has been welcome, for it has put an end to a power for mischief which has cursed the world. But every teacher, every discoverer of truth, has implanted in the soul of humanity a seed which has outlived himself. How much more does the Divine Light and Life of men continue to illumine and to inspire the world, which first rejected him, and then found out his inestimable worth, his incalculable power!
IV THE MOST WELCOME AND GLORIOUS REVELATION 1S RECEIVED AT FIRST WITH FEAR, ASTONISHMENT, AND SILENCE. Of the women we read, "They were amazed;" "trembling and astonishment came upon them;" "they were afraid;" "they said nothing to any one." It is a strange effect to follow from such a cause. Nothing could be so welcome and so joyful as the news which greeted them. But it was too startling, too surprising, too unexpected. They "departed with fear and great joy," just as the eleven afterwards "disbelieved for joy." There is news which seems too good to be true. Even so now there are doubting souls, who fain would believe in a Divine Savior, and who withhold their faith, not from unspirituality of nature and habit, but from the intensity of their appreciation of the blessing needed the revelation of Divine favor, and the prospect of a glorious immortality. Let such raise their minds to the height of the Divine benevolence. "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?" Such an interposition is surely worthy even of the Supreme! "That our faith and hope might be in God." Surely such an end may be believed to justify the most unexampled revelation and the most stupendous display of power. It is well that the tidings should be received with some sense of their amazing importance and their unique bearing upon the state and prospects of mankind.
V THE NEWS OF THE RESURRECTION IS GOOD TIDINGS TO BE PUBLISHED ABROAD. The faithful women were directed to act as messengers. They have been called "the apostles of the apostles." They were to find Peter and the other disciples, to tell them that Jesus had risen, and to direct them where they should meet him. This they did, and in so doing they set an example to Christians in all coming time. Whatever else may be said of the resurrection of Jesus, this must be said of it first and foremost: It is good news, worthy of all acceptation. As such the apostles received it, and as such they published it. In the record of their ministry, nothing is so prominently put forward as their preaching Jesus and the Resurrection. A risen and glorified Savior was the Savior they preached a Savior who had died, but who liveth evermore. Glad tidings to be proclaimed in every language and to all mankind!
APPLICATION.
1. Let us learn to live a life of faith in a risen, exalted, reigning Savior and Lord. Our religious life should receive its impulse and its motive from looking upwards to the Lord of life.
2. Let us regard it as our sacred ministry to publish as good tidings the truth that Christ is risen. This is the office and privilege of the Church of him who was dead and is alive again, and lives for evermore.
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR Vers. 1-14. Resurrection proofs.
The last days of the manifestation of God in Christ were signalized by a great deprivation and a great recovery. A life beyond the dread confines of the grave completed the cycle of wonders associated with the earth-life of Jesus. This, although not sufficiently realized ere it actually occurred, is a part of a continuative development. It is no awkward and hasty fragment joined on to another and more legitimate narrative. To intelligent students of the life, it appears the sublimely consistent outcome of all that preceded the death. The evangelists, from the very beginning of their histories, prepare one almost unconsciously for such a denouement. It is in a sense the necessary conclusion towards which they move, and It throws into new relations and proportions all the preceding events. The earthly actions and experiences of Christ are sufficiently verified, but in describing them evangelists do not seem to think of having to furnish proof. It is only when they begin to tell us of the resurrection that all is alertness, and that conscious collation of evidence takes place. This is the arcanum of the faith which must be preserved from all uncertainty; this fact must be certified that all else may be made intelligible and morally effectual. And the moral significance of the Resurrection is even more insisted on than its physical wonder. It is the defeat of evil machinations, and a triumph over every precaution of his enemies.
I SOME IMPORTANT ELEMENTS OF EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION, The number and variety of Christ"s appearances have been noted by the evangelists. The spiritual nature perceives the supplementary effect and educative efficiency of his resurrection fellowship. There is also a marked absence of all appearance of collusion.
1. Conspirators would have striven to keep the grave sealed until its emptiness should be discovered.
2. The Roman watch was all but inviolable.
3. Those who might be expected to conspire remained at a distance, and were informed of the event.
4. Many of them at first refused to believe the news.
5. From the Emmaus and embalming incidents, we see that most of the disciples did not look for his (at all events immediate) reappearance.
II THE NATURE OF THE RESURRECTION. The question of those who deny the physical, yet emphasize the ideal and spiritual resurrection can a few pounds more or less of dust and ashes matter? is shallow and impertinent.
1. The senses were appealed to: sight, hearing, touch; physical results were produced; fellowship was realized with him under physical conditions (the fish and honeycomb).
2. was not recognized at first. A great change had, therefore, been produced. And such a thing might be looked for. Mary, Emmaus, Thomas and the stigmata.
3. The manner of disappearance as described is suggestive of a real body. (Act_1:9 Luk_24:50, Luk_24:51)
III THE BEARINGS OF THIS FACT UPON CHRISTIAN FAITH AND LIFE. In considering these, we see how the foregoing question betrays an incapacity for discussing the highest practical problems.
1. Christ came to save the entire nature body, soul, and spirit. He is, therefore, himself the Firstfruits and the Type. There is, in his resurrection state, a hint as. to the possibilities of our material nature when completely purified and redeemed.
2. The bodily resurrection of Christ is a more signal marvel than the spiritual alone would have been, and was at the same time more susceptible of sensible demonstration.
3. It was in harmony with the method of his miracles, and the grand key to them. How the moral element in this life grew and expanded into ever more powerful effects and general relations! At last, when earnestly and carefully regarded, doubt is overwhelmed by it. How it appeals to our sense of the highest fitness, and answers the unconscious longings of the spiritual life! M.
HOMILIES BY R. GREEN Vers. 1-18. The Resurrection.
In the early dawn the rising of the sun" on the morning after the sabbath that one most wondrous sabbath, the last of the old series hasty feet were hurrying to the sepulcher. They were those of Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, and Salome. Love drew them thus early to the sacred tomb. But they were bringing "spices that they might come and anoint him," so far were they from expecting what had taken place. It does not appear that any of the disciples were looking for the Resurrection. As they neared the place a difficulty suggested itself to them: "Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the tomb?" To their astonishment, it was rolled away. Entering into the tomb," they found not the body as they expected; but "they saw a young man an angel sitting at the right side, arrayed in a white robe." Calming their affrighted spirits, he declared for the first time, "He is risen; he is not here." The few details of the excited doings of that first morning of the week that first Lord"s day have a deep interest, which their meagreness cannot destroy, if indeed it abates it. Again and again Jesus appears to the disciples, now in smaller, now in larger companies, and gives them as true and deeply settled an assurance of his resurrection as was before given of his death. To that resurrection we turn as to the signal incident in the life of the world"s Redeemer the central fact in all human history. Nothing abates the significance of the Incarnation; but the raising up of the dead body into life is supreme in its bearing on the history of the human race.
I The resurrection of Christ is THE CRUCIAL TEST OF THE WORLD"S REDEMPTION. "If Christ hath not been raised your faith is vain." Then the whole structure of Christianity is shaken to its foundations. It has no longer its present significance. It has wrought only imaginary changes. "Ye are yet in your sins." It has deluded its most devoted adherents. Itself aiming at truth, exalting, glorifying it, it has deceived and disappointed the hopes of its faithful ones. "They also which have fallen asleep in Christ have perished." The Christian Church has never shrunk from the alternative, exulting in its jubilant assurance, "But now hath Christ been raised from the dead." Herein the completeness of the atoning work of Christ is demonstrated, the warrant of faith in that atonement is presented, and the end of all is attained in the righteousness of men. With a divinely attested atonement, of which, to avail themselves, men are warranted in appropriating by faith the justification the righteousness which they need. He "was delivered up for our offenses, and was raised for our justification.
II The resurrection of Christ is THE FIRM GROUND OF HUMAN HOPE. "As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." Back to this event the eye of the believer has turned to see the assuring sign. Our friends lie still in the grave; but the Church has never since that early morning looked to a Christ in a tomb. It is easy to see how the horizon of the human life would be overclouded had we to think of the Redeemer as still in the grave.
III THE BRIGHTEST ASPECT OF HUMAN LIFE is seen in the resurrection of Christ. Life with or without a future suggests the two utmost extremes. The barest glimmer of a possibility of a future life beyond the grave would be the greatest enrichment of that life had there not been a previous assurance of it. This fact added to human life transforms it at once. It is an inestimable possession. What possibilities does it not open before our eyes] What an encouragement to patience! "The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward." The resurrection of Christ throws an altogether new light upon all human history; but its brightest light is thrown upon the gloom of the future.
IV The resurrection of Christ is THE ILLUSTRIOUS EXAMPLE OF THE UNIVERSAL RESURRECTION, "Christ the Firstfruits." The ingathering and presentation of the first-fruits must be taken as the pledge of the ingathering and presentation of the entire harvest. The inspired teaching on this lofty subject is such as to give the utmost assurance and comfort. The "weakness," the "dishonor," the "corruption," with which we are made familiar by death, stand in contrast with the incorruption," the "glory," the "power," which we learn shall characterize the resurrection. While the casting off the "natural body," to be clothed with "a spiritual body," the exchange of "the earthy" for "the heavenly," is exemplified in the one Example which is for every believer the most comfortable assurance.
V The resurrection of Christ is THE COMPLETE DEMONSTRATION OF TRIUMPH. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." It has ever been held that the Resurrection was the Divine seal of testimony to the perfectness and acceptability of the work of Christ. The rage of wicked men, the antagonism of error, the whole power of the enemy, triumphed in crushing the truth; but the Resurrection is a demonstration of complete superiority to all, and casts its illuminating comment upon the words, "I lay down my life, that I may take it again I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." These and many other teachings cluster around this most precious incident in the history of this typical life. He who would derive the utmost advantage therefrom must needs share the experience of the holy apostle: "I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellow- ship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead". G. (Php_3:8-11)
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-8. The sepulcher.
I SELF-REWARDING LOVE. The women obey the longing to serve, though they know not how. Of love it is said, All other pleasures are not worth its pains." In lavishing care upon the remains of one beloved, we show that the proper objects of love are persons. It is not to the love of an abstraction, but to the love of himself, that Christ calls us. The suffering in this world are to us as the body of Jesus.
II ANGELIC MINISTRY. "Angels minister to the followers of Christ, and share their joy." The chain of sympathy is electric between earth and heaven; and all that we know in sorrow and joy has its immediate reflection and response above.
III THE EMPTY TOMB. The contents have escaped, as some ethereal vapor eludes its bonds. He could not be holden of the tomb. It bore witness to his resurrection; and earth is no more a sepulcher, but a portico to heaven. J.
Vers. 9-14. Appearances of the risen One.
I THEY WERE REPEATED AND VARIED,
So in the history of the Church and the world; there are epochs of the manifestation of Christ and of apparent concealment. Though history in one sense repeats itself, in another it does not. Christianity is the exhibition of the new in the old, the old in the new. And so in the individual.
II THEY WERE MET BY PREJUDICE. New truth finds in us something ever to over-come. The victory over a prejudice gives us cause for thanks; what we really possess of truth we possess because we have resisted it. We do not understand it till we have contended against it. "We may believe more surely in the Resurrection, because they were so slow to believe.
III THE SPIRITUAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY IS THE REAL EVIDENCE, Unless we see that Christ"s resurrection coincides with spiritual truth and needs, we shall not see it at all. Mediate knowledge can never be free from doubt; certainty lies in that which is immediate. J.
HOMILIES BY J.J. GIVEN Vers. 1-18. Parallel passages: Mat_28:1-15 Luk_24:1-49 Joh_20:1-23. An eventful day.
I THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.
1. The morning of our Lords 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 (ercontai , 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 (anableqasai , 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 (Luk_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 Saviors 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 a 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 for us 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.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6 And when the Sabbath was past.
Mar_16:1-8
And when the Sabbath was past.
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The Sabbath before the resurrection of Christ
There never was such a Sabbath on earth as that described here.
1. To Jesus, our Divine Master, it was a Sabbath of silence. His ministry had closed His public career had ended. Love and hate, and want and weakness, were all outside, and Jesus was in the sepulchre.
2. To the disciples it was a sabbath of grief. The heart had been torn out of their lives. This was the darkest sabbath they had ever known.
3. To the churchmen in their temple worship it was a sabbath of guilt and fear. Sing they might; but there lay that dead Saint in the garden, and they seemed to hear His deep pantings as He travelled under the cross towards Golgotha. Pray they might; but they would seem to hear Jehovah telling them to wash their hands in innocency, and so surround His altar. Then there was something about that garden sepulchre that was frightful to them. They had rolled up a huge stone and sealed it, set a guard, and yet that Teacher seemed to be abroad and walking through the temple, and ever and anon His great eyes would throw out flashes from their awful depths, which made their souls quail in them. And ever and anon their hearts beat as they seemed to hear the accents of His marvellous voice, as if its echoes still hung on cloister beams, and would occasionally descend with its palpitating utterances on their horror-stricken ears. No living man could scare them as that dead Man did. (Dr. Deems.)
Jesus risen
I. What was the object of these women in going to the sepulchre? That they might anoint the body of the dead Christ. This was their only thought. They had loved Him. They loved Him still: and with a womans fidelity loved Him though He were not merely unfortunate, but false to His word. It was despairing, yet unbelieving love. The Easter mornings sun has risen in the Church these eighteen hundred years, and there are those who still go to the tomb looking for their Christ. The Church for such is but a sepulchre. Their Christ is a dead Christ. Their Christian love is tearful. The world, the Church, needs enthusiastic believers; and they can never be had except as each can say, I know that my Redeemer liveth. Despairing, unbelieving love is always timid and distrustful. It always sees obstacles ahead. It cannot go easily in an open path. Faith removes mountains. Faith in a living Christ makes the way to heaven easy to tread, open to view.
II. The changed errand of these visitors to the tomb of Jesus. They had come to embalm Him. Their spirit, purpose, all are changed. It is not now in sadness to anoint a dead Christ, but in gladness to announce a risen Christ. And the new work of hope is much easier than the old errand of despair. Is there not just this difference between the spirit and work of those who heartily believe and trust a living Christ and those whose faith all centres about a dead Christ? Let us not underrate the value of the death of Christ, it is the foundation of our peace with God. But the foundation is not the whole of the temple of our faith. The cross is no more the sign of suffering, but the symbol of victory and power. It is the royal sceptre in His hands who rules in the kingdom which is righteousness and joy in the Holy Ghost. In this spirit of courageous hope we are to go and tell the story of the risen Jesus. (G. M. Boynton.)
The mission of the holy women
Our Lord was already in His grave, but He was not covered with earth; He was not enclosed in a coffin, but merely lay in a recess hollowed out of the rock, where Joseph of Arimathaea had placed Him on the evening of Good Friday. Joseph had probably been forced to do His work hurriedly, in order to get it done before the Sabbath came on. He had been contented with wrapping the body in fair linen, and hastily covering it with some preparation that might preserve the bruised and mangled flesh from the rapid corruption that might naturally be looked for. Mary Magdalene and her companions came to complete what Joseph had begun-to rearrange with more care and attention to detail the position of the body in its last resting place, and while doing this to cover it with such preservatives against decomposition as to ensure its integrity for many years to come. Now, Mary Magdalene and her companions would have expected to encounter at least one difficulty, for they had watched the burial on the evening of Good Friday; they had even noted how the Lords body was laid; they would have observed how, under the direction of Joseph of Arimathaea, the doorway which formed the entrance to the tomb had been closed up by a large stone, which, spanning an opening of some four feet in height by three in breadth, could not have been moved by fewer than two or three men. They could not hope to roll away such a stone by themselves, and how were they, at that early hour, to procure the necessary assistance? Their anxiety did not last long. When they looked, says St. Mark, they saw that the stone was rolled away. It seems to have been rolled into the first or outer chamber of the tomb, where the angel was sitting upon it when he addressed the holy women. (Canon Liddon.)
The Holy Sepulchre-its interest to Christians
No other spot on the surface of this earth can equally rouse Christian interest. Rome and Athens have glories all their own: they say much to the historical imagination; but they say little by comparison to all that is deepest in our nature-little to the conscience, little to the heart. Sinai and Horeb, Lebanon and Hermon, Hebron and Bethel, Shechem and the Valley of the Jordan and the Valley of the Kishon, have high claims on Jews and Christians from their place in the history and books of the chosen people; but dearer still to us Christians are Bethlehem and Nazareth, and Jericho and Bethany, and Tabor and the Hill of the Beatitudes, and Bethsaida and Capernaum, and Gethsemane and Calvary; and yet the interest even of these must pale before that which attracts us to the Tomb of Jesus. When in the Middle Ages the flower of European chivalry, and amongst them our own King Richard, set forth on that succession of enterprises which we know as the Crusades, the special object which roused Europe to this great and prolonged effort was the deliverance not so much of the Holy Land, but the Holy Sepulchre from the rule of the infidel; and when a Christian in our day finds himself in the Holy City, what is it to which his eager steps first and naturally turn? There is much, indeed, on every side to detain him; but one spot there is which gives to the rest the importance which in his eyes they possess, and one spot compared with which the site of the Temple itself is insignificant; he must take the advice of the Angel of the Sepulchre (Mat_28:6),-he must come and see the place where the Lord lay. (Canon Liddon.)
The Holy Sepulchre-its appearance now
Under the larger of the two cupolas of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, there stands what is to all appearance a chapel, twenty-six feet in length by eighteen in breadth. It is cased in stone; around it is a row of slender pilasters and half columns; and at the summit is a crown-like tomb. At the east end of this chapel a low door opens into a small square room, called the Chapel of the Angel, because here the angel sat on the stone that had been rolled inside from the door of the sepulchre. At the western end of this ante-chamber is another much lower door leading into the sepulchre. The sepulchre itself is a vaulted chamber about six feet by seven feet, and the resting place of the holy Body of our Lord is at the right side as you enter, and is now covered with a marble slab which serves as an altar; indeed, the sides and the floor of this sepulchral chamber are cased in marble, which hides the rock beneath. Immediately over the slab there is a bas-relief of the resurrection, while forty-three lamps of gold and silver hang from the roof, and shed a brilliant light in what would be otherwise a perfectly dark vault. No doubt it all wears a different aspect from that which met the eyes of Mary Magdalene. Then there was only a low, rocky ridge, the boundary of a small suburban garden, in the face of which rock the tomb was excavated. Since then all the ridge except that which contains the tomb itself has been cut away in order to form a level floor for the great Church. Mary saw no incrustation of architectural ornament, no marble, no lamps; only a tomb of two chambers, one inside-the other cut out of the face of the rock. Thus it is that, as the ages pass, human hands, like human minds, are wont to surround whatever is most dear and precious with creations of theft own; but, like the native rock inside the marble, the reality remains beneath. If the surroundings are thus utterly changed, the original spot-the original tomb-still remains; and if Christian pilgrims from well-nigh all the nations of the world still seek it year by year, and if prayer and praise is almost incessantly offered around it in rites and tongues the most various and dissimilar, it is because its interest to the Christian heart is beyond that of any other spot on the surface of this globe-it is the place where the Lord lay. (Canon Liddon.)
