Mark 15:42–16:13 - The Tomb That Couldn’t Hold Hope

[0:00] Okay.

[0:17] Okay. Oh, hello. So, good morning everyone.

[0:30] And a fair few new faces I don't recognize, so welcome. My name is John, if I haven't met you before. For the last, maybe what, three, four years, we've been going through on and off the Gospel of Mark.

[0:48] So, a few of the younger guys have been taking the mantle and going through Mark verse by verse.

[1:00] And actually, if you're just joining us now, we've come to the last two sermons on it, actually. So, today we are in Mark chapter 15, verses 42.

[1:13] And we are going to try to tackle up to chapter 16, verse 13. And then Joe Diaper will take it on next week to finish us off.

[1:25] Okay. So, the way that I like to do it is I like to read the entire text. It is quite a lengthy one, so bear with me. Please don't nod off just yet. And then we'll get into it verse by verse.

[1:37] So, from 42. And when evening had come, since it was the day of preparation, that is the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

[2:00] Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died. And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph.

[2:15] And Joseph bought a linen shroud and taken him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in the tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.

[2:29] And looking up, they saw the tomb.

[2:59] And they saw that the stone had been rolled back. It was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed.

[3:13] And he said to them, And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them.

[3:44] And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Now, when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons.

[3:56] She went and told those who had been with him as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.

[4:08] After these things, he appeared in another form to two of them as they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest. But they did not believe them.

[4:23] Heavenly Father, thank you for this word. We just pray you would bless the next however long, Lord, to just bless us with the truth and encourage us, rebuke us and help us to believe these words in Jesus' name.

[4:39] So I recall when I was given this passage, I was speaking to my wife, and she asked me what passage I was going to be preaching on. And I said, well, I'm doing the resurrection.

[4:50] To which she replied, At Christmas? Now, she's not here to