The Holy Sepulchre-authenticity of the site
Can we believe, someone asks, that this is really the place where the Body of the Lord was laid after His death? Why not? Christendom, east and west, has believed it, at least since A.D. 335. In that year the first Christian Emperor Constantine completed the church which the historian Eusebius tells us he made up his mind to build on this spot immediately after the Nicene Council. At its consecration a great many bishops came to Jerusalem, and Eusebius himself among the rest; and no doubt was entertained by them that this was the genuine tomb of our Lord. But then the question arose, How did Constantine and his bishops know that the sepulchre over which he built his church was really the sepulchre of our Lord, and not of someone else? And one answer which is sometimes given to this question, as by Robinson, is, that the place was revealed to Constantine by a miracle, and that as the miracle may at least conceivably have been a pious fraud of some kind, there is no certainty that the presumed site was the true one. Robinson quotes a letter of Constantine to the then Bishop of Jerusalem, in which the Emperor speaks of the gladdening discovery of the Sign of the sacred Passion of the Redeemer as miraculous. But the allusion in this expression is to the real or supposed finding of the wood of the Cross. Constantine says nothing about the finding of the Sepulchre, nor is there any real ground for thinking that it was ever discovered at all, for the simple reason that its position had never been at all lost sight of. The wood of the Cross might well have been buried and forgotten; and if it was ever to be certainly identified, some extraordinary occurrence might be necessary to identify it; but the burial place of Jesus was not likely to have been lost sight of. Constantine was not farther removed in point of time from the date of the earthly life of our Lord, than we are from the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and we know pretty well where most people who attracted any public attention during her reign were buried. The Jews, like the Egyptians, took especial care to preserve memorials of the dead. St. Peter, in his first sermon, alludes to Davids sepulchre as being with us even to this day. Would St. Peter, think you, or those whom he taught, have ever lost sight of the sepulchre of Davids greater Son? Would not each generation of Christians have learned, and handed on to their successors, all that was known about it? Above all, would not the great Alexandrian school, who diffused so much light and knowledge in the first ages of the Church, have kept its eyes steadily on a matter of some real importance like this? Even in those days a visit from Alexandria to Jerusalem and back might have been easily taken, the weather being favourable, in three weeks; and men like Clement and Origen would have learnt, either from personal observation or through others, all that could be learnt respecting the exact scene of the momentous event which was the keystone of the religion which they taught. Indeed, it was notorious amongst the Christians, that in the days of the Emperor Hadrian (A.D. 132) a temple of Venus had been built on this very spot, and this building, in something less than two centuries was finally removed by Constantine, who uncovered the tomb in the rock beneath. Notwithstanding the ruin which fell upon Constantines Church at the time of the Persian invasion, and upon its successor under the mad Caliph El Hakim, there is no reason to think that the site and identity of the tomb were ever lost sight of. There are, of course, other opinions on the subject. The late Mr. Ferguson maintained with great ability what scholars have come to consider a paradox, viz., that the site of the Sepulchre was that of the so-called Mosque of Omar in the Temple area. A more plausible opinion, warmly upheld by the late General Gordon, is, that it is in a garden at the foot of the striking hill which is just outside the Gate of Damascus. This site is so much more picturesque and imposing than the traditional one that, had there been any evidence in its favour in Constantines day, it would certainly have been adopted. The old belief is likely to hold its ground unless one thing should happen. We know that our Lord was crucified and buried outside the Gate of Jerusalem. The Epistle to the Hebrews points out the typical importance of His suffering without the gate. If excavations ever should show that the second (i.e., in our Lords day, the outer)
wall of the city embraced the site of the Sepulchre within its circuit, then it would be certain that the traditional site is not the true one. At present there is not much chance of these necessarily difficult excavations being made; and while no one can speak positively, high authorities believe that the real direction of the second wall is that which Constantine and his advisers took for granted. We may therefore continue to hold with our forefathers that the chapel under the larger cupola of the Church of the Sepulchre does really contain the place where the Lord lay. (Canon Liddon.)
The joy of Easter
The humiliation of Jesus reached its lowest depths when He gave up the ghost. Everything after that moment gave symptoms of change in the current of affairs. The very enmity which crucified Him started us heroes in His favour-Nicodemus: Joseph. Even His descent into hell was more a thing of victory than of abasement. Spirits in prison are made sensible of a new achievement in the universe, of which He is the hero. Angels in glory are despatched on new embassies, and mysteriously move about the place where His Body lay. A new era breaks upon the course of time. He is risen. Blessed news! Joyous tidings! Solemn wonder! Glorious triumph! Well may we gather flowers for the altar, and tune our voices to exultant songs, and call every instrument of music to our aid, to give utterance to the holy cheer which such an occasion carries with it.
I. Easter is the rolling away of sorrow from distressed and loving hearts. A death day to the tormenting distresses of human care and heart oppressions. Believest thou the tidings? then why afflict thyself any longer with thy bereavements and weaknesses? Lift up your downcast eyes and look, and you will see that the stone is rolled away, and greater comfort at hand than we ever imagined. Easter brings comfort and joy to
(1) the poor,
(2) the suffering,
(3) the bereaved,
(4) the fearful.
Guilt is cancelled, condemnation is past, peace with God is made. Open thy heart to these Easter tidings, and as thou hungerest and thirsteth after righteousness, thou shalt be satisfied. The stone is rolled away.
II. Easter is the setting up of a glorious refuge for assaulted and endangered faith. If we have any doubts about the Divine Sonship of Jesus, or any questions about the truthfulness of Christianity, or any disheartening scepticism about the reality of gospel blessings, it is because we have not done justice to the facts of the Christian Easter. It is the impregnable fortress of our faith. There is nothing in Christianity which does not there find shelter, entrenchment, vindication. The resurrection of Jesus demonstrates:
1. That Jesus was the Christ.
2. That there is another life after this.
3. That it is safe to trust in a complete forgiveness in the merits and righteousness of Christ alone. He died as thy substitute; therefore the account must be settled, or he never could have thus triumphantly been made alive again.
4. That He is now ever with and in His Church and Sacraments, there to dispense the blessings of His efficacious presence, to breathe His Spirit on mens souls, and to make them participants in His new life.
III. Easter is the stationing of loving angels round the grave conducting to converse with the glorified. By nature we have no fellowship with heaven, and no communion with the dwellers there. Our sins have sundered us from that bright and happy world. But Jesus has brought us and angels together again. Easter has put an angel of God in every sepulchre. A higher and a better world there joins upon this life of sorrow and tears. As the friends of Jesus come thither with spices of love in their hands, they come into the communion of the glorified, and begin to have converse with angelic excellence, Heaven borders on the tomb. Another step, and the loud uplifted angel trumpets bid us welcome to the mansions of the everlasting home. (J. A. Seiss, D. D.)
Loves tribute
I. A striking example of constant love. It is usual to regard man as typifying strength and courage, and woman as typifying love and tenderness. But often those who typify love and tenderness prove stronger and more courageous in the sense of clinging constancy than those who claim to have a monopoly of the robuster qualities. It was certainly so here.
II. Love acts promptly. Here love had imposed a task upon itself, and, true to its nature, sought the earliest opportunity for discharging it. These women could not have entered earlier upon this business.
1. Promptness to perform an act of kindness.
2. Loving service rendered in relation to one from whom there was no prospect of a return.
III. Love is oblivious to obstacles. It forms its plans, marks its course, regards ardently its object, but takes no account of the stones, great or small, that may be in its way. Well for the world that love is thus characteristically blind to hindrances; ninety-nine out of every hundred efforts made for its welfare have been the achievements of men who have been gloriously oblivious of the stones. Carey: Livingstone.
IV. Love never retreats. Ever accompanied by faith and hope, it dares to pursue its course whatever the difficulties may appear.
V. God has angels over against the stones that may be in the pathway of love. Men are never so angel-like as when engaged in removing hindrances out of the way of those who seek to serve God. (A. J. Parry.)
Songs in the night
The nightingale is celebrated for its singing in the night. We have, however, seen it maintained that it is all a mistake to suppose that she sings only in the night. She sings in the day as well; only, as other songsters are then in full chorus, her sweeter strains are not particularly distinguishable from the rest. But at night, when all others are hushed, her song is heard, and is more sweet by reason of the contrast with the surrounding stillness. So it was with these women. They served in the day of bright sunshine, but their service was then overshadowed, so to speak, by the demonstrative crowd that thronged around the Saviour. Amidst all the marks of attention paid Him, theirs did not appear particularly distinguishable. But when the voice of the noisy, effusive crowd was hushed during the dark night of trial and suffering which followed the brief day of popularity, they continued to give forth the music of love and sympathy through the dark loneliness of the night. This is love indeed, and the world needs more of it-love that will give forth the music of service in the night, and even at the grave of its hope. (A. J. Parry.)
Loves tenacity
The little English drummer boys apt reply to Napoleon indicates the spirit of love in this respect. The story relates, that when the little drummer was brought prisoner before the Emperor, he was told to sound the retreat. I never learnt it, was the prompt answer. Love has never learnt to sound the retreat, or practise it. Love is ever accompanied by faith and hope, and in their company it always dares to pursue its course, however great may appear the odds against it. (A. J. Parry.)
Moral strength in women
It is a curious psychological fact that women, though usually much weaker than men, develop, in the hour of affliction, a wonderful degree of moral strength. They bear up under a weight of adversity which would completely crush a man; but as soon as the painful ordeal is over, then nature seems to resume its sway, and the stoic of a few moments before melts into a flood of tears, and gives herself up to a season of uncontrollable weeping. Just as the stately oak affords an impervious shelter from the pouring tempest; but so soon as the fury of the storm is past, and the sun shines out again from behind the clouds, then the slightest touch brings the great raindrops rattling to the ground. Hence we are not surprised that these three women came with tearless eyes to anoint our Saviours body. Their hearts were sore with grief, but theirs was a depth of woe that found no relief in weeping. (J. E. Johnson.)
The stone of death rolled away
They saw that the stone had been rolled away. How I love to dwell upon these words; they are so full of comfort to every stricken soul. There is not only a great beauty, but there is a profound significance in them. The mass of men at that time believed that, when a man died, that was the end of him; he was indeed dead-he was annihilated. It was a common custom among the Romans to heap great piles of rough rocks upon the graves of the dead, as though they would bind them down to the only scene of their existence. Men everywhere shrank with terror from the grave, and the thought of death filled them with horror. On Easter eve, nearly nineteen centuries ago, the fear of death rested like an immense rock upon the great heart of humanity, but on Easter morn that weight of fear and dread was rolled away, and a risen Saviour proclaimed to the world the glorious fact of an immortal existence. (A. J. Parry.)
The import of death
The complexion of our religious thought depends upon the view we take of death. This life is but the foreground of that which is to come, and death is the narrow bridge upon which we pass from one state of existence to another; or, rather, it is our initiation into the hidden mysteries of the future. The initiatory ceremony is attended with some pain, it is true; but, as in ancient times, when a king wished to raise a brave man to knighthood, he struck him lightly with a sword, and then pronounced him noble: even so, death is but the soft sword touch by which the Eternal King elevates His faithful servant to the knight-errantry of heaven. There is, in the German, a beautiful fable which represents the angel of slumber wandering over the earth in company with the angel of death. As the evening draws near they approach a village and encamp upon one of its hills, listening to the curfew as it tolls the knell of parting day. At last the sounds cease, profound silence reigns round about, and the dark mantle of night covers the earth. Now the angel of sleep rises from her bed of moss, and, stepping forward to the brink of the height, silently scatters the unseen seeds of slumber. The evening wind noiselessly wafts them out over the habitations of weary men. Sweet sleep settles down upon all the inhabitants of the village, and overcomes them all, from the old man who nods in his chair to the infant resting in its cradle. The sick forget their pain; the afflicted their anguish: even poverty is oblivious of its wants. All eyes are closed. After her task has been performed, the angel of slumber turns to her sister and says: When the morning sun appears, all these people will praise me as their benefactor and friend. How delightful it is to go about doing good so silently and all unseen! What a beautiful calling we have! Thus spoke the angel of sleep; but the angel of death gazed upon her in silent sorrow, and a tear, such as the undying shed, stood in her eye. Alas! said she, I cannot rejoice like you in the gratitude of men. The earth calls me its enemy, and the destroyer of its peace. O my sister, replied the angel of slumber, at the great awakening of the resurrection morning the souls of the blessed will recognize you as their friend and benefactor. Are we not sisters, and the messengers of our common Father? They ceased to speak, but the eyes of the death angel glistened with tears as they both fled out into the darkness of the night. (A. J. Parry.)
Hope in death
Visitors to the catacombs at Rome never fail to observe the inscriptions over the graves of those early Christians who, escaping from persecution, took refuge in these subterranean abodes. Their friends inscribed over their resting place these blessed words, Requiescat in pace-Rest in peace. Sometimes they added an anchor, which was a favourite emblem with them-the symbol at once of their tempestuous lot, and of the calm trust with which it was borne. (A. J. Parry.)
Reunion after the resurrection
If you have taken a sail, on a pleasant day, down the harbour of some great city by the sea, you have seen there, perhaps, a noble ship sailing up the bay. All her canvas is set, and shines brightly in the sun. Her crew crowd the rail, and earnestly gaze at the familiar landscape. Here they are at last. They have been round the world, or in search of whale in the Arctic Ocean. At times, during their absence, it seemed as though this hour would never come. In the night when the waves tossed their ship, when the wind whistled through the rigging, and the blocks and cords were covered with ice, they thought of home and loved ones, but long years must elapse before they could return, and hope sunk utterly in their bosom. Now, however, it is all over; the pain is passed; their eyes are rejoiced once more with the sight of their native land, and, as the ship draws near the shore, they eagerly scan the faces on the pier-fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, little ones, and friends have come down to welcome them. The vessel is made fast, a plank is thrown to the land, they step upon it, pass over, and all hearts rejoice in the present gladness. No one thinks of the past; the anguish of parting is forgotten; the long separation fades into a brief moment; all is bliss. My friends, this is but a figure. We are the crew of that vessel, Jesus is the Captain, life is the long voyage upon which we are all embarked, and the landing is that glorious moment when we shall all be united beyond the deep; dark ocean of eternity. And may we not see in those who stand upon the pier, and scan, with eager, earnest gaze, the races on the ship, that throng of friends who await us on the other side? (A. J. Parry.)
Angels in graves
It is very pleasant to note how the ministering angels gather round death and the grave. There is the supporting angel, in what we may truly call the dying agony of Gethsemane. There are the angels who waited to waft the soul set free to that inner heaven, familiar, in Hebrew imagery, as Abrahams bosom. There is the angel of the resurrection, who takes away the bar, and lets out the prisoners of hope. And still, even in the empty grave, tarrying there as if he loved it, there is an angel-strong, beautiful, and fresh as a young man-pure, and bridal, and modest in his long white robe. And why should I put such a difference between the Head and the members as to think that Jesus tomb was so tenanted, and that mine is empty? Why should that have such sweet company, and a Christians grave be solitary? Or why should that be shrouded, in our imagination, in darkness and gloom, which is so beautiful and so attractive to those heavenly visitors (James Vaughan, M. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Chapter 16
Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16:1-18 (Mar_16:1-18)
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CHRIST RISEN
"And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him. And very early on the first day of the week, they come to the tomb when the sun was risen. And they were saying among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the tomb? and looking up, they see that the stone is rolled back: for it was exceeding great. And entering into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, arrayed in a white robe, and they were amazed. And he saith unto them, Be not amazed; ye seek Jesus, the Nazarene, Which hath been crucified: He is risen; He is not here: behold, the place where they laid Him! But go, tell His disciples and Peter, He goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you. And they went out, and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid. Now when He was risen early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven devils. She went and told them that had been with Him, as they mourned and wept. And they, when they heard that He was alive, and had been seen of her, disbelieved. And after these things He was manifested in another form unto two of them, as they walked, on their way into the country. And they went away and told it unto the rest: neither believed they them. And afterward He was manifested unto the eleven themselves as they sat at meat; and He upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen Him after He was risen. And He said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned. And these signs shall follow them that believe: in My name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." Mar_16:1-18 (R.V.)
THE Gospels were not written for the curious but for the devout. They are most silent therefore where myth and legend would be most garrulous, and it is instructive to seek, in the story of Jesus, for anything similar to the account of the Buddha's enlightenment under the Bo tree. We read nothing of the interval in Hades; nothing of the entry of His crowned and immortal body into the presence chamber of God; nothing of the resurrection. Did He awake alone? Was He waited upon by the hierarchy of heaven, who robed Him in raiment unknown to men? We are only told what concerns mankind, the sufficient manifestation of Jesus to His disciples.
And to harmonize the accounts a certain effort is necessary, because they tell of interviews with men and women who had to pass through all the vicissitudes of despair, suspense, rapturous incredulity, [11] and faith. Each of them contributes a portion of the tale.
From St. John we learn that Mary Magdalene came early to the sepulcher, from St. Matthew that others were with her, from St. Mark that these women, dissatisfied with the unskillful ministrations of men (and men whose rank knew nothing of such functions), had brought sweet spices to anoint Him Who was about to claim their adoration; St. John tells how Mary, seeing the empty sepulcher, ran to tell Peter and John of its desecration; the others, that in her absence an angel told the glad tiding to the women; St. Mark, that Mary was the first to whom Jesus Himself appeared. And thenceforth the narrative more easily falls into its place.
This confusion, however perplexing to thoughtless readers, is inevitable in the independent histories of such events, derived from the various parties who delighted to remember, each what had befallen himself.
But even a genuine contradiction would avail nothing to refute the substantial fact. When the generals of Henry the Fourth strove to tell him what passed after he was wounded at Aumale, no two of them agreed in the course of events which gave them victory. Two armies beheld the battle of Waterloo, but who can tell when it began? At ten o'clock, said the Duke of Wellington. At half past eleven, said General Alava, who rode beside him. At twelve according to Napoleon and Drouet; and at one according to Ney.
People who doubt the reality of the resurrection, because the harmony of the narratives is underneath the surface, do not deny these facts. They are part of history. Yet it is certain that the resurrection of Jesus colors the history of the world more powerfully today, than the events which are so much more recent.
If Christ were not risen, how came these despairing men and women by their new hope, their energy, their success among the very men who slew Him? If Christ be not risen, how had the morality of mankind been raised? Was it ever known that a falsehood exercised for ages a quickening and purifying power which no truth can rival?
From the ninth verse to the end of St. Mark's account it is curiously difficult to decide on the true reading. And it must be said that the note in the Revised Version, however accurate, does not succeed in giving any notion of the strength of the case in favor of the remainder of the Gospel. It tells us that the two oldest manuscripts omit them, but we do not read that in one of these a space is left for the insertion of something, known by the scribe to be wanting there. Nor does it mention the twelve manuscripts of almost equal antiquity in which they are contained, nor the early date at which they were quoted.
The evidence appears to lean toward the belief that they were added in a later edition, or else torn off in an early copy from which some transcribers worked. But unbelief cannot gain anything by converting them into a separate testimony, of the very earliest antiquity, to events related in each of the other Gospels.
And the uncertainty itself will be wholesome if it reminds us that saving faith is not to be reposed in niceties of criticism, but in the living Christ, the power and wisdom of God. Jesus blamed men for thinking that they had eternal life in their inspired Scriptures, and so refusing to come for life to Him, of Whom those Scriptures testified. Has sober criticism ever shaken for one hour that sacred function of Holy Writ?
What then is especially shown us in the closing words of St. Mark?
Readiness to requite even a spark of grace, and to bless with the first tiding of a risen Redeemer the love which sought only to embalm His corpse. Tender care for the fallen and disheartened, in the message sent especially to Peter. Immeasurable condescension, such as rested formerly, a Babe, in a peasant woman's arms, and announced its Advent to shepherds, now appearing first of all to a woman "out of whom He had cast seven devils."
A state of mind among the disciples, far indeed from that rapt and hysterical enthusiasm which men have fancied, ready to be whirled away in a vortex of religious propagandism (and to whirl the whole world after it), upon the impulse of dreams, hallucinations, voices mistaken on a misty shore, longings which begot convictions. Jesus Himself, and no second, no messenger from Jesus, inspired the zeal which kindled mankind. The disciples, mourning and weeping, found the glad tidings incredible, while Mary who had seen Him, believed. When two, as they walked, beheld Him in another shape, the rest remained incredulous, announcing indeed that He had actually risen and appeared unto Peter, yet so far from a true conviction that when He actually came to them, they supposed that they beheld a spirit (Luk_24:34; Luk_24:37). Yet He looked in the face those pale discouraged Galileans, and bade them go into all the world, bearing to the whole creation the issues of eternal life and death. And they went forth, and the power and intellect of the world are won. Whatever unbelievers think about individual souls, it is plain that the words of the Nazarene have proved true for communities and nations, He that believeth and is baptized has been saved, He that believeth not has been condemned. The nation and kingdom that has not served Christ has perished.
Nor does any one pretend that the agents in this marvelous movement were insincere. If all this was a dream, it was a strange one surely, and demands to be explained. If it was otherwise, no doubt the finger of God had come unto us.
[11] Can anything surpass that masterstroke of insight and descriptive power, "they still disbelieved for joy" -- Luk_24:41.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6 1. When the sabbath was past. Compare Matt. 28:1–17;…
1. When the sabbath was past. Compare Matt. 28:1–17; Luke 24:1–11; John 20:1–10. As Mark's account is peculiar in some things, I add some notes. The Sabbath ended at sunset; the women then made their preparations to visit the tomb at dawn. Might come and anoint him. This shows that they did not expect his resurrection. The Jews were wont, as a mark of honor, to surround the body in the tomb with fragrant spices. Nicodemus (John 19:39, 40) had brought spices. Perhaps the women did not know this; perhaps they wished, in addition, to render their own loving service.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 Mar_16:1. Had bought sweet spices.—Simply, bought spices. No time…
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Mar_16:1. Had bought sweet spices.—Simply, bought spices. No time specified, merely the fact stated. From Luk_23:56 we gather (unless, indeed, there were two companies of women) that the purchase was made before the Sabbath began. St. Mark’s point is, that the women bought spices some time or other—no matter when—in order that when the Sabbath was over they might come and anoint the body of the Lord. They seem to have wished to complete the imperfect embalming which Joseph and Nicodemus had hastily begun. See Joh_19:39-40, and cp. 2Ch_14:14.
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Mar_16:2. They came, etc.—They come (so as to be) at the sepulchre when the sun had risen. That is, they start from home very early, with the object of reaching their destination soon after daylight.
Mar_16:3. The door of the sepulchre.—“There was generally an approach to the tomb open to the sky; then a low entrance on the side of the rock, leading into a square chamber, on one side of which was a recess for the body, about three feet deep, with a low arch over it. The stone here referred to would be the stone which covered the actual entrance into the vault. It would probably be not less than six feet in breadth and three in height.” Had the women known of the arrangement recorded in Mat_27:62-66, they might have hesitated about visiting the tomb that day at all.
Mar_16:4. Looked.—Looked up—“the only, but sufficient, proof that Calvary was a hill.”
Mar_16:5. While Mary Magdalene, after a hasty glance, sped away to inform Peter and John that the sepulchre had been, as she supposed, rifled (Joh_20:1-2), the other women made bold to enter and inspect for themselves. Affrighted.—The word, used only by St. Mark, signifies amazement blended with fear. It is found also in chaps, Mar_9:15, Mar_14:34, Mar_16:6. Such experiences as these women were now passing through filled them with awestruck surprise.
Mar_16:7. And Peter.—With what solemnity the apostle would utter these words as he recounted the matter to St. Mark 1
Mar_16:8. Quickly.—Omit. Fled.—Not as Mary Magdalene had done, in terror and hopelessness, but full of bewildered excitement, for agitation and ecstasy had them in its grip. And to no one said they anything, for they were afraid to pause until they had delivered their message to the disciples and Peter.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mar_16:1-8
(PARALLELS: Mat_28:1-8; Luk_24:1-12; Joh_20:1-10.)
The pious women visiting the sepulchre.—The present hopes of the followers of Jesus had been destroyed and their future expectations frustrated by the ignominious death of their Lord. When they beheld the accomplishment of all which the malice of His enemies could inflict, they seem to have given way to their feelings of despondency and dismay. But while the most favoured of the apostles had retired from the place where He was put to death, and from the garden in which they had seen His body laid and a large stone rolled to the mouth of the sepulchre, there were others whose faith and love had survived all these trials (Mar_15:40-41). During our Saviour’s life these pious women had ministered to Him of their substance. They had followed Him out of the distant part of the country in which they resided; and they were still found, in that hour of suffering, hoping against hope, or desirous to testify to the end the love which they bore to Him who had loved them. When, at a later hour of the same mournful day, the body of Jesus was taken down from the Cross and laid in the new sepulchre, “wherein never man before was laid,” the same affectionate attendants still followed their Lord (Luk_23:35). “As yet they knew not the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.” But perceiving that they who had in a hurried manner buried the body of Jesus had not embalmed it, as the manner of the Jews was to bury, but had merely wrapped the body in linen with dry spices, they determined to perform that last office of affectionate care, and “returned, and prepared” the “spices and ointments” necessary for the purpose, and “rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment.” “And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.” They knew not that the heavy stone which they had seen placed over the mouth of the sepulchre had been farther secured by having been sealed with a seal and guarded by soldiers set as a watch. But they were aware that, even without such a precaution, there was an impediment to the accomplishment of their pious intention insurmountable by their own strength. Still they persevered in their exertions, though not without some secret misgivings that their labour would be in vain (Mar_16:3). But as soon as they reached the sepulchre all their apprehensions were proved to have been groundless. They came but to embalm the body of Jesus; they expected to have found a lifeless corpse; and lo! a vision of angels, which told them that He was risen from the dead.
I. The constancy of these pious women, contrasted with the comparative weakness of the faith even of the apostles, may remind us that the “faith which worketh by love,” the religion of the heart, is by no means in proportion to the outward advantages which different individuals may possess. There may be often found among the comparatively unlearned, in the meanest stations and in circumstances of the greatest apparent distress, a practical acquaintance with vital religion, a firm trust in God, an abiding faith in the merits of the Saviour, and a sense of the real consolations arising from a spiritual frame of mind, which may well serve as an encouragement and as a lesson to others who have been blessed with far greater opportunities of religious improvement. Such examples teach us, in language which cannot be misunderstood, what a treasure true religion is; for it is found supplying, and more than supplying, the want of all which this world can afford.
II. Another reflexion arising from this history is, that we are often ignorant of obstacles which really beset our path of duty, while we exaggerate to ourselves the magnitude of those with which we are acquainted. How many, when inquiry is made respecting their religious condition, are found to have fixed their apprehensions upon some circumstances which they conceived to be the principal, if not the only, bar to their advancement in piety! Some will complain of the cares of life. Before the eyes of others there may be set some trial of temper, some weakness of which they are especially conscious, some trouble which at present occupies their thoughts, or some easily besetting sin which they know not how to conquer or remove. And each of these may conceive that there is but this one barrier interposed between him and his duty. But when we are led thus unduly to estimate the magnitude of some one obstacle to a religious life, we overlook others of greater importance and still less surmountable by any powers of our own. If the sepulchre of Jesus was sealed with a seal to prevent all access from without, who knows not that the heart of man is by nature closed against Divine grace and remains dark and impervious to its holy light! If the sepulchre of Jesus was guarded with a band of soldiers, whose express duty it was to prevent the seal from being broken and the stone from being rolled away, who knows not what a band of evil passions and unholy desires and worldly thoughts besets the heart of man, and how the prince of the power of the air disposes his active and sleepless forces, to keep the thoughts and affections still cold and dark, “lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them”!
III. But while we thus learn justly to appreciate the real obstacles against which we have to contend, the example of the pious women may encourage us to persevere in the plain course of duty, in the firm persuasion that, although we cannot, by our own strength, roll away the stone from the sepulchre, yet that, however great it may be, there is a power which will remove it for us. There are periods when the heart even of the faithful Christian is weighed down with much sorrow. He is exposed to some great danger, or apprehends some severe trial. At such a time his faith is ready to fail him. He goes on his way, weary and sad at heart, although he knows that he is treading the direct path of Christian duty. But who shall set bounds to the mercy or power of God? When the Christian has accomplished his journey, he looks and sees that the stone is rolled away. Either his apprehensions are removed, or, if the trial which he feared has come upon him, strength has been given him to enable him to bear it. And if this be true in the trials which are of a temporary kind, so is it especially found in those which regard our spiritual state.
IV. If we persevere in faithful obedience, our exertions will often be blessed beyond our utmost hopes.—The pious women who visited the sepulchre of their Lord looked only for the sad satisfaction of preparing His body for the tomb. And the apprehension which chiefly weighed upon their minds was instantly removed, as soon as they looked and saw that the stone, which had appeared so great, was rolled away. And after they had been relieved from this fear, a new source of holy joy was unexpectedly opened to them. Their Lord was risen from the dead, no more to see corruption. And so assuredly will God deal with His servants at all times. With the temptation He will make a way to escape, that they may be able to bear it; with the trial He will give strength; with the tribulation He will send patience; and with patience, experience; and with experience, hope.—Prof. Temple Chevallier.
Mar_16:3-4. All difficulties surmounted by the faithful.—If we look at the difficulties, trials, and sorrows which attend man from the cradle to the grave, and consider at the same time only man’s strength, which is perfect weakness, we must say with the apostle, “Who is sufficient for these things?” “Who then can be saved?” Happy is it for him who is brought to confess, “With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible”; for when men are brought to look out of themselves and to say, “Who shall roll us away the stone?” they have taken the first step towards its removal.
1. Sometimes the Christian is in great fear of danger, in common with other men who fear not God. He sees no means of escape—there may be no chance of it, as the world would say; a fatal sickness is around him, or he is in the power of an enemy. But is he without comfort or resource? Nay, he remembers Joseph in Egypt, Lot in Sodom, Daniel in the lions’ den, the three children in the furnace, Israel at the Red Sea, Paul and Silas and Peter in prison; and when ready to faint, and cry, “Who shall roll away the stone?” he hears again those cheering words, “He shall give His angels charge over thee,” etc. “Fear ye not, stand ‘still, and see the salvation of the Lord.”
2. Sometimes the Christian is poor and in misery, and knows not to-day how he shall live to-morrow; distress presses him hard; he is in great straits, and there seems no help for it; he cannot see the least prospect of his condition being bettered, or he may have a dread that poverty must soon come upon him; his faith is tried to the uttermost; bad success, misfortunes of various kinds, daily threaten him. And is he without comfort or hope? Does he forget Hagar in the desert, the Israelites in the wilderness, Elijah at the brook Cherith, the widow and her cruse of oil?
3. The Christian is sometimes much oppressed and made to suffer under false accusations, his character mistaken, words misrepresented, motives misunderstood and falsely stated. Who shall roll away the stone? But he is not without great comfort under all this, for he calls to mind our Saviour’s words (Mat_5:11-12). He does not forget that Christ “came unto His own, and His own received Him not”; “He was despised and rejected of men”; “He was reviled.” If he be inclined to think that God hath forsaken him, he hears God reasoning with him thus: Isa_40:27; Psa_37:5 to Psa_7:4. The Christian is sometimes sorely perplexed in some of his plans and undertakings: nothing he takes in hand seems to prosper; so many difficulties arise that he is tempted to yield to despair. But even here he can patiently abide; “in quietness and confidence is his strength”; he leans more unreservedly upon God; he waits His time; he knows that man’s time is always ready—God’s time may not be yet. He remembers that God often permits one to sow and another to reap, one man to begin and another to finish—as David, who prepared the materials, and Solomon, who built Him a house; and so looking steadfastly to Him, he sees the stone rolled away.
5. The Christian is sometimes in great doubt as to how he should act—whether this or that is his duty; in a strait betwixt two, or else in perplexity as to how he should perform that which he knows to be best. He is often haunted with the fear of consequences and of a doubtful mind, tossed to and fro like a wave of the sea. How comforting then are such words to him! (Joh_7:17; Isa_50:10; Psa_97:11; Isa_26:3).
6. But if ever the Christian is ready to say, “Who shall roll away the stone,” it is when, having borne the Christian name, he is convicted of having lived as a stranger to Christ the hope of glory—of exhibiting in himself that sad contradiction, a worldly and unholy Christian. Who can tell the blessing to a soul, weary and heavy laden with the burden of its sins, of hearing such words as these, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee”? Who can tell the comfort of such consoling counsel as this? Claim the privileges of the covenant, the first of which is pardon and forgiveness through Christ, into whom ye were baptised. Treat God as your Father: you are not strangers and foreigners, though you have been bad and rebellious subjects; but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints. You have “liberty to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus”; “and having a High Priest over the house of God, draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith”: for though you have no power of yourselves to help yourselves, you can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth you.—E. J. Boyce, M.A.
Mar_16:5-6. The first preaching of the Resurrection.—Mark has scarcely anything to say about our Lord’s appearance after the Resurrection. His object seems mainly to be to describe rather the manner in which the report of the Resurrection affected the disciples. And so he makes prominent the bewildered astonishment of the women. If the latter part of this chapter be his, he passes by the appearance of our Lord to Mary Magdalene and to the two travellers to Emmaus with just a word for each—contrasting singularly with the lovely narrative of the former in John’s Gospel and with the detailed account of the latter in Luke’s, he emphasises the incredulity of the twelve after receiving the reports. And in like manner he lays stress upon the unbelief and hardness of heart which the Lord rebuked.
I. The first witness to the Resurrection.—There are singular diversities in the four Gospels in the account of the angelic appearances, the number, occupation, and attitude of these superhuman persons; and contradictions may be spun, if one is so disposed, out of these varieties. But it is wiser to take another view of them, and to see in the varying reports—sometimes of one angel, sometimes two, sometimes of one sitting outside the sepulchre, sometimes one within, sometimes none—either different moments of time or differences produced by the different spiritual condition of the beholders. We know too little about the laws of angelic appearances, we know too little about the relation in that high region between the seeing eye and the objects beheld, to venture to say that there is a contradiction where the narratives present variety. Enough for us to draw the lessons suggested by that quiet figure sitting there in the inner vestibule of the grave, gazing on the tomb where the Lord of men and angels had lain. He was a youth. “The oldest angels are the youngest,” says the great mystic. He was “clothed in a long white garment,” the sign at once of purity and of repose; and he was sitting in rapt contemplation and quiet adoration there, where the body of Jesus had lain. Wherefore was he there? Because that Cross strikes its power upwards as well as downwards—because He that had lain there is the Head of all creation, and the Lord of angels as well as of men—because that Resurrection following upon that Cross, “unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places,” opened a new and wonderful door into the unsounded and unfathomed abyss of Divine love—because into these things “angels desire to look,” and, looking, are smitten with adoring wonder and flushed with the illumination of a new knowledge of what God is and of what man is to God. Farther, we see in that angel-presence not only the indication that Christ is his King as well as ours, but also the mark of his and all his fellows’ sympathetic participation in whatsoever is of so deep interest to humanity. All the servants of our King in heaven and earth are one, and He sends forth His brightest and loftiest to be brethren and ministers to them who shall be “heirs of salvation.”
II. The triumphant light east upon the cradle and the Cross.—“Jesus, the Nazarene, who was crucified.” Do you not catch a tone of wonder and a tone of triumph in this threefold particularising of the humanity, the lowly residence, and the ignominious death? All that lowliness, suffering, and shame are brought into comparison with the rising from the dead. The cradle is illuminated by the grave, the Cross by the empty sepulchre. As at the beginning there is a supernatural entrance into life, so at the end there is a supernatural resumption of it. The Birth corresponds with the Resurrection, and both witness to the Divinity. Brethren, let us lay this to heart—that unless we believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the saying “He was crucified” is the saddest word that can be spoken about any of the great ones of the past. “If He be not risen, our preaching is vain, and your faith is also vain.” “If Christ be not risen, ye are yet in your sins.” But if what Easter Day commemorates be true, then upon all His earthly life is thrown a new light, and we first understand the Cross when we look upon the empty grave.
III. The majestic announcement of the great fact, and its confirmation.—“He is risen; He is not here.” The first preacher of the Resurrection was an angel, a true ev-angel-ist. His message is conveyed in these brief sentences, unconnected with each other, in token, not of abruptness and haste, but of solemnity. “He is risen” is one word in the original—a sentence of one word, which announces the mightiest miracle that ever was wrought upon earth, a miracle which opens the door wide enough for all supernatural events recorded of Jesus Christ to find an entrance to the whole understanding and the reason. “He is risen.” The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is declared by angel lips to be His own act. The Divine power of the Father’s will did not work upon Him as from without to raise Him from the dead; but He, the embodiment of Divinity, raised Himself, even though it is also true that He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. These two things are not contradictory, but the former of them can only be predicated of Him; and it sets Him on a pedestal immeasurably above and infinitely apart from all those to whom life is communicated by a Divine act. He Himself is the Life, and it was not possible that Life should be holden of Death, Now, then, note the confirmation of this stupendous fact. “He is risen; He is not here.” We take it as a plain historical fact, which the extremest scepticism has never ventured to deny, that the grave of Christ was empty. The trumped-up story of the guards sufficiently shews that. When the belief of a resurrection began to be spread abroad, what would have been easier for Pharisees and rulers than to have gone to the sepulchre and rolled back the stone, and said, “Look there! there is your risen Man, lying mouldering, like all the rest of us”! They did not do it. Why? Because the grave was empty. Where was the body? They had it not, else they would have been glad to produce it. Now note the way in which the announcement of this tremendous fact was received. With blank bewilderment and terror on the part of these women, followed by incredulity on the part of the apostles and of the other disciples. These things are on the surface of the narrative; and very important they are. They plainly tell us that the first hearers did not believe the testimony which they call upon us to believe. And that being the state of mind of the early disciples on the Resurrection day, what becomes of the modern theory, which seeks to explain the fact of the early belief in the Resurrection by saying, “Oh, they had worked themselves into such a fever of expectation that Jesus Christ would rise from the dead that the wish was father to the thought, and they said He did because they expected He would”?
IV. The summons to grateful contemplation.—“Behold the place where they laid Him.” To these women the call was simply one to come and see what would confirm the witness. But we may, perhaps, permissibly turn it to a wider purpose, and say that it summons us all to thankful, lowly, believing, glad contemplation of that empty grave as the basis of all our hopes. Look upon it and upon the Resurrection which it confirms to us as an historical fact. It sets the seal of the Divine approval on Christ’s work, and declares the Divinity of His person and the all-sufficiency of His mighty sacrifice. “Behold the place where they laid Him,” and, looking upon it, let us think of that Resurrection as a prophecy in its bearing upon us and upon all the dear ones that have trod the common road into the great darkness. Chrift has died, therefore they live; Christ lives, therefore we shall never die. “Behold the place where they laid Him,” and in the empty grave read the mystery of the Resurrection as the pattern and the symbol of our higher life—that, “like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Oh to partake more and more of that power of His resurrection!—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Mar_16:7. The message of the Resurrection.—The text, ’tis the first joyful tidings that came to the Church of God of our Saviour’s Resurrection, the first blessed news of Christ’s triumphant victory over death and the grave, and thereby of His restoring of us to life and immortality. This day Satan and the powers of hell, all the enemies of our salvation, were vanquished and subdued by Christ’s Resurrection; the hold and fortress of death, the grave, was spoiled and ransacked, the gates and bars of hell broken in pieces. Our Samson hath taken the gates of the Philistines on His shoulders, and carried them away. Surely this is a day of joyful tidings. Let it be told to the King’s household, published in the Church of God. Say unto Zion, “Behold, thy God reigneth”: He hath triumphed gloriously; He hath led captivity captive; the horse and the rider, that pale horse, and Death riding on him, hath He slain in the battle (Rev_6:8).
I. The despatch of this message, and that seems very hasty and somewhat abrupt: it begins here with a word of diversion—“But.” Why so? Were they in the wrong way? or in an unwarrantable employment? Just now, in the former verse, he bids them come and see the place, behold the sepulchre where the Lord was laid, and from whence He was risen. Why doth he now presently remove them from it, not let them stay and take their fill of that joyful vision? ’Tis said of Hilarion he went once to Jerusalem to see those monuments of Christ’s death and passion; but he went no more, he made no practice of it, placed no piety in it. So here the angel allows them a sight of the sepulchre to confirm their faith; but withal he dismisses them presently, suffers them not to fix their devotion upon it. Besides this reason, the angel is thus quick and speedy in his diversion, to teach us that even the spiritual delights of contemplation must give way to religious and pious actions. Their piety in meditating on His Resurrection must give way to their charity in imparting it to others. He is the best servant, not that delights to stand in his master’s presence, but that carefully minds and diligently goes about his master’s business. For the despatch of this message here are two things considerable.
1. From whom it comes. The first news of Christ’s Resurrection is sent by an angel.
(1) It becomes the excellency of this great work of Christ’s Resurrection to be attended and published by the ministry of angels.
(2) Fit it was an angel should first publish it, a heavenly messenger, as being a matter supernatural and heavenly, and of special revelation. All proclamations are first published at the court-gate, then sent abroad into the kingdom. This new revelation, ’tis first proclaimed at heaven’s gates by an angel, and then sent abroad unto the sons of men.
(3) Angels are made messengers and publishers of these tidings, and they gladly undertake it. See now there is a sweet communion and intercourse ’twixt them and us. It shews us the virtue and power of that great atonement of Christ’s death and bloodshed; it hath made up the breach and alienation ’twixt us and the angels. They were all partakers in God’s quarrel; and therefore the Scripture presents them in martial and military and warlike appearances, tells us of armies and hosts of angels. When soldiers and martial men proclaim peace and good-will, there is peace indeed. This office of love the angel performs, ’tis the fruit of Christ’s mediation, the merit of His death, the purchase of His passion.
2. By whom the angel conveys this message; they are the women that repaired to the sepulchre. Reason would conceit that some other messengers should have been employed than these poor, weak women. But God’s thoughts are not as man’s thoughts are.
(1) God purposely makes choice of such instruments in this great and weighty service. In the whole carriage and economy of the gospel God observes a mixture of much spiritual power and glory, with much outward baseness and meanness.
(2) The tidings of His Resurrection are conveyed into the world by weak women. “Kings and princes,” saith Chrysostom, “make known their minds to inferior people by their great officers and ministers of state: God, He employs poor, feeble, contemptible men to declare His will to the potentates of the world.”
(3) But yet there is some congruity that God observes in the choice of these messengers. These good women, they stood to it and clave to Christ when the apostles all of them fled and forsook Him; they assisted His Cross when the others hid themselves (Mar_15:40); they watched His burial, repaired early and weeping to the sepulchre; they were forwardest in attending His passion; and so they are first made acquainted with His Resurrection.
II. The persons to whom these tidings are directed.—“Tell His disciples and Peter.”
1. Here is a general direction to His disciples.
(1) Why is not the message directed to Pilate and Herod, to Annas, and Caiaphas, and the priests, that condemned Him and compassed His death? It might have been a mighty conviction to them. No; ’tis purposely hid from them to punish their infidelity and former obstinacy. They had heard Him preach in His lifetime; now, should He appear from the dead, they would not believe Him.
(2) Why not to the common people, that sinned out of ignorance? No; this manifestation of His Resurrection was not made promiscuously to all, purposely to prepare a way to faith and believing. The great honour that Christianity doth to God is to embrace His truth upon belief.
(3) This message and tidings of Christ’s Resurrection is directed to His disciples. (a) They were the only visible body of Christians—to teach us, to whom the benefit of Christ’s Resurrection belongeth; ’tis to the Church, ’tis limited and confined only to believers. (b) The faith of the disciples was now in a great weakness; they had almost given over all belief that Jesus was the Messias (Luk_24:21). Our faith, not only when ’tis in robore, in its full strength and vivacity, but when ’tis in vulnere, wounded and weakened and overwhelmed with temptations, is accepted of Him. (c) These disciples were at this time full of sadness and sorrow for the loss of their Master. Such mourners are blessed mourners; they shall be comforted. They that can lament for His passion, they shall be partakers of the joy and comfort of His Resurrection.
2. To acquaint Peter with these good tidings an express message is directed to him.
(1) Peter had fallen most foully—denied, forsworn, his Master with curses and execrations. Oh, ’twas a great sin of the first magnitude! And yet to such and so vile a sinner are these tidings directed. It shews the virtue of the gospel of Christ’s death and Resurrection; the greatest sinners, the most heinous offenders, may get good by it.
(2) Peter’s faith and graces have received a very great bruise and maim by his fall: his conscience is deeply wounded. He is like one fallen from a high place, exceedingly bruised, and lies for dead. Such a one must be catched up in our arms, more carefully tended.
(3) Peter is now overwhelmed with sorrow for his heinous sin: he wept bitterly, no doubt abhorred himself in dust and ashes. And to extraordinary mourners God graciously directs extraordinary and special and more personal comforts.
(4) Peter by his great fall in denying of Christ hath incurred a great and an infamous scandal, given a great offence to the whole Church of God. This personal message to him shall not only comfort his conscience, but cure his credit too. It plainly signifies he must not be cast off, but be dealt mercifully withal, and accounted as a brother. Nay, it restores him not only to his discipleship, but to his office of an apostle. The tidings are sent to him under the name of Peter, his apostolical name.
(5) From this personal message to Peter we may briefly collect these three corollaries: (a) As loving parents are most tender of their weakest children, so is Christ to the feeble Christians, sorrowful, heavy-hearted Christians; His bowels of compassion yearn most towards them. (b) The angel pities Peter, and hath care and compassion on him. Peter’s tears were the wine of angels; they were a banquet in heaven. (c) In conformity to Christ, in imitation of His angel, it must be our duty to practise the charge given to these messengers; have a care of Peter, of a sorrowful, contrite, broken-hearted Christian.
III. The sum of the message, the news to be imparted.—“He goes before you into Galilee: there shall ye see Him.”
1. Here is an intimation of Christ’s Resurrection. The angel is careful to confirm that truth to them. Indeed, ’tis the main capital truth of Christian religion—the sum and pith and kernel of the gospel. It strengthens our faith in other saving truths.
(1) It confirms us in the truth of His Divinity (Rom_1:4; Psa_16:10).
(2) It confirms to us the benefit of His death and passion. Had He died only, death had overcome Him; now He is risen, He hath overcome death.
(3) This intimation is the strongest means to revive and comfort them. Faith, ’tis like the flower called heliotropium: when the sun sets, it fades and closes; when the sun rises and returns, it blows out and flourishes.
2. Here is a prediction that must evidence the truth of His Resurrection. “He goes before you into Galilee.”
(1) Here is an act of local motion. Christ’s body now, after His Resurrection, ’tis a glorified body, and yet within the compass and condition of a true natural body, to be transferred by motion from one place to another. (a) After His Resurrection ’twas a finite body: “He is risen; He is not here.” When it was in one place, it was not in another, (b) It was a sensible body (Luk_24:39). (c) It was organical: we read of His hands, feet, side. It had all the parts and members of a human body, in a just proportion and situation, the fit proportions of a human body.
(2) Here is an act of prevention: “He goes before you.” Early and speedily He hastens to Galilee, to visit and comfort them. Tis the gracious course of God’s preventing goodness; He is forward to relieve and comfort His Church. All delays are tedious to Him. Nay, see the impatience of His love to His poor disciples: He appoints them Galilee; but He cannot withhold Himself so long from them—He appears to them sooner. (a) To Mary in the garden. (b) To the women in the way as they are going to Jerusalem. (c) To the two disciples as they are going to Emmaus. (d) To the apostles ere they stirred one foot out of the city. This is the speediness of His mercy (Isa_65:24). He is still better than His promise.
(3) Here is the designation of the place: “Galilee.” Why to so remote a place? (a) As ’tis said of Peter’s sinking, ’twas not pedes, but fides; not his feet, but his faith failed him,—so Christ here requires them not to exercise their feet, but their faith. He would have them begin with faith, and then they shall end in sight. (b) He sends them so far the more to quicken and inflame their desires and longings to see Him. If He comes sooner to them, ’tis to comfort them; if He stays longer, ’tis to quicken and enliven their desires towards Him.
(4) In particular Galilee is the place appointed. (a) ’Twas locus tutus: He graciously provides for His disciples’ safety; He calls them out of Jerusalem, the place of persecution—makes them withdraw themselves from that bloody generation, where they were beset with dangers—leads them into a place of safety, where with greater freedom they might converse with Him. (b) ’Twas locus familiaris, a place where He had usually conversed with them; ’twas the place of His abode—He was called a Galilean. Purposely Christ chooses all the circumstances that might help forward their faith. In Galilee they had often enjoyed His presence; His appearing there would more fully affect them. (c) ’Twas locus discipulorum plenus; it was a place wherein Christ had most of His disciples. His preaching had nothing the success at Jerusalem that it had in Galilee. In Galilee He was seen of five hundred brethren at once. Here is the place that Christ delights to visit and frequent, where He hath the fullest churches, the greatest communion of saints and believers. (d) ’Tis locus typicus. Christ calls them from Jewry to Galilee; it casts the shadow of a type and prefiguration; it represents to us the passage and remove of Christ and His gospel from the Jews to the Gentiles. Before in His lifetime He confined His own presence and preaching to the nation of the Jews, and forbade His apostles to preach unto the Gentiles; but His Resurrection brake down the wall of separation; now their commission is enlarged, “Go, teach all nations.”—Bishop Brownrigg.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Mar_16:1-2. The quest of faith.—
1. Faith seeks after life in the very sepulchre of Christ, and it will find even more than it seeks, because it seeks it as it ought, and out of a principle of obedience.
2. A solid and substantial devotion is always regular, does everything in its proper time, and is very far from neglecting what is commanded for that which is not.
3. The Spirit of God, which guides these holy women, permits them not to dispense with the observance even of a dying law, that so they may perform a service to Christ which could be deferred but a very little while.—P. Quesnel.
The earnestness of the women.—It is no wonder if we find the women here more earnest than the apostles in their grief and in regard to the death, the burial, and the embalming of the Lord’s body. The woman is the first in the expression of her grief, for she was the first in hastening to the Fall; she goes before to the tomb who was the precursor to corruption; she brings the tidings of the Resurrection who had been the herald of death; she who had conveyed to the man the message of so dreadful a destruction herself conveys to men the sounds of a great salvation; that the loss which she occasioned by her suggestion to unbelief she might now compensate for by the tidings of faith (Gen_3:6; Gen_3:12; 1Ti_2:14-15).—Pet. Chrysologus.
Apparent discrepancies in the narratives.—To harmonise the accounts a certain effort is necessary, because they tell of interviews with men and women who had to pass through all the vicissitudes of despair, suspense, rapturous incredulity, and faith. Each of them contributes a portion of the tale. From St. John we learn that Mary Magdalene came early to the sepulchre, from St. Matthew that others were with her, from St. Mark that these women, dissatisfied with the unskilful ministrations of men whose rank knew nothing of such functions, had brought sweet spices to anoint Him who was about to claim their adoration; St. John tells how Mary, seeing the empty sepulchre, ran to tell Peter and John of its desecration; the others, that in her absence an angel told the glad tidings to the women; St. Mark, that Mary was the first to whom Jesus Himself appeared. And thenceforth the narrative more easily falls into its place. This confusion, however perplexing to thoughtless readers, is inevitable in the independent histories of such events, derived from the various parties who delighted to remember each what had befallen himself.—Dean Chadwick.
Mar_16:2. The first day of the new creation.—Surely we Christians may see the reason of our keeping this day far more than any other day, inasmuch as it is the first of all days, the first day of the old creation, and the first day of the new in Christ, as on this day Christ rose from the grave. On this day, the first day in the beginning, the light was created. On this day, the first of days, Christ, the True Light, the Sun of Righteousness, rose from the grave. On this day the Holy Spirit came down, the true illumination, to fill the new creation with the light of God. This day, therefore, is beyond all days the day of our Maker, the day of our Redeemer, the day of our Sanctifier (Psa_118:21-25.)
The journey of the women.—A journey of—
1. Love.
2. Provident care.
3. Hope.
4. Joy.
5. Life.
Mar_16:3. “Who shall roll us away the stone?”—This question is applicable to—
1. Those who are seeking Divine guidance and direction. To be involved in circumstances of doubt and perplexity respecting some path is no evidence of the want of the Divine favour. God sometimes keeps His children in the dark to secure their safety (Isa_50:10).
2. To the subjects of anxious care through poverty and affliction. “Stand still, and see the salvation of God.”
3. To the persecuted and tempted believer. God will strengthen thee in thy weakness, and nerve thee for thy duty.
4. The hour of death. The eye of sense sees only the western horizon, and says, “The sun is going down.” The eye of faith turns to the glowing east, and sees the Sun of Righteousness rising with healing in His wings.
Obstacles in the Christian’s path.—-Many of the obstacles in the life of the Christian, when they are first sighted ahead and when they are seen from a distance, appear to be invincible, insurmountable—barriers never to be overstepped or moved out of the way. The fact is, they are looked at only as to themselves and their own great size, and for the time there are not taken into account the weapons which may be brought to bear against them and for their removal. In themselves, and as they stand before us, they are certainly formidable and fear-inspiring. Any mountain in the Alpine range is certainly of itself rather a startling and somewhat real obstacle; but it only requires, that one should pass over it into the fertile fields beyond, a stout heart, and a good physical frame, and abundance of “stay” and resolution, and plenty of time. A flood of water or. an army of men is, either of them, fear-inspiring under certain circumstances; but the one, be it remembered, is made up of single drops, and the other of single units; and either the one or the other may be very easily restrained or destroyed.—W. M. Arthur.
Mar_16:4. The stone rolled away.—
I. To let Christ out of the grave.—
1. To express the Divine acceptance of the work of Christ.
2. To do homage to the person of Christ.
3. To acknowledge the grandeur of the occasion.
4. To shew the futility of the mightiest human opposition.
5. To reveal the sympathy of the holy universe with the plan of salvation.
II. To let Christians into the grave.—
1. To convince them of the reality of the Resurrection.
2. To comfort them with the fact of the Resurrection.
3. To impress them with the power of the Resurrection.
4. To qualify them for the announcement of the Resurrection.
5. To assure them of their own resurrection.—B. D. Johns.
Mar_16:5. The tomb of a wealthy Jew, even when hewn from the solid rock, was a large and ample structure. It commonly consisted of at least two parts:
(1) an antechamber, which often took the form of a long vestibule or corridor; and
(2) the mortuary chamber itself, in which the body or bodies were laid. Joseph’s tomb seems to have been of this type. When the women looked up as they drew near, they saw at once that the rocky slab which closed the corridor on the outer side had been removed from its place. Filled with amazement, they seem to have paused for a while; and then, while Mary of Magdala ran off to summon Peter and John (Joh_20:2), the other women gathered courage to climb up to the vestibule and enter it. And here a still more amazing spectacle met their view. They saw—in the mortuary chamber, I suppose, or at the entrance into it—a youth sitting on the right hand, clothed in a long white stole, i.e. a talar, “which indicated a heavenly being, none other wearing such a vestment.” They would know him for an angel by his garb and by his youth, angels being assumed never to lose the bloom and beauty of youth. “And they were affrighted,” or rather amazed, the word denoting the extreme mental perturbation which a supernatural presence naturally inspires in those who are compassed with “this muddy vesture of decay.” And what wonder that amazement, a solemn awe, should seize them, when, in the chamber of death, they saw the very type of immortal life! An angel in a tomb should teach us at least, if it did not teach them, that death is not the end, but a new beginning.—S. Cox, D.D.
Mar_16:6. The empty grave.—
1. A sure and undeniable proof of Christ’s Deity.
2. A full security that He is alive, to die no more.
3. An awful view of the evil nature of sin.
4. The insufficiency and uselessness of all our own righteousness in the matter of our justification before God.
5. In the grave of Christ we may see the curse of the broken law buried, and the wrath of God finally and effectually appeased in relation to every one who enjoys an interest in a risen and glorified Redeemer.
6. Here we may see death itself lie buried, so that none of the followers of Christ have any reason to be afraid of that last enemy.—J. Young.
“He is not here.”—
1. Not in the grave, for He is risen from the dead.
2. Not in the garden, for He goes forth into all the world.
3. Not here on earth, for He is entered into His Divine glory.
Where Christ is not.—There is but one place, only one, in which Christ is not to be found—His grave. He is not there; He arose and left it, and has never returned thither. If, then, that be the only place where He is not, He must be found by you, if you seek Him everywhere else, and everywhere only to bless you and do you good. “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” And yet, though emptied of Christ, that grave is full of consolation. His not being there tells us that He is Emmanuel, “God with us”—that His sacrifice is accepted, and that we are saved.
“The place where they laid Him.”—With most tombs the interest consists in the fact that all that is mortal of the saint or the hero or the near relative rests beneath the stone or the sod on which we gaze. Of our Lord’s sepulchre the real interest is that He no longer tenants it. It is not as the place in which He lies; it is not even chiefly as the place wherein He lay; it is as the place from which He rose that the tomb of Jesus speaks to faith.—Canon Liddon.
The empty tomb of Jesus recalls an event which is as well attested as any in history; it is so attested as to put the idea of what is called illusion out of the question. The main purpose, the first duty, of the apostolic ministry was to witness to the fact that Christ had risen. The apostles did not teach the Resurrection as a revealed truth, as they taught, for example, the doctrine of justification; they taught the Resurrection as a fact of experience, a fact of which they themselves had had experience. And this is why the different Evangelists did not report the same appearances of our Risen Lord. Each one reports that which he himself witnessed, or that which was witnessed by an eye-witness on whose authority he writes. Put the various attestations together, and the evidence is irresistible. That which these witnesses attest must be true, unless they have conspired to deceive us, or are themselves deceived. The idea that they are deceiving us cannot be entertained by any man who understands human character; the idea that they were themselves deceived is inconsistent with the character of the witness which they give.—Ibid.
The empty tomb an incitement to Christian endeavour.—And why? Because of all effective endeavour hope must be a main ingredient, and hope nowhere so learns successfully to resist the pressure and shock of disappointment, and to reach forward with confidence into an unexplored future, as at the empty tomb of Jesus. Had He been crucified without rising from the dead, hope in the eventual triumph of truth and goodness must perforce have died away from the hearts of men; but as it is the Resurrection is a warrant that if the heaviness of spiritual discouragement should endure for a night, the joy of spiritual success, patiently awaited, cometh in the morning. So it is that those who while endeavouring to live the new life of Christ are fighting a hard battle against untoward circumstances, against strong insurgent passions, against deeply rooted and perhaps very evil habits, against some fatal weakness or warp of the will. Fail they must, if they essay to fight that battle in their own natural strength; but they can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth them, and the Christ that strengtheneth them is not only the teacher Christ, the example Christ, the perfect sacrifice for sin, He is also the Risen Christ, risen for their justification, and to this end making them a free present of His Resurrection strength. As such a soul in moments of deep discouragement comes in thought to see the place where the Lord lay once, but where He lies no more, it learns to understand its share in His great victory, and to expect with confidence that He will take it out of the horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and will set its feet upon a rock, and will order its goings. And so, too, with enterprises undertaken for the good of others—enterprises which seem to be stricken with the note of failure, which fail over and over again, which we are tempted to give up as a bad business. Do not give up that enterprise, be it what it may, if you can dare to offer it, if you have offered it, to God as intended to promote His glory and the good of your fellow-men—do not give it up. There was darkness over the whole world on the day of Calvary—darkness which lately portended, though it necessarily preceded, the brightness of the Resurrection morning. Your enterprise will have its Easter, if you will only have the patience and the grace to wait.—Canon Liddon.
Mar_16:7. The message to Peter.—Whence happened it that to Peter, guilty, fallen Peter, is vouchsafed not only a common interest with his brethren in the angelic tidings, but a separate and individual communication?
I. Because he had greatly offended against his Lord and Master.—The Good Shepherd went, as it were, into the wilderness to recover him to the way of life and salvation. And what message so likely to effect the purposes of infinite love, or to animate the apostle’s hopes, as the assurance that Christ had gotten Himself the victory over death, had triumphed gloriously over the wide dominion of the grave, and proved Himself to be the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead? He was thus taught that the sincerity and bitterness of repentance which he had felt were not in vain; but that the same compassion which had awakened in his mind a salutary sense of his guilt still waited to pardon, to embrace, to restore him.
II. Because he was a penitent transgressor.—“The remembrance of his sin was grievous unto him, the burden of it was intolerable.” Shame and remorse had wrung his heart with anguish, which could bear no other witness than the eye of Heaven: “He went out and wept bitterly.” Happy the tears which Peter shed in the seed-time of his sorrow! and great the measure of his joy when the reaping of the harvest came!
III. In order that he might be invigorated for future duty.—“When thou are converted,” said our Lord, “strengthen thy brethren.” The infant Church was in some degree committed to his especial care; and therefore an express revelation of his Master’s triumph over death was vouchsafed, that he might bless the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to His abundant mercy, had begotten him again to a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. His faith was to be confirmed by the tidings of that wondrous event. His holy boldness in the great gospel cause was to be aroused by this pledge of his Saviour’s power and truth. And thus it actually happened. He continued sound in the faith, unshaken in danger, unmoved in tribulation, and at length laid down his life for his Master, with whom he now reigns in glory everlasting, bearing on his brow the bright diadem of Christian martyrdom.
1. The preachers of the gospel may learn from the angel’s message what should be the pattern of their own ministrations. We should guide the undutiful son to the tender Father whom he has left; and when he comes to himself, when he arises to seek salvation, we should shew how his peace has been made, and how he may partake the mercies of that amnesty which the trumpet of the gospel jubilee proclaims to all.
2. The spiritual application of this subject will also teach us the duty of preparing to meet our Risen Saviour in the world of glory. He hath first departed to prepare the way for us.—R. P. Buddicom.
A forgotten promise.—In common with the apostles they had forgotten His gracious promise, as in our hours of darkness we too commonly forget the words which should inspire trust and hope: “But after I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee” (Mar_14:28 : see also, for the pastoral figure, the previous verse),—go before you as a shepherd who collects and leads his scattered sheep. It may be doubted whether we have any of us laid such stress on this promise as it deserves, or as the Gospels lay on it, and on the means taken to secure its fulfilment—whether we have not been almost as forgetful of it, and with less excuse, as the apostles themselves. What it really meant was, that before they returned from the feast to their Galilean homes Jesus would be there, going before them and shewing the way. Had they remembered the promise and acted on it, how much suffering they might have been spared! If, instead of mourning and weeping in Jerusalem, they had set out for Galilee, assured that He would there manifest Himself to them and renew His broken intercourse with them, the days lost in grief might have been bright with hope and action.—S. Cox, D.D.
Galilee, the place of meeting.—Galilee was the place where He had spent most of His time on earth, where His first miracle had been wrought, and where His apostles had been called to follow Him. It was the locality where He Himself had been brought up, and also the native place of the dearest of His disciples—Peter, James, and John. These had followed Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, and there had witnessed many sad and solemnising scenes—scenes fitted to trouble, to agitate, and to overwhelm. Remembering all this, we cannot help seeing that there was great tenderness and love on the part of the Redeemer in asking them to meet Him after His Resurrection,—not at Jerusalem, where He had been faithlessly betrayed by one of the twelve; not at Gethsemane, the scene of His indescribable agony; not at Calvary, where He had poured out His soul even unto death; but in Galilee—remote and secluded Galilee—inseparably associated with the memory of their earliest days, and with their first impressions of the riches of the Saviour’s grace.
A testing lesson in faith.—We believe on evidence, but in difficult things we want the greatest possible amount of evidence. Faith is awakened in us, but faith needs to be trained and confirmed by some hard act of faith. The disciples heard of the Resurrection, but heard it as an idle tale. Then He appeared to them, and they were affrighted, supposing they had seen a spirit. They behold His hands and feet; they handle Him, and find that He has flesh and bones, and is not a ghostly apparition. But there may yet be room for doubt; it may be an illusion or contagion of credulity that has crept into their wearied and excited minds. And so they are led away from the scene of the event to Galilee, a three days’ journey. Thus a twofold end is gained: fresh confirmation, and a stern, testing lesson in faith. “Is it, after all,” we can imagine them saying, “worth the while to make the journey to Galilee? Can He who died on the Cross, whose feet were pierced with nails, journey thither? That He should appear here is possible; we have heard the like before: but will He appear in Galilee?” So their minds may have acted; and as they made the journey every step and every hour must have tended to throw them out of their belief and hope. For there is nothing that so tests our faith in an event difficult of belief as to get out of the atmosphere of it. The wonder lessens as we go away from it. When remote from it, the mind settles back into the old habit of belief, and into its every-day habit. And nothing so aids this tendency as a journey. Its weariness takes away the edge of interest; the wider view of the world draws us back to the steady order of the world and the great facts of nature. In a journey we believe in what we see; we are engrossed in the changing scene. Travel helps the mind, but it is not favourable to the finer exercises of the spirit. This journey to Galilee was made by the disciples in resistance of all these influences. Doubtless the energy of their faith sank with weariness, and their practical minds fell under the spell of the old, every-day world. Doubtless they often said to one another, “Has not our life these three years been a mistake? Have we not left a real and rational life in the world for the vagaries of an enthusiast?” This is a temptation that we all undergo,—the temptation to let go the ideals of life that have been revealed to us—purity, honour, unselfishness, self-denial, truth, spirituality—and sink back into the selfish, striving world that is all about us, clamouring at every door of our nature for entrance. But if this experience of the disciples was a trial of their faith, it also strengthened it. For faith is not hurt by doubt until it yields to it. The very weakness and faltering of faith may be turned into strength by pressing on in its path, fighting doubt, and resisting the appeals of the world. This journey of simple trust and stout adherence to hope was a fine preparation for harder experiences soon to follow. There would come times when not merely the faltering of their own hearts was against them, but all the powers of the world—times when their only refuge would be their faith in the Risen and Ascended Lord. Then the memory of this experience, crowned by actual sight of their Master, would come to their rescue.—T. T. Munger, D.D.
Mar_16:8. “They were afraid.”—Why? Certainly not, as Petter supposes, “from the apprehension of some hurt or danger which might befall them by or upon the apparition of the angel to them.” Neither is it natural to think of any far-seeing solicitude lest the news should get wind and reach the ears of the members of the Sanhedrin, so as to arouse to persecution. Dr. Edward Wells comes nearer nature. “For,” says he, “they were afraid to stay, and not to hasten all they could to the apostles.” They were in a tumult of commotion, and could not pause by the way to speak to any.—J. Morison, D.D.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 16
Mar_16:1. The devotion of the holy women.—The nightingale is celebrated for its singing in the night. We have, however, seen it maintained that it is all a mistake to suppose that she sings only in the night. She sings in the day as well, only, as other songsters are then in full chorus, her sweeter strains are not particularly distinguishable from the rest. But at night, when all others are hushed, her song is heard, and is more sweet by reason of the contrast with the surrounding stillness. Similarly was it with these women. They served in the day of bright sunshine, but their service was then overshadowed, so to speak, by the demonstrative crowd that thronged around Him. Amidst all the marks of attention paid Him, theirs did not appear particularly distinguishable. But when the voice of the noisy, effusive crowd was hushed during the dark night of trial and suffering which followed the brief day of popularity, they continued to give forth the music of love and sympathy through the dark loneliness of the night.
Mar_16:3-4. Imaginary difficulties.—Once upon a time—so the homely tale runs—a man and his wife started one pleasant morning to pay a long-promised visit to a friend some four or five miles away. The good woman carried her only little one with her; and they had not got far from home when she suddenly remembered a bridge they had to cross which was very old and very unsafe. Then she began to worry about it. “What shall we do about that bridge?” she said to her husband. “I shall never dare to go over it, and we can’t get across the river by any other way.” “Oh,” said the man, “I forgot that bridge! It is a bad place, What if it were to break, and we fall into the water and be drowned?” “Or even,” said the wife, “suppose you should step on a rotten plank, and break your leg, what would become of me and the child?” “I don’t know,” said the man, “what would become of any of us, for I couldn’t work, and we should starve to death.” So they went on worrying and fretting and framing evil till they got to the bridge, when, behold I since they had been there last, a fine, new, substantial stone bridge had been built! They crossed by in safety, and found that they might have saved themselves all this anxiety.
Difficulties overcome.—Men who undertake great works, like the Mont Cenis tunnel, the Atlantic cable, a railway across a continent, know that there are palpable, vast, and costly difficulties. There are costs which are certainly known, which civil engineers can readily calculate; and there are probable costs, which hinge upon conjectured contingencies; and there are possible costs which may be brought to light by the progress of the work. The men who furnish the capital necessarily look at these. They do not want to be in company with the man whose tower was not finished, of whom the Master told us. But, nevertheless, they go forward. Immense difficulties had to be overcome to establish the Central and Erie and Pacific Railways, the continental and sub-ocean telegraphs, and other great works; but they have been brought into existence, and stand to-day, because men who are not visionary had the nerve to dare to take up great burdens, and the shoulders broad and strong enough to bear them.
Love never retreats.—A little English drummer-boy was brought prisoner before Napoleon. The emperor told him to sound the retreat. “I never learnt it,” was the prompt reply. Love never retreats. Love is ever accompanied by faith and hope, and in their company it always dares to pursue its course, however the odds may appear against it.
Mar_16:6. The secret of Christ’s influence.—During the years which followed the outbreak of the French Revolution, and the revolt against Christianity which accompanied it, there was an extraordinary activity in some sections of French society, directed to projecting religions that might, it was hoped, take the place of Christianity. New philanthropic enthusiasms, new speculative enthusiasms, were quite the order of the day. On one occasion a projector of one of these schemes came to Talleyrand, who, you will remember, was a bishop who had turned sceptic, and so had devoted himself to politics; but whatever is to be said of him, he was possessed, in a very remarkable degree, of a keen perception of the proportions of things, and of what is and is not possible in this human world. The visitor observed, by way of complaint to Talleyrand, how hard it was to start a new religion, even though its tenets and its efforts were obviously directed to promote the social and personal improvement of mankind. “Surely,” said Talleyrand, with a fine smile—“Surely it cannot be so difficult as you think.” “How so?” said his friend. “Why,” said Talleyrand, “the matter is simple; you have only to get yourself crucified, or, anyhow, put to death, and then, at your own time, to rise from the dead, and you will have no difficulty.”—Canon Liddon.
Nature’s testimony to the Resurrection.—In the life of Michael Faraday there is a very touching and instructive reference to the Resurrection. He tells us that during his travels on the Continent he was particularly struck with the beauty and simplicity of the little posts of remembrance set up on the graves in a quiet little graveyard in Switzerland. He speaks of one grave which more than any of the others arrested his attention. Some one was too poor to put up an engraved brass plate, or even a painted board, but had written on a piece of paper the dates of the birth and death of the one whose remains were resting below. The piece of paper was fastened to a board, and mounted on the top of a stick at the head of the grave. The paper was protected from the rain by a small roof, the ledge of which protruded sufficiently to carry the water away from the board. It was a very simple contrivance to memorialise a friend. But on examining the contrivance Faraday saw that Nature had contributed her part towards that humble memorial. Because under that little shelter formed by the protruding ledge, and by the side of the inscription on the paper, a caterpillar had attached itself, and there had passed through its death-like state of a chrysalis, and ultimately assumed its finished state of a butterfly, and had winged its flight from the spot, leaving its corpselike relics behind. And the young scientist turned away from that humble grave, his heart strengthened in the belief of the Resurrection, and his thoughts kindled into a glow by the contemplation of the wonderful works of God.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 Mar 16:1. “And the Sabbath passing away, Mary Magdalene,…
CHAPTER 29
THE RESURRECTION
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Mar 16:1. “And the Sabbath passing away, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, purchased aromatics, in order that, having come, they may embalm Him.” The city of Magdala, in the land of Dalmanutha, stands on the northwestern coast of the Galilean Sea, and was immortalized by the nativity and residence of the most heroic and spiritual female disciple of our Lord, cognomened Magdalene, designative of her city. I saw it frequently while sailing over that beautiful sea on the track of my Lord, and visited it once. The other Mary here mentioned, and second in prominence only to Mary Magdalene, was the mother of the Apostle James, surnamed the Less. Salome was the honored mother of James the Greater and John the beloved apostle. The hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes, furnished by Nicodemus at the time of His hurried interment on Friday evening, was only a noble beginning of that rich and royal embalmment with which they proposed to honor the One they all loved as no tongue could tell.
It is pertinent here to observe, that the disciples failed to discriminate between the prophecies appertaining to His two advents, mixing them up heterogeneously, and applied them all to His first coming; therefore we hear them certifying frequently that “when Christ comes, He will abide forever” (Dan 7:14), which was currently enunciated by the prophets. Consequently when they all see that He is dead, the result is that they give up all hope of His Christhood but still believing that when the Messiah comes, He will abide forever. However, they still believe that He is a prophet, and the greatest of all the prophets who have ever lived upon the earth, having such power as none of His predecessors ever wielded, but unfortunately, venturing too far permitted His enemies to get the advantage of Him, and consequently lost His life in the bloom of youth, at the early age of thirty-three — with the Jews, thirty being majority and fifty maturity.
Though now under the awful collapse of blighted hopes and perished aspirations, yet they love Him as no tongue can fell; and feeling assured that He is the greatest prophet God ever sent to Israel, they are determined to compliment Him with the most honorable interment, embalming His body after the Jewish method, and sparing no expenditure in procuring an abundance of the most valuable Oriental antiseptics.
History says all the apostles, and these prominent, holy women so frequently mentioned, were at the house of Rabbi Amos, a friend of Jesus in the metropolis, and were all engaged in silent mourning, alter the Jewish method of mourning for the dead seven days. Naught is heard through the long, dreary night but sighs, groans, and sobs. As deepest grief is silent, their sorrow was too great for utterance. They also spent the ensuing day and night in silent mourning, the inviolable sanctity of the Sabbath being their only guarantee against the cruel arrest, imprisonment, and execution which would, it was apprehended, certainly follow quickly the ensuing week.
Mat 28:2-4. “And, behold, there was a great earthquake; for the angel of the Lord, having descended from heaven, coming, rolled away the stone from the door, and sat upon it. And his countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow. And from fear, the keepers did quake, and became like corpses.” When the great archangel, whose countenance was like lightning, his pinions like rainbows, and his feet like pillars of fire, came sweeping down from heaven, old Earth trembling and quaking, and touched the great stone, secured by the seal of the Roman Empire, it rolled away as if struck with a score of battering-rams; meanwhile those gigantic Roman soldiers, who delighted in the thunder of the battle-field, fell in their tracks on all sides, pale and motionless as dead men. And now, the Conqueror of Mount Calvary, vacating the sepulcher, walked out, as free as a bird of paradise.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. In spite of the many warnings our Lord…
Mar 16:3
I. In spite of the many warnings our Lord had given, that on the third day He would rise again, the last thing these women expected to find was an empty grave; and when they reported to the Apostles that they had so found it "their words seemed to them as idle tales." As little, at that time, would they have comprehended that the stone was not removed to let Him out who was the Almighty, Everliving God, as that it was removed in order to let them in, in order that their love might be rewarded by their being made the first witnesses of the Resurrection. "Who will roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? "It was the question of weak faith and strong love—of a faith which was not in advance of that which prevailed around them, but of a love which would have removed mountains rather than not accomplish the work to which it had devoted itself.
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II. To us there is no dimness. We stand in the fulness of light, and are called to walk as children of light. When our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the grave He deprived death for ever of that dreadful sting with which he can now wound none save those who wilfully remain in their sins, unrepentant and so unforgiven. He rolled away the door of our sepulchre when He rose triumphant from His own. All power is given Him in heaven and in earth. He will not fail us if we seek Him truly. "And this," saith He, "is the will of Him that sent Me, that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day."
F. E. Paget, Helps and Hindrances to the Christian Life, vol. i., p. 168.
Consider:—
I. Who rolled away that stone. Who had right and authority to roll it away? I am not speaking now of mere physical power. Man was utterly incompetent, morally speaking, to roll away the stone from the door of the sepulchre, and had he done it, it would have been useless. Had angels any authority or right to do it? They did it instrumentally, but was man responsible to angels? Were angels to decide whether the work was done, whether Jesus had met every jot and tittle of the law’s requirements, penalties, and precepts? Christ was not responsible to angels. He had nothing to do with them. He passed by the race of angels. Therefore angels were not competent. Was Christ competent Himself to roll away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? He said He had power to lay down His life, and power to raise Himself up again; but had He official power? No: He had not. He was not responsible to Himself; He did not come on His own account—He came on His Father’s account: He was responsible to His Father. The Resurrection was of the Father, and the Ascension was of the Father; had the Father not been satisfied, the tomb had never been opened; and afterwards, had the Father not been satisfied by the righteousness of Christ, heaven’s gate had not been opened. The angel of the Lord, by the authority of the Father, rolled away the stone from the door of the sepulchre.
II. What followed in reference to the risen Christ, and in reference to His own people. (1) He came forth from the grave with power, the power of endless life, and the power of conferring that endless life. (2) Christ rose that you and I might rise. The Resurrection of Christ is a pledge to those who are believers and risen in heart, that all else should follow. As it is impossible that Christ, having accomplished the work of redemption, should not rise and dwell with the Father, so it is equally impossible that you and I, if we are believers in the Saviour, bound up with Him by living faith, should not ascend and be glorified pillars of that Temple by-and-by, to go out no more for ever.
C. Molyneux, Penny Pulpit, new series, Nos. 296, 297.
Mar 16:3-4
The facts of our religion—which, if supernatural is historical—are, when rightly appreciated, so many moral forces for the soul, incorporating ideas which give courage and gladness, and containing principles which are at the root of conduct and life. Pre-eminent among them is the event of the Resurrection, and I say faith in this event is the one and only force that adequately enables us to roll away the stones that encounter us in the struggles of life; and that what St. Paul calls the "power" of the Resurrection, is for all of us, not least for the young—who have their great opportunites, and untold possibilities in front and unexhausted—the mighty secret of a steady triumph over temptation, difficulty, and sorrow.
I. The Resurrection is a power to heal conscience. Christ died; and if He had only died, while we should have been grateful for an unparalleled sacrifice, we should have mourned over its uselessness. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and in that Resurrection by the mighty hand of God we see His sacrifice accepted, and death tasted for every man; and peace ensured, and life eternal given. Sin on the conscience is one great stone which the Resurrection rolls away. Sin in the will is another. His grace helps us to hate what is evil, and to resist coarse and degrading instincts, and to practise self-control, and to carry the burdens of the weak, and to regard gifts and faculties as opportunities both of kindness and virtue.
II. The Resurrection is also a power to ennoble duty. In the light of the Resurrection life is seen to be worth living, for the stone of a purposeless and brief existence is rolled away; and with its new aims and responsibilities, and functions and motives, this life on earth has a new meaning and force. Now we may make ties, for death cannot dissolve them; now we may scatter the seeds of goodness, since we shall not be sowing them on the waves of a remorseless sea; now, as we rear our children, and win our friends, and grasp our duties, and pursue our studies, the chilling taunt does not come to mock us: "You are all of you but as the shadows on the mountain-side." Now we feel it worth while to try for humbleness and purity, for great tasks and meek virtues; for steady effort and patient love. All shall not be in vain; all shall have its sure and happy recompense if Jesus is Lord and Christ.
III. Again, the Resurrection is a power to explain death. Death is the one great fact that casts its ghastly shadow over the world, chilling youth, saddening age, and, like a black wall on the horizon, overshadowing for manhood the grand activities in front. But is it the end of our journey, or only a stage in it? The Resurrection shows us that death is only an event in life, not the abrupt closing of it. In the world to which we go there will be leisure enough in the great spaces of eternity to mellow and develop in that light, which needeth not the sun or moon to lighten it, the germs of thought and action which we sowed here; if there is no waste in the domain of nature, there is none in the sphere of spirit, and the continuity of eternal life, apparently interrupted by our physical dissolution, shall be reunited and carried on under new conditions of perfection in the glory of the world to come.
IV. Once more, the Resurrection is a power to console sorrow. Have you observed that it was a "young man" whom the women beheld, sitting at the right hand in the tomb, and clothed in a white garment. Surely that gives the attractive and invigorating suggestion that the life to come will be a period of perpetual youth, with a grand enthusiasm which shall never be chilled by disappointment; youth, with time enough in front for perfecting its plans; youth, which no taint of corruption shall soil with the least stain of imperfection, and which in an ever-growing goodness shall have the image and fruition of God.
Bishop Thorold, Oxford and Cambridge Journal, May 6th, 1880.
References: Mar 16:3.—R. W. Evans, Parochial Sermons, vol. i., p. 63; J. C. Hare, Sermons in Herstmonceux Church, p. 175; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 231; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 303. Mar 16:3, Mar 16:4.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 268; vol. iv., p. 120; Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament, p. 41; Bishop Thorold, Church of England Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 241.
Mar 16:5
Perpetual Youth.
I. The life of the faithful dead is eternal progress towards infinite perfection. The life of man, being under the law of growth, is in all its parts subject to the consequent necessity of decline. But the perfect life of the dead in Christ has but one phase—youth. It is growth without a limit and without decline. To say that they are ever young is the same thing as to say that their being never reaches its climax, that it is ever but entering on its glory.
II. The life of the faithful dead recovers and retains the best characteristics of youth. The perfect man in the heavens will include the graces of childhood, the energies of youth, the steadfastness of manhood, the calmness of old age; as on some tropical tree, blooming on more fertile soil, and quickened by a nearer sun than ours, you may see at once bud, blossom, and fruit—the expectancy of spring, the maturing promise of summer, and the fulfilled fruition of autumn—hanging together on the unexhausted bough.
III. The faithful dead shall live in a body that cannot grow old. The glorious and undecaying body shall then be the equal and fit instrument of the perfected spirit, not as it is now, the adequate instrument only of the natural life.
A. Maclaren, Sermons preached in Manchester, 2nd series, p. 190.
Mar 16:6
The Dead and their Future State.
The memory of the dead seems intended to serve as a kind of ladder for the living, whereon they may ascend from things seen to things unseen. As we grow older, and more imbued with the spirit of this world, it seems ordained that thoughts of death and the dead should grow proportionately stronger, so as to imbue us with the spirit of another world. As age brings us more and more within the danger of the infection of this world, death presses his keen antidote closer and closer to our lips.
I. Hopes concerning the dead are necessarily connected with opinions concerning the life after death; or, in other words, concerning the states commonly called heaven and hell. The great law of retribution upon which is based all the teaching of Christ is not to be violated, but to find its supreme fulfilment in the day of decision. Each man is to receive the things that he hath done in the flesh. What things we shall thus receive the senses cannot reveal to us. But if we confine ourselves to statements of probabilities, not about things but about the proportions of things, we seem to be within the province of sober reason.
II. Proceeding in this way we infer that it is improbable that the present diversity of human beings shall be hereafter merged in one monotonous identity. It seems more consistent with what we know of God’s laws here, as well as with what we glean from the utterances of Christ Himself, to believe that the seeds sown below—instinct with choice natures from the first, and exposed to diverse influences of earth, and rain, and air, and sunshine—should not all blossom into the selfsame flowers, with every leaf and petal, every hue and streak, precisely similar. More likely that every present cause will be reproduced in some future effect. But, it may be urged, this continuity of cause and effect before and after death is a source of terror as well as of consolation. If we are to reap hereafter what we have sown here, how full of fear should be the harvest for many of us? Yes, this is a legitimate and wholesome fear; and the present tendency to put aside, as unworthy and unreasonable, the belief in a future judgment and punishment has been caused, in part perhaps, by a misconception of the means of judging and punishing. For judgment is not the mere utterance of an arbitrary verdict backed by brute force. To judge is to separate between truth and falsehood, between righteousness and unrighteousness; and the ideal judgment is that verdict which is pronounced by the judge with such a force of correction that the offender himself anticipates its utterance and confesses its justice. Such judgments and such punishments as these, what sane man can pronounce irrational, or afford to laugh at even as possibilities? What? Because we no longer confuse metaphor with literalism, because we cease to apprehend tangible flames in a material pit, does it follow that God’s laws of cause and effect are to be suspended?—that spiritual seed is to produce no spiritual fruit?—that sin shall cease to bring forth sorrow, and ill-doing to breed remorse? We blaspheme God when we degrade His just mercy into a weak connivance at imperfection, as if for the sake of a little family circle He would put a veto on His Divine law of retribution, and nullify the fundamental principles of redemption, for the purpose of giving a few select favourites a pass into Paradise. Not in the seventh heaven of heavens, not in the bottom-most abyss of hell, can we hope to escape from law, or banish the presence of love. But do law and love preclude punishment? And does punishment cease to be awful because it is spiritual? How weak and sterile must be that man’s imagination who can realise none but material punishment, and has never learned to dread a spiritual hell!
III. It may seem a paradox to speak of the fear of hell as being hopeful; but yet it is certain that, if you give up all fear of the future, you will inevitably end in giving up all hope also. It is not right nor reasonable that you should expect for yourselves, or for the great majority of your infinitely diversified and imperfect fellow-creatures, that, when you die, you will all immediately be transmuted into one identical perfect image. If you expect this, you expect what is not just, and you form a conception of an unjust and undiscriminating God. But if your conception of God is thus lowered your faith in Him is lowered also; and thus all your hopes of eternal communion with Him become pallid and faint. If we may be permitted without irreverence to use that phrase, we might say that, for those who really love God as a Father, there can be no hesitation in trusting both themselves and all the multitude of the human dead since the creation of the world to the uncovenanted mercies of God. And if, indeed, we have at any time realised, however faintly, but for one moment in our lives what it must be to be admitted into the circle of the eternal mercies, and into communion with the Everlasting Love, can it seem, even to the best and purest of us, other than the highest privilege—after long and various stages of waiting, and working, and suffering—at last, clinging like a child to the border of the garment of the Holy One of God, to be drawn in with Him into some inferior corner of the abode of the Presence, where one may sit down as it were upon sufferance, well pleased to catch a far-off glimpse of the splendour of the unapproachable throne?
E. Abbott, Church of England Pulpit, Nov. 1st, 1879.
There is a triumphant scorn, amounting almost to sarcasm, in the way in which that young man, sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment, addressed the three women that came early to the holy sepulchre at the rising of the sun. "Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified; He is risen: He is not here: behold the place where they laid Him."
I. I suppose that, to an angel’s mind, "He is risen" would not express more wonder than the assertion of any of the processes of Nature. It could not—and the angel knew it—it could not be otherwise, for Christ could not but rise. "It was not possible," St. Peter says, "that He should be holden of it." Now remember that is not spoken about the soul; of that it would be obvious; but of the body—it could not choose but rise. The whole doctrine of the Resurrection is a doctrine of the body. The future and eternal life of the soul was known almost universally before Christ. The heathen knew and talked of it. But with very few exceptions, indeed, neither Jew nor Gentile knew anything of the coming to life again of the body till Christ rose. He was the Firstfruit of that science.
II. It is in the nature and constitution and obligation of every human body that it must rise. When you bury a body you simply, and you literally, sow a seed. You were born to rise—as much made to rise as any seed which you ever put into the ground. Resurrection is not properly a miracle. It is a grand, loving provision of the Counsel of God. And when we say of Christ, or say of any man, "He is risen," we only assert the necessary consequence of human being.
III. In the sight of God every believer is so united with Jesus Christ, that his whole being—his body, soul, and spirit—is a member of the body of Christ. In Christ, his Head, He died and suffered punishment upon the Cross. In Christ, his Head, he is buried. In Christ, his Head, he rises again at the last day. Therefore, where Christ goes he goes; whither Christ ascends he ascends; where Christ is he is. So that, in that He is risen, the whole Church is risen. And if so be you are a real living member in the mystical body of Christ, your resurrection and eternal life is so sure, that actually, in the mind of God, it was done that day when the angel said of you—of you, as you were then in the mystical body of Christ, "He is risen." It is an absolute, historical past.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 5th series, p. 94.
Mar 16:6-7
The Address of the Angel to the Women at the Sepulchre.
These verses naturally divide themselves into two heads. The first head includes the information as given to the women; and the second, the commission with which they were charged. Note:—
I. The soothing character of the language which the angel employs; and the indirect yet forcible manner in which he recognises the devotedness which the women had displayed. "Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified." They had no need to be terrified at the glories of an angel, who could not be alienated by the indignity heaped on their Lord. They, who had come seeking the crucified Nazarene in the grave, were not unworthy to hold converse with celestial beings themselves.
II. But the women needed more than the quieting of those fears which the apparition of the angel had naturally excited. They wanted information as to the disappearance of Christ’s body, and this was quickly furnished; for the heavenly messenger went on to say, "He is risen; He is not here; behold the place where they laid Him." There is something remarkable in the reasoning—if such it may be called—which is employed by the angel. He calls on the women to behold the place where their Lord’s body had lain, as though its mere desertion were evidence enough of the fact of resurrection. And so in real truth it was, to all at least who, like the women, knew and considered the character and circumstances of the disciples of Christ, The supposition would be absurd to them, and should be absurd to ourselves, that men situated as were the disciples, and who had displayed a timidity which could hardly be reconciled with affection for their Master, should have devised and executed a plan which would have been bold in the boldest, and which could scarcely have succeeded under the most favourable circumstances, and with the most copious appliances.
III. The commission with which these women were entrusted. The glad tidings of Christ’s resurrection were not for themselves alone; the angel directed them to hasten at once and give intelligence of the glorious fact. As the first news of Death came by a woman, so by a woman came the first news of the Resurrection. Sinner and sinful must always merge in the preacher of the Gospel; seeing that through men and not through angels is the appointed instrumentality. When Mary Magdalene was sent with a message to the Apostles it may have been designed as evidence that previous guiltiness disqualifies no one for office of preacher. He may but discharge it with greater fidelity on the principle laid down by our Saviour Himself: "To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little."
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2,187.
References: Mar 16:6.—S. Clark, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 268; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., pp. 228, 239; G. Brooks, Five. Hundred Outlines, p. 85; Church of England Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 211.
Mar 16:7
Love’s Triumph over Sin.
I. Notice the loving message with which Christ beckons the wanderer back. If we try to throw ourselves back into the Apostle’s black thoughts, during the interval between his denial and the Resurrection morning, we shall better feel what this love-token from the grave must have been to him. His natural character, as well as his love for his Master, ensured that his lies could not long content him. They were uttered so vehemently because they were uttered in spite of inward resistance. Overpowered by fear, beaten down from all his vain-glorious self-confidence by a woman-servant’s sharp tongue and mocking eye, he lied; and then came the rebound. The same impulsive vehemence which had hurried him into the fault, would swing him back again to quick penitence, when the cock crew, and that Divine face, turning slowly from before the judgment-seat with the sorrow of wounded love upon it, silently said, "Remember." We can fancy how that bitter weeping, which began so soon, grew more passionate and more bitter when the end came. We can understand how wearily the hours passed on that dreary Saturday. In his sorrow come the tidings that all was not over, that the irrevocable was not irrevocable, that perhaps new days of loyal love might still be granted, in which the doleful failure of the past might be forgotten. Think of this message (1) as a revelation of love that is stronger than death; (2) of a love that is not turned away by our sinful changes; (3) of a love which sends a special message because of special sin; (4) of a love which singles out a sinful man by name.
II. Notice the secret meeting between our Lord and the Apostle. What tender consideration there is in seeing Peter alone, before seeing him in the companionship of the others. And may we not regard this secret interview as representing for us what is needed on our part to make Christ’s forgiving love our own? There must be the personal contact of my soul with the loving heart of Christ, the individual act of my own coming to Him, and as the old Puritans used to say, "my transacting with Him."
III. Notice the gradual cure of the pardoned Apostle. He was restored to his office, as we read in the supplement to John’s Gospel. In that wonderful conversation, full as it is of allusions to Peter’s fall, Christ asks but one question: "Lovest thou Me?" So the third stage in the triumph of Christ’s love over man’s sin is, when we, beholding that love following towards us, and accepting it by faith respond to it with our own, and are able to say: "Thou knowest that I love Thee."
A. Maclaren, Sermons preached in Manchester, 2nd series, p. 58.
References: Mar 16:7.—Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 187; Outline Sermons to Children, p. 151; J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 7th series, p. 315. Mar 16:8.—J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College, vol. i., p. 341.
Mar 16:9
Our Risen Lord’s Love for Penitents.
I. Marvellous was the acceptance of penitence by the Cross; but, if possible, more marvellous yet at the Resurrection. At the Cross the outcast and penitent was equalled to the holy and the pure; at the Resurrection she was even preferred, Holy Scripture does not tell us how or when the Redeemer healed her sorrows, whose very soul the sword had pierced at His Crucifixion: it does say of the penitent, that to her Jesus appeared first. He who had passed by all the angel-hosts, and took not their nature, but ours, the last of His fallen creatures, passed by her through whom He took that nature to comfort her who had most degraded it. His mother, doubtless, He comforted by His Spirit; the penitent He comforts by His very Presence and His words. Oh, wondrous condescension of redeeming love! who rose early in the morning to seek her who, late though she had loved Him, then sought Him early; and as an earnest of His yearning tenderness for penitents first revealed His risen glories to a penitent, made her an apostle to Apostles, a comforter to His brethren.
II. The mercy of the Resurrection was even fuller than the mercy of the Cross which it completed. The mercy at the Cross was acceptance; the mercy at the Resurrection was not acceptance only, but enlarged grace, heavenly visitations, to be known by name to Jesus, called as His own, spoken to in the heart, to have one God with the Man Christ Jesus, one Father with the co-eternal Son. At the Cross Jesus promised that the penitent should be with Him; in the Resurrection Himself cometh, victorious over hell and death and Satan, to be with the penitent. Thou needest not, then, to sit down in weariness and hopelessness, whatever, of early years, thou hast lost, whatever grace thou hast forfeited, though thou hast been in a far country, far away in affections from Him who loved thee; and wasting on His creatures, nay, sacrificing on idol-altars with strange fire, the gifts which God gave thee that thou mightest be precious in His own sight. He who called Magdelene in her calleth thee. Be thy soul to thee as a empty tomb where Christ’s lifeless body was once buried by thy sins, and now is not; be it that thou see nothing but darkness, feel nothing but the chillness and damp of the tomb, catch no ray of light, look again and discover no trace of Him, yet despair not. Mourn His absence, desire His Presence. The very desire is His Presence. He will appear unto thee by some comfort in prayer; by some secret stillness of the soul, or ray of light, though but for an instant; or by some thrill of joy on one steadfast purpose, henceforth to have no other object but to win Christ, to know nothing save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
E. B. Pusey, Sermons for the Church’s Seasons, p. 340.
References: Mar 16:9.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 230; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons in India, p. 125; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xi., No. 625; vol. xiv., No. 792; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 198. Mar 16:9-11.—Homilist, new series, vol. iii., p. 619; H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man, p. 386. Mar 16:10.—Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Gospels and Acts, p. 86. Mar 16:11-13.—A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 493. Mar 16:12.—T. T. Shore, Church of England Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 221; F. W. Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 408; J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College, vol. ii., p. 9; W. Meller, Village Homilies, p. 168. Mar 16:12, Mar 16:13.—R. C. Trench, Studies in the Gospels, p. 324. Mar 16:14.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 219; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 197; A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 502.
Mar 16:15
Christ’s Commission to His Apostles.
Introduction.— These words present four objects:—Work, Workmen, a Field for Work, and the Divine Master of the workmen.
I. Work. The work is preaching the Gospel. The power of speech is a wondrous faculty of man, lifting him above all speechless creatures, and placing him near to that God by whose word the heavens were made, and who created all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. Speech is reason’s younger brother, and "a most kingly prerogative of man." It is a conduit through which a man’s thoughts, and purposes, and feelings, flow out to his fellows. It is a window through which you may see into another’s spirit. It is a key by which you may unlock the door of another’s heart. It is a hammer by which you may break the purposes and the resolutions of others; and a fire by which you may ignite the passions of one man or of many; and by which you may consume the wood, hay, and stubble, of false notions and of erroneous opinions.
II. Look at the Workmen. Eleven are specially addressed. Judas is not here. Where is he? But who are these? They are all the children of Abraham concerning the flesh, and have been brought up under the various religious institutions of the Holy Land. This was, to some extent, education for their work, especially for their work among their own people. They had been taken from the least refined of the provinces of the Holy Land, and from the people whom the southerners despised for their illiterateness and coarseness; from the district, however, in which Jesus Christ had Himself been brought up. This gave them sympathy with the common people, if not influence over them. They were men of ordinary secular occupations; several were fishermen, one was a tax-gatherer. There was not a priest among them, not a scribe, not a ruler. The acceptableness of their work and their success would be entirely independent of riches, or of high rank, or of elevated position, in any respect.
III. Look at the Sphere of their Toil. The dispensations of Divine mercy had for centuries been chiefly, if not entirely, confined to one people and to one land. God’s priests ministered exclusively to the people in this land. God’s prophets spoke almost entirely to the people in this land. But now preachers of a glorious Gospel are to leave this people and this land, and are to go into all the world. They are to begin their work in Jerusalem, and are to heap coals of fire upon the heads of the enemies of their Master, but Jerusalem is not to detain them. They are to labour in Judæa, and Samaria, and Galilee; but they may not tarry for life there, they are to go to the uttermost parts of the earth. The world is the sphere of these workmen’s work. The world without the limitations of country, or of climate; the world without the distinctions of barbarism, and civilisation, and bondage, and freedom; the world irrespective of the boundaries of the world’s kingdoms; the world as they saw it, Egypt, and the Isles of the Sea, and Greece, and Rome; the world as Jesus saw it, with America in His eye, although yet undiscovered; as He saw it from north to south, and from east to west.
IV. The Master of the Workmen. He who saith, "Go," came into the world. He who saith, "Go ye," Himself came; came not by deputy or proxy, but Himself came. He is the manifestation of the love of God; the Christ who died for the ungodly; the Jesus who was born to save, and whom God hath exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour. He who saith, "Go unto the world to every creature," is the propitiation for the sins of the world.
S. Martin, Rain upon the Mown Grass.
The Church of the Future.
If the Gospel is to be universal; if, in other words, Christ’s ideas of human nature and human duty, and Divine nature and activity, are to become universal; it is because they have in them an adaptation to every stage and development of humanity, as to manner and customs—from the lowest dawn of intelligence clear through to the time when we shall have scoured the heavens, and shall have understood the liturgy of every star, and when we shall know around and around the horizon everything that is within its bounds.
Consider what the realm of the Gospel is.
I. It is universal, universal in respect to time, universal in respect to place, and universal in respect to conditions. That which constitutes the marrow of the Gospel fits itself to human nature and human want everywhere and always. It declares (1) that all men are imperfect by ignorance, by infirmity, by weakness, and by voluntary wrong; (2) it assumes the universal adaptability of men to increment, to development, or increased knowledge; (3) it declares that God is a being setting Himself forth, in so far as a disclosure is made of His Nature, as the sun is set forth. The sun is to the world the centre of all life. God is the Sun; or, to take away the figurative construction of it, God is the Father.
II. The simplicity of the Gospel is only such in appearance. It has taken hold of the great root-facts of human existence, human nature, and human destiny. It emphasizes them. It does not organise a church. Christ never organised a Church, nor did He ever leave a plan on which the Apostles should organise a Church. Why should He have done so? The moment you bring men together with a common purpose it is a part of their very nature and competency to develop an organisation according to their want. Give to men a sense of their superiority; let them feel the swell of possible manhood; let them come under the consciousness of God’s presence and love; let the same feeling be developed in them that God has toward them—and the social principle will make its own terms and gatherings. So as fast as men need this or that mode of worship they can supply it for themselves. There is no need of supplying it for them. The vast baggage which religion has brought down through the ages has been one of the great hindrances to the spread of the Gospel, and it will be one of the great hindrances to the spread of the Gospel to the end of time. Until you can take away sanctity from churches, from ordinances, from man-made creeds, and from every external observance, you have the Gospel in chains: it is not free; it is in bondage.
H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 25.
References: Mar 16:15.—C. Girdlestone, Twenty Sermons, 3rd series, pp. 303, 317; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 285; A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 536. Mar 16:15, Mar 16:16.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. x., No. 573; vol. xv., No. 900; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iv., p. 225. Mar 16:15-20.—H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man, p. 391.
Mar 16:16
We must all tremble when we hear those awful declarations in the Athanasian Creed, respecting the Catholic faith, such as, "Which faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." And some are offended, and wish these sentences were not there. But if it sounds severe and uncharitable for the Church to speak in this way, then, no doubt, the same must be said of the Church of God in old times; and we shall find just the same difficulty with the Bible itself. The Old Testament, wherein we have the figure or pattern of God’s Church set before us, is full of things quite of the same kind; of things that sound at first to unthinking men in these days as severe and uncharitable. Yet, surely, those ways, which we read of in the Old Testament, are the ways of God, and He is the same yesterday, and today, and for ever;" and all those things were "written for our learning." Why does God put into our mouths, in His house of prayer, such dreadful words respecting others, our fellow-creatures, perhaps no worse than ourselves?
I. These things might, indeed, appear to us quite irreconcilable with all that we know of God’s lovingkindness, might seem to be great difficulties and stumbling-blocks if taken by themselves; but when they are set by the side of another vast and overwhelming doctrine, which is the very last of all that the heart of man is willing to believe, yet is the great foundation of all revealed truth, then we see that all things wonderfully agree together, and support each other. The doctrine I mean is this, that the wicked shall be cast into hell, and all the people that forget God; that a great part of mankind will have to depart into a place of everlasting fire, notwithstanding all the lovingkindness and infinite mercy of Almighty God to us.
II. Since, therefore, the Holy Scripture is so full throughout of what would sound to men of these days, if it were not there, as so severe, and awful, and uncharitable, it is quite consistent; with this, that the voice of the Church also should speak out in so very fearful and strong a manner, so as to offend weak and carnal men, respecting the Catholic Faith. The Church, like a kind mother, calls aloud to her child when she sees it sporting on the brink of a great precipice. The danger was all there before, but she declares it. Fire will burn, and water will drown, and he who falls over a precipice will be killed, although no one warned him, and, as it were, pulled him back rudely and forcibly from destruction: and so we find that the eternal danger is imminent respecting our not holding rightly the Catholic faith, although the Church of God did not, in mercy, ring it, as it were, aloud in our ears.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. x., p. 153.
References: Mar 16:16.—J. Keble, Sermons from Easter to Ascension Day, p. 425; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 281. Mar 16:17, Mar 16:18.—W. F. Hook, Sermons on the Miracles, vol. ii., p. 281.
Mar 16:18
The Safety and Helpfulness of Faith.
I. Consider the safety which Christ offers. Notice it is a safety, not by the avoidance of deadly things, but by the neutralizing of them through a higher and stronger power. There is no such idle promise as that if a man believes in Christ a wall shall be built around his soul, so that the things out of which souls make sin cannot come to him. The Master knew the world too well for that. His own experience on the hill of His temptation was still fresh in His memory. He knew that life meant exposure, that sin must surely beat at every one of these hearts—nay, that the things, out of which sin is made, temptation, moral trial, must enter into every heart; and so He said, not, "I will lead you through secluded ways, where none but sweet and healthy waters flow;" but, "Where I lead you, there will be the streams of poison. Only if you have the vitality, which comes by faith in Me, your life shall be stronger than the poison’s death; if you drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt you." One thing we see immediately in such a promise, one condition which belongs to its fulfilment. It is that only in the higher action and mission lay the safety from the lower influence; and, therefore, that the lower influence was to be powerless over the disciples only as they met it incidentally in the direct pursuance of their higher task. Only those temptations which we encounter in the way of duty, in the path of consecration—only those—has our Lord promised us that we shall conquer. He sends us out to live and work for Him. The chances of sin, which we meet while that Divine design of life, the life and work for Him, is clear before us, shall not hurt us. When we forget that design, our arm withers, our immunity is gone.
II. He "shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." Safety and helpfulness. He shall be safe, and he shall save others too. These two things go together, not merely in this special promise of the Saviour, but in all life. Safety and helpfulness. So is the whole world bound into a whole, so does the good that comes to any man tend to diffuse itself, and touch the lives of all, that these two things are true. First, that no man can be really safe, really secure that the world shall not harm and poison him, unless there is going out from him a living and life-giving influence to other men. And, second, that no man is really helping other men unless there is true life in his own soul. Both of these seem to me to be great and ever-present truths. "They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." If I read these words spiritually; if I make them a promise and a prophecy of that wonderful power which, in all times in all religious, spiritual life has had to extend itself, like fire, from any one point which it has already occupied, to everything within its reach which is inflammable, which is capable of the same burning life; it seems to me that the way in which the promise is fulfilled to us is by the clothing of the believing life with two qualities, which are expressed by these two words—Testimony and Transmission. (1) Life-giving lives bear testimony by the very fact of their own abundant life. They show the presence, they assert the possibility of vitality. And very often this is what souls, whose spiritual life is weak and low, need to have done for them. (2) Transmission: the highest statement of the culture of a human nature and of the best attainment that is set before it is, that as it grows better it grows more transparent, and more simple—more capable, therefore, of simply and truly transmitting the life and will of God which is behind it. On a life of obedience and faith God shines as the sun shines on a block of crystal, sending its radiance through the willing and transparent mass, and lighting it all into its utmost depths.
Phillips Brooks, Twenty Sermons, p. 333.
Mar 16:19
I. I suppose that our first impressions are to consider the Ascension of our Lord as the very greatest event connected with His appearance on earth. To our own mind, undoubtedly, nothing could be so solemn, so exalting, as the changing this life for another; the putting off mortality and putting on immortality; and all this we connect with the thought of the removal from earth to heaven. And had Christ been as we are, His Ascension would have been spoken of very differently from what it is now; and the account of His Resurrection would have been justly deemed incomplete without it. But to Christ, if I may so speak, His Resurrection was natural, it was His death that was the miracle of His love. Surely, as we need not to be told that Lazarus died again after his resurrection, as we know that it follows, of course, because he was a man and no more; so we need not be told that Christ, after His Resurrection, ascended into heaven. We know that it follows, of course, for the dwelling of the Most High God is not in earth, but in heaven.
II. But we are told that He did ascend: and we are told it chiefly for the sake of two things that are told us with it. The one is contained in the text, "He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God;" the other is in the Acts of the Apostles: "Ye men of Galilee," said the angel to the Apostles, who were watching Him as He was taken up from them, "why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner, as ye have seen Him go into heaven." In these two things consists, as it seems to me, the great usefulness of the account of our Lord’s Ascension. He is gone away, to come again in like manner as we saw Him go into heaven. And when shall that coming be? We can only answer in His own words: "Watch, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh." No speculation can be vainer than to inquire about the time of that coming, which is known to the Father only. But be the period long or short, our Lord has given us wherewithal to occupy ourselves till He does come: He has furnished us with a means whereby, for ever calling to mind His parting from us, we may look more anxiously for the hour of His return. He has given every man his work, and He has told us continually to break the bread and drink the cup of Christian communion, that we may show forth His death till He come.
T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iii., p. 54.
Mar 16:19-20
Christ’s Work for Man and with Man.
In one sense the Ascension was the end of Christ’s emptying Himself for us of His glory; the end of His suffering, of His slow waiting while the will of God wrought itself out. The end had come. The great exaltation had succeeded. He had ascended up into the heaven where He was before.
I. But in another and higher sense it was not the end, and it is of great moment that we thoroughly realise this for the strengthening of our hearts in this our time of trouble. His work was not yet finished; rather, we may say, it had reached a grander stage of development than ever before. That sitting of His at the right hand of the Father was not a negative repose. Still the mystery of those words which He gave them—"My Father worketh hitherto"—still these were being fulfilled, although He had ascended up into heaven again, still He was doing, still He is doing, a work for man and with man.
II. A work for man. He sketches it out in many sayings to His disciples, "I go to prepare a place for you;" "In My Father’s house are many mansions." These mansions in which humanity was not; those mansions in which the blessed spirits were, but to which a child of Adam had never yet mounted, to them He, the second Adam, the Head of the human family, ascended up that He might draw His brethren after Him. On His throne of mighty power He makes intercession, He pleads His death on Calvary. He presents in Himself the whole human family acceptable to the Father, because He is one with Him. "He ever liveth to make intercession for us," presenting each one of us who thus believes in Him as precious before the throne of His Father.
III. He is working not only for, but with, us. He has but imported into His work all the might of His omnipotence. He is at the right hand of power, and yet He is with us, beside us. As this is true of each separate soul, so is it true in the great world-history. All things have been ordered by Him for the elect’s sake. While man is left free, each one to do as He will—a true free agent, and, therefore, truly responsible—that hand of power is shaping and moulding events. Ordering all things as the tide of time surges under His eye; each soul in that mighty tide moves as he will, yet the whole tide sways at His bidding, and the earth performs His will. While the ascension of our blessed Lord is, in one sense, the end, in another and yet higher sense it is the beginning, the opening of the true kingdom of grace descending upon us with the Holy Ghost. Again, this presence of Christ is ever present to the soul, and is comfort to the afflicted. Thou hast a great temptation; thou hast fallen, but thou hast the Lord beside thee, and thou mayest lay thy burden upon Him, and thy tempted, weary, fainting soul may rest itself upon the Love which is beside thee.
Bishop Wilberforce, Penny Pulpit, new series, No. 542.
References: Mar 16:19.—H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Life of Duty, vol. ii., p. 253; J. Keble, Sermons from Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday, p. 104. Mar 16:20.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 253.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 6 Mar 16:1 - Mar 16:13.
Mark
THE INCREDULOUS DISCIPLES
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Mar 16:1 - Mar 16:13.
It is not my business here to discuss questions of harmonising or of criticism. I have only to deal with the narrative as it stands. Its peculiar character is very plain. The manner in which the first disciples learned the fact of the Resurrection, and the disbelief with which they received it, much rather than the Resurrection itself, come into view in this section. The disciples, and not the risen Lord, are shown us. There is nothing here of the earthquake, or of the descending angel, or of the terrified guard, or of our Lord’s appearance to the women. The two appearances to Mary Magdalene and to the travellers to Emmaus, which, in the hands of John and Luke, are so pathetic and rich, are here mentioned with the utmost brevity, for the sake chiefly of insisting on the disbelief of the disciples who heard of them. Mark’s theme is mainly what they thought of the testimony to the Resurrection.
I. He shows us, first, bewildered love and sorrow.
We leave the question whether this group of women is the same as that of which Luke records that Joanna was one, as well as the other puzzle as to harmonising the notes of time in the Evangelists. May not the difference between the time of starting and that of arrival solve some of the difficulty? When all the notes are more or less vague, and refer to the time of transition from dark to day, when every moment partakes of both and may be differently described as belonging to either, is precision to be expected? In the whirl of agitation of that morning, would any one be at leisure to take much note of the exact minute? Are not these ‘discrepancies’ much more valuable as confirmation of the story than precise accord would have been? It is better to try to understand the feelings of that little band than to carp at such trifles.
Sorrow wakes early, and love is impatient to bring its tribute. So we can see these three women, leaving their abode as soon as the doleful grey of morning permitted, stealing through the silent streets, and reaching the rock-cut tomb while the sun was rising over Olivet. Where were Salome’s ambitious hopes for her two sons now? Dead, and buried in the Master’s grave. The completeness of the women’s despair, as well as the faithfulness of their love, is witnessed by their purpose. They had come to anoint the body of Him to whom in life they had ministered. They had no thought of a resurrection, plainly as they had been told of it. The waves of sorrow had washed the remembrance of His assurances on that subject clean out of their minds. Truth that is only half understood, however plainly spoken, is always forgotten when the time to apply it comes. We are told that the disbelief of the disciples in the Resurrection, after Christ’s plain predictions of it, is ‘psychologically impossible.’ Such big words are imposing, but the objection is shallow. These disciples are not the only people who forgot in the hour of need the thing which it most concerned them to remember, and let the clouds of sorrow hide starry promises which would have turned mourning into dancing, and night into day. Christ’s sayings about His resurrection were not understood in their, as it appears to us, obvious meaning when spoken. No wonder, then, that they were not expected to be fulfilled in their obvious meaning when He was dead. We shall have a word to say presently about the value of the fact that there was no anticipation of resurrection on the part of the disciples. For the present it is enough to note how these three loving souls confess their hopelessness by their errand. Did they not know, too, that Joseph and Nicodemus had been beforehand with them in their labour of love? Apparently not. It might easily happen, in the confusion and dispersion, that no knowledge of this had reached them; or perhaps sorrow and agitation had driven it out of their memories; or perhaps they felt that, whether others had done the same before or no, they must do it too, not because the loved form needed it, but because their hearts needed to do it. It was the love which must serve, not calculation of necessity, which loaded their hands with costly spices. The living Christ was pleased with the ‘odour of a sweet smell,’ from the needless spices, meant to re-anoint the dead Christ, and accepted the purpose, though it came from ignorance and was never carried out, since its deepest root was love, genuine, though bewildered.
The same absence of ‘calm practical common sense’ is seen in the too late consideration, which never occurred to the three women till they were getting near the tomb, as to how to get into it. They do not seem to have heard of the guard; but they know that the stone is too heavy for them to move, and none of the men among the disciples had been taken into their confidence. ‘Why did they not think of that before? what a want of foresight!’ says the cool observer. ‘How beautifully true to nature!’ says a wiser judgment. To obey the impulse of love and sorrow without thinking, and then to be arrested on their road by a difficulty, which they might have thought of at first, but did not till they were close to it, is surely just what might have been expected of such mourners. Mark gives a graphic picture in that one word ‘looking up,’ and follows it with picturesque present tenses. They had been looking down or at each other in perplexity, when they lifted their eyes to the tomb, which was possibly on an eminence. What a flash of wonder would pass through their minds when they saw it open! What that might signify they would be eager to hurry to find out; but, at all events, their difficulty was at an end. When love to Christ is brought to a stand in its venturous enterprises by difficulties occurring for the first time to the mind, it is well to go close up to them; and it often happens that when we do, and look steadily at them, we see that they are rolled away, and the passage cleared which we feared was hopelessly barred.
II. The calm herald of the Resurrection and the amazed hearers.
Apparently Mary Magdalene had turned back as soon as she saw the opened tomb, and hurried to tell that the body had been carried off, as she supposed. The guard had also probably fled before this; and so the other two women enter the vestibule, and there find the angel. Sometimes one angel, sometimes two, sometimes none, were visible there. The variation in their numbers in the various narratives is not to be regarded as an instance of ‘discrepancy.’ Many angels hovered round the spot where the greatest wonder of the universe was to be seen, ‘eagerly desiring to look into’ that grave. The beholder’s eye may have determined their visibility. Their number may have fluctuated. Mark does not use the word ‘angel’ at all, but leaves us to infer what manner of being he was who first proclaimed the Resurrection.
He tells of his youth, his attitude, and his attire. The angelic life is vigorous, progressive, buoyant, and alien from decay. Immortal youth belongs to them who ‘excel in strength’ because they ‘do his commandments.’ That waiting minister shows us what the children of the Resurrection shall be, and so his presence as well as his speech expounds the blessed mystery of our life in the risen Lord. His serene attitude of sitting ‘on the right side’ is not only a vivid touch of description, but is significant of restfulness and fixed contemplation, as well as of the calmness of a higher life. That still watcher knows too much to be agitated; but the less he is moved, the more he adores. His quiet contrasts with and heightens the impression of the storm of conflicting feelings in the women’s tremulous natures. His garments symbolise purity and repose. How sharply the difference between heaven and earth is given in the last words of Mar 16:5! They were ‘amazed,’ swept out of themselves in an ecstasy of bewilderment in which hope had no place. Terror, surprise, curiosity, wonder, blank incapacity to know what all this meant, made chaos in them.
The angel’s words are a succession of short sentences, which have a certain dignity, and break up the astounding revelation he has to make into small pieces, which the women’s bewildered minds can grasp. He calms their tumult of spirit. He shows them that he knows their errand. He adoringly names his Lord and theirs by the names recalling His manhood, His lowly home, and His ignominious death. He lingers on the thought, to him covering so profound a mystery of divine love, that his Lord had been born, had lived in the obscure village, and died on the Cross. Then, in one word, he proclaims the stupendous fact of His resurrection as His own act-’He is risen.’ This crown of all miracles, which brings life and immortality to light, and changes the whole outlook of humanity, which changes the Cross into victory, and without which Christianity is a dream and a ruin, is announced in a single word-the mightiest ever spoken save by Christ’s own lips. It was fitting that angel lips should proclaim the Resurrection, as they did the Nativity, though in either ‘He taketh not hold of angels,’ and they had but a secondary share in the blessings. Yet that empty grave opened to ‘principalities and powers in heavenly places’ a new unfolding of the manifold wisdom and love of God.
The angel-a true evangelist-does not linger on the wondrous intimation, but points to the vacant place, which would have been so drear but for his previous words, and bids them approach to verify his assurance, and with reverent wonder to gaze on the hallowed and now happy spot. A moment is granted for feeling to overflow, and certainty to be attained, and then the women are sent on their errand. Even the joy of that gaze is not to be selfishly prolonged, while others are sitting in sorrow for want of what they know. That is the law for all the Christian life. First make sure work of one’s own possession of the truth, and then hasten to tell it to those who need it.
‘And Peter’-Mark alone gives us this. The other Evangelists might pass it by; but how could Peter ever forget the balm which that message of pardon and restoration brought to him, and how could Peter’s mouthpiece leave it out? Is there anything in the Gospels more beautiful, or fuller of long-suffering and thoughtful love, than that message from the risen Saviour to the denier? And how delicate the love which, by calling him Peter, not Simon, reinstates him in his official position by anticipation, even though in the subsequent full restoration scene by the lake he is thrice called Simon, before the complete effacement of the triple denial by the triple confession! Galilee is named as the rendezvous, and the word employed, ‘goeth before you,’ is appropriate to the Shepherd in front of His flock. They had been ‘scattered,’ but are to be drawn together again. He is to ‘precede’ them there, thus lightly indicating the new form of their relations to Him, marked during the forty days by a distance which prepared for his final withdrawal. Galilee was the home of most of them, and had been the field of His most continuous labours. There would be many disciples there, who would gather to see their risen Lord {‘five hundred at once’}; and there, rather than in Jerusalem which had slain Him, was it fitting that He should show Himself to His friends. The appearances in Jerusalem were all within a week {if we except the Ascension}, and the connection in which Mark introduces them {if Mar 16:14 be his} seems to treat them as forced on Christ by the disciples’ unbelief, rather than as His original intention. It looks as if He meant to show Himself in the city only to one or two, such as Mary, Peter, and some others, but to reserve His more public appearance for Galilee.
How did the women receive the message? Mark represents them as trembling in body and in an ecstasy in mind, and as hurrying away silent with terror. Matthew says that they were full of ‘fear and great joy,’ and went in haste to tell the disciples. In the whirl of feeling, there were opposites blended or succeeding one another; and the one Evangelist lays hold of one set, and the other of the other. It is as impossible to catalogue the swift emotions of such a moment as to separate and tabulate the hues of sunrise. The silence which Mark tells of can only refer to their demeanour as they ‘fled.’ His object is to bring out the very imperfect credence which, at the best, was given to the testimony that Christ was risen, and to paint the tumult of feeling in the breasts of its first recipients. His picture is taken from a different angle from Matthew’s; but Matthew’s contains the same elements, for he speaks of ‘fear,’ though he completes it by ‘joy.’
III. The incredulity of the disciples.
The two appearances to Mary Magdalene and the travellers to Emmaus are introduced mainly to record the unbelief of the disciples. A strange choice that was, of the woman who had been rescued from so low a debasement, to be first to see Him! But her former degradation was the measure of her love. Longing eyes, that have been washed clean by many a tear of penitent gratitude, are purged to see Jesus; and a yearning heart ever brings Him near. The unbelief of the story of the two from Emmaus seems to conflict with Luke’s account, which tells that they were met by the news of Christ’s appearance to Simon. But the two statements are not contradictory. If we remember the excitement and confusion of mind in which they were, we shall not wonder if belief and unbelief followed each other, like the flow and recoil of the waves. One moment they were on the crest of the billows, and saw land ahead; the next they were down in the trough, and saw only the melancholy surge. The very fact that Peter was believed, might make them disbelieve the travellers; for how could Jesus have been in Jerusalem and Emmaus at so nearly the same time? However the two narratives be reconciled, it remains obvious that the first disciples did not believe the first witnesses of the Resurrection, and that their unbelief is an important fact. It bears very distinctly on the worth of their subsequent conviction. It has special bearing on the most modern form of disbelief in the Resurrection, which accounts for the belief of the first disciples on the ground that they expected Christ to rise, and that they then persuaded themselves, in all good faith, that He had risen. That monstrous theory is vulnerable at all points, but one sufficient answer is-the disciples did not expect Christ to rise again, and were so far from it that they did not believe that He had risen when they were told it. Their original unbelief is a strong argument for the reliableness of their final faith. What raised them from the stupor of despair and incredulity? Only one answer is ‘psychologically’ reasonable: they at last believed because they saw. It is incredible that they were conscious deceivers; for such lives as they lived, and such a gospel as they preached, never came from liars. It is as incredible that they were unconsciously mistaken; for they were wholly unprepared for the Resurrection, and sturdily disbelieved all witnesses for it, till they saw with their own eyes, and had ‘many infallible proofs.’ Let us be thankful for their unbelief and its record, and let us seek to possess the blessing of those ‘that have not seen, and yet have believed!’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Resurrection
The Resurrection
1-8. The women at the tomb, and the angel (Mat_28:1; Luk_24:1; Joh_20:1). See on Mt and Jn.
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1. Mary the mother of James] lit. 'Mary of James,' i.e. probably 'Mary daughter of James,' or just possibly 'Mary wife of James.' She is perhaps the same as Mary the mother of James and Joses, Mar_15:40.
9-20. Conclusion of the Gospel. One uncial MS gives a second termination to the Gospel as follows: 'And they reported all the things that had been commanded them briefly (or immediately) to the companions of Peter. And after this Jesus Himself also sent forth by them from the east even unto the west the holy and incorruptible preaching of eternal salvation.' Internal evidence points definitely to the conclusion that the last twelve vv. are not by St. Mark. For, (1) the true conclusion certainly contained a Galilean appearance (Mar_16:7 cp. Mar_14:28), and this does not. (2) The style is that of a bare catalogue of facts, and quite unlike St. Mark's usual wealth of graphic detail. (3) The section contains numerous words and expressions never used by St. Mark. (4) Mar_16:9 makes an abrupt fresh start, and is not continuous with the preceding narrative. (5) Mary Magdalene is spoken of (Mar_16:9) as if she had not been mentioned before, although she has just been alluded to twice (Mar_15:47; Mar_16:1). (6) The section seems to represent not a primary tradition, such as Peter's, but quite a secondary one, and in particular to be dependent upon the conclusion of St. Matthew, and upon Luk_24:13.
On the other hand, the section is no casual or unauthorised addition to the Gospel. From the 2nd cent, onwards, in nearly all manuscripts, versions, and other authorities, it forms an integral part of the Gospel, and it can be shown to have existed, if not in the apostolic, at least in the sub-apostolic age. A certain amount of evidence against it there is (though very little can be shown to be independent of Eusebius the Church historian, 265-340 a.d.), but certainly not enough to justify its rejection, were it not that internal evidence clearly demonstrates that it cannot have proceeded from the hand of St. Mark.
The most probable account of the literary history of the section seems to be the following. The Gospel of St. Mark, being the first extensive and authoritative account of our Lord's life as distinguished from His discourses, attained at its first publication (55-60 a.d.) a considerable circulation, first in the W. and afterwards in the E. At that time it concluded with an account of the Galilean appearance, which is now only to be found in St. Matthew (Mat_28:16). The subsequent publication of the First and Third Gospels, which incorporated practically its whole subject-matter, and were far more interesting as containing discourses, practically drove it out of circulation. When at the close of the apostolic age an attempt was made (probably in Rome) to collect the authentic memorials of the Apostles and their companions, a copy of the neglected Second Gospel was not easily found. The one that was actually discovered, and was used to multiply copies, had lost its last leaf, and so a fitting termination (the present appendix) was added by another hand. A recently discovered Armenian MS (1891) definitely ascribes the appendix to Ariston, i.e. probably Aristion, 'a disciple of the Lord' mentioned by Papias (130 a.d.).
Some think that the Gospel originally concluded at Mar_16:8; ('for they were afraid'), but this is unlikely. Such a conclusion would be unaccountably abrupt—more so in the Greek than in the English; and Mar_16:7; Mar_14:28 prepare the way for and anticipate a Galilean appearance.
9-11. Appearance to Mary Magdalene. See on Joh_20:14.
9. Seven devils] cp. Luk_8:2.
10. She went] cp. Luk_24:10; Joh_20:18. As they mourned and wept] cp. Luk_24:17. The author of the 'Gospel of Peter' (150 a.d., or earlier) must probably be added to the early witnesses to these twelve vv., for he writes, 'And upon all these things we fasted and sat mourning and weeping night and day until the sabbath... But we, the twelve disciples of the Lord, wept and were grieved.'
11. Believed not] This appendix lays great stress on the slowness of the apostles to believe (Mar_16:13-14). Cp. Mat_28:17; Luk_24:11, Luk_24:25, Luk_24:37; Joh_20:25, Joh_20:27.
12, 13. Appearance to two disciples. They were walking to Emmaus: see Luk_24:13.
12. In another form] This is an explanation of the fact that Christ was not at first recognised. It differs somewhat from that of St. Luke, 'Their eyes were holden, that they should not know him' (Luk_24:16).
13. Neither believed they them] Another slight discrepancy with St. Luke, who says (Luk_24:34) that when the two disciples reached Jerusalem they were greeted with the words, 'The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon.'
14-18. Appearance to the eleven. This is variously identified with the appearance on the evening of the resurrection day (Luk_24:36; Joh_20:19), and with the final interview (Act_1:6). But Swete is probably right in thinking that after an allusion to the first appearance to the Eleven on Easter Day, the writer passes on to give a summary of the words of Jesus spoken on various occasions during the forty days.
14. Upbraided them] According to certain ancient MSS mentioned by Jerome (340-420 a.d.), the apostles thus replied to our Lord's reproaches: 'This age is the very essence of iniquity and incredulity, and on account of unclean spirits permits not the true virtue of God to be apprehended. Do Thou, therefore, now at this time reveal Thy justice (or, righteousness).'
15. Go ye into all the world] This seems part of the same charge as that mentioned Mat_28:18. To every creature] RV 'to the whole creation.' A rabbinical expression for mankind in general.
16. Baptism is here declared necessary to salvation only for those who have heard the gospel message. It is not declared necessary for unevangelised heathen, or for those who have not attained the age of reason. Not the want of baptism, but contempt of it condemns a man. (For infant baptism, see on Mat_19:13-15.) Damned] i.e. condemned.
17. New tongues] Some MSS omit 'new': see on Act_2:4. The gift of miracles was given in order to assist the diffusion of the gospel at the very first. When Christianity was firmly planted, the gift of miracles was withdrawn.
18. Serpents] cp. Luk_10:19; Act_28:3. Drink any deadly thing] There is no example in the NT., but St. John and Barsabas (Act_1:23) are said in early tradition to have drunk a cup of poison unharmed. Lay hands on the sick] doubtless at the same time anointing them with oil (Mar_6:13; Jam_5:14).
19, 20. The Ascension (Luk_24:50; Act_1:9, which see).
19. On the right hand] the place of highest honour and power.
20. Signs following] viz. the miracles mentioned in Mar_16:17, Mar_16:18.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On v1 J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [CXXXIV. Our Lord's…
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [CXXXIV. Our Lord's Resurrection].
P A R T E I G H T H. OUR LORD'S RESURRECTION, APPEARANCES AND ASCENSION. JUDÆA AND GALILEE. TIME, FORTY DAYS. SPRING AD. 30.
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CXXXIV. ANGELS ANNOUNCE THE RESURRECTION TO CERTAIN WOMEN. PETER AND JOHN ENTER THE EMPTY TOMB. (Joseph's Garden. Sunday, very early.) aMATT. XXVIII. 1-8; bMARK XVI. 1-8; cLUKE XXIV. 1-8, 12; dJOHN XX. 1-10.
c1 But a1 Now late on the sabbath day, b1 And when the sabbath was past, con the first day of the week, aas it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, cat early dawn, dwhile it was yet dark, cometh acame dMary Magdalene early aand the other Mary bthe mother of James, and Salome, cunto the tomb, bringing bbrought cthe spices which they had prepared. [ Luk_23:56.] ato see the sepulchre. bthat they might come and anoint him. a2 And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled away the stone, and sat upon it. 3 His appearance was as lightning, and his raiment white as snow: 4 and for fear of him the watchers [the Roman soldiers on guard] did quake, and became as dead men. [The angel sat upon the stone that the Roman guards might make no attempt to reclose the tomb.] b2 And very early on the first day of the week, they come to the tomb when the sun was risen. 3 And they were saying among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the tomb? c2 And they found the stone rolled away from [739] the tomb. b4 and looking up, they see d [Mary Magdalene] seeth} bthat the stone is rolled back: dtaken away from the tomb. for it was exceeding great. c3 And they bentering into the tomb, centered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. [John mentions Mary Magdalene alone, though she came with the rest of the women. As she was the one who reported to John and Peter, he describes her actions, and makes no mention of the others.] d2 She runneth therefore, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they have laid him. [Though Mary came with the other women, she departed at once, while the others tarried, as the sequel shows. The narrative proceeds to tell what happened to the other women after Mary had departed.] c4 And it came to pass, while they were perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel: bthey saw a young man sitting on the right side, arrayed in a white robe; and they were amazed. c5 and as they were affrighted and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, bhe athe angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye; cBe not amazed: afor I know that ye seek Jesus, bthe Nazarene, who hath been crucified: cWhy seek ye the living among the dead? 6 He is not here, but afor he is risen, even as he said. cremember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, 7 saying that the Son of man must be delivered up into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. 8 And they remembered his words [For the words referred to, see Mat_17:22, Mat_17:23. The angel continues his speech as follows], aCome, bbehold, the place where they laid him! asee the place where the Lord lay. [Here is a double wonder, that men should put the Son of God in a grave, and that he should consent to be put there.] b7 But a7 And go quickly, and tell his disciples, [740] band Peter, aHe is risen from the dead; and lo, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: bas he said unto you. alo, I have told you. [The women were told to hasten, for the disciples were not to endure their sorrow a moment longer than was needful. Peter was mentioned by name that he might know that he was not cast off for his denial. The Lord appeared to some chosen few in Judæa, but the large body of his disciples were to see him in Galilee; see Psa_16:10, Isa_53:10, and many other passages set forth the resurrection of our Lord; his own words, too, had plainly foretold it, yet among the disciples it was so much beyond all expectation that the prophecies had no meaning until made clear by the event itself. Yet these are the men whom the Jews accused of inventing the story of a resurrection!]
[FFG 739-742]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 6 (See Scofield "Mat 1:16")
Mary
(See Scofield "Mat 1:16")
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Chapter 16
PART V. THE SERVANT HIGHLY EXALTED. RISEN AND ASCENDED; HIS COMMISSION TO HIS SERVANTS AND WORKING WITH THEM
Chapter 16
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1. The Resurrection and His Manifestation. (Mar 16:1-13. Mat 28:1-8; Luk 24:1-35; Joh 20:1-18.)
2. The Commission. (Mar 16:9-18. Luk 24:36-49; Joh 20:19-29.)
3. The Ascension. (Mar 16:19-20. Luk 24:50-53)
1. The Resurrection and His Manifestation. Mar 16:1-8
Again we notice the brevity of Mark’s account of the Resurrection of the Lord. The resurrection of Him who saved and toiled so patiently, who was cast out of His own city and suffered and died on the cross, was the fullest vindication of His person. A still greater vindication lies in the future, when He returns in power and glory. By His resurrection He was declared the Son of God (Rom 1:4). Had He not risen in the same body He had taken on in incarnation, His death on the cross would have no more power for redemption than the death of any other human being (1Co 15:12-20). His resurrection is also the completest proof that His work on the cross is accepted by God. The women last mentioned at the cross are the first at the tomb. In the first eight verses the Lord Himself is not mentioned as being seen. The stone rolled away, the empty tomb and the angel’s words declare that He is risen indeed. In Mark, Peter is specially mentioned, “but go your way, tell His disciples and Peter.” Peter’s denial is described by Mark in the fullest way. How fitting that he should record the divinely sent message to Peter. What comfort and peace it must have brought to sorrowing Peter.
Higher criticism declares that the proper ending of the Gospel of Mark is Mar 16:8. They disputed the genuineness of Mar 16:9-20. Another hand, they claim, added later these verses. That spurious translation, which goes under the name of “The Twentieth Century New Testament” (wholly unsatisfactory) also gives this portion as “a late appendix.” It is not. Mark wrote it and some of the best scholars have declared that it is genuine. How foolish to assume that the blessed document, which begins with the sublime statement “The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” could end with “they were afraid!” The trouble with these critics is that they approach the Word of God with doubt and reject its inspiration.
2. The Commission. Mar 16:9-18
To her who came to the tomb very early in the morning He appeared first. Mary Magdalene had been under the control of demons in a most awful way. She is there as a trophy of His Power over Satan; as the mighty victor over Satan He appeared first to her. Knowing Him and His power as well as the risen One, He sends her forth with the glad message. This is fully given in the Gospel of John. The disciples did not believe. Then He appeared to the disciples on the way to Emmaus so fully reported in Luke. Even then they did not believe their testimony. He appeared unto the eleven as they were at meat and at that time He gave them the commission. But before He upbraided them with their unbelief. How it must have humbled them. And such weak, unbelieving, doubting men the perfect Servant sent forth to preach the Gospel to every creature. The commission differs in many ways from that given in the Kingdom Gospel of Matthew. In Mark the Kingdom is not in view, the Servant has served, He has given His life for a ransom and upon that the good news goes forth. The message is to be believed and faith confessed. He that believeth not shall be damned. Signs were to follow them (but not all) that believe and signs did follow. Signs were never universal, not even in the days of the Apostles. The Lord’s own sovereign will is over this.
3. The Ascension. Mar 16:19-20
The Gospel of Matthew makes no record of the ascension. If we had only Matthew we would think the Lord still on the earth even as some day He will be earth’s glorious King. The Holy Spirit gives through Mark a brief Word on the Return of the Servant-Son to the Glory from where He had come. The Servant who had stooped so low is lifted so high. There at the right hand of God He has taken His place--the Man in Glory. The work is finished. But the word “work” appears once more in this Gospel. “And they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the Word with signs following.” Nowhere else in the Gospels is the statement given that the risen One works with His servants. How fitting that the Holy Spirit put it at the close of the Gospel of the Servant. He came from God to take the Servant’s place; He served on earth; He sacrificed Himself for our sins, and now as His servants go forth to serve in His name He still works with them. What joy it ought to be for all who love and adore Him to be obedient to such a Lord, who was such a Servant on earth and whose delight is still to serve.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 The Resurrection of Jesus.
The Resurrection of Jesus.
The women at the sepulcher:
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v. 1. 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.
v. 2. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun.
v. 3. And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulcher?
v. 4. And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away; for it was very great.
The weekly Sabbath came to a close at sunset, whereupon the bazaars were quickly thrown open to take advantage of any trade that might happen along before complete darkness set in. The same women that had been present on Calvary, two of whom had been witnesses of Christ’s burial, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome, the wife of Zebedee, had, even on Friday evening, prepared such ointments and spices as they could find before the Sabbath was announced. They now made further purchases of sweet-smelling spices, in order to have everything ready against the morrow, for they intended to go out to the grave and anoint the body of their Master properly. Note: Here is a bit of evidence that there was no idea or intention in the minds of the disciples to steal the body of Jesus and falsely to allege that He had risen from the dead. The prophecies of Christ concerning this event had apparently been entirely forgotten for the time being. So early did the women start out from the city on the next morning, on the first of the Sabbath-days, the great day of the festival when the sheaves were offered to God in the Temple, that they arrived at the grave when the sun was rising. They seem to have had no knowledge of the presence of the soldiers or else not to have anticipated any difficulty on their account. But one fact was worrying them all the way out to the garden, and they spoke of it again and again—the matter of the stone that had been rolled before the door of the sepulcher. It had taken at least two men to put it into place, and there was little chance of their removing it with their combined strength, for it was very great. "Rock-cut tombs, whether large or small, were regarded as important possessions. To close a ’doorway’ tomb securely must always have been a matter of difficulty in. Palestine. It was not easy with the kind of locks they had to keep intruders out of tombs. This led to the cutting of a large groove by the side of the doorway into which a rolling-stone was fitted. When it was desired to open the tomb, the stone could be rolled back. The stones were too heavy to be easily disturbed. It was in a new tomb of this type that the body of Jesus was laid, and it was such a stone that the women found rolled away on the resurrection morning. " This was the first thing that the women looked for when they came in sight of the tomb, for by this time they could distinguish objects clearly. And the fact that the stone was rolled away from the tomb may have filled them with great fear and consternation, causing them to think, perhaps, of grave robbers. Mary Magdalene, at least, waited for nothing more, but turned at once and brought this version of the happening to the city, Joh 20:1-31; Joh 21:1-15.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
On the first day of the week, women come early because they expect to use spices to anoint Jesus' body. They are surprised to see a young man who tells them Jesus is alive, but they are afraid and do not tell anyone.
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When the Sabbath day was over
That is, after the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, had ended and the first day of the week had begun.
translationWords
Sabbath
Mary Magdalene
Jesus
grave
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3 16:1 At the end of the Sabbath at sunset,…
16:1 At the end of the Sabbath at sunset, the shops reopened and the women were able to buy burial spices to anoint Jesus’ body (16:1). Their purpose was not to embalm the body, but to alleviate the stench that a decaying body would create. • The women were clearly not anticipating Jesus’ resurrection. Even the empty tomb would fail to convince them that Jesus had been raised from the dead (John 20:2, 11-15).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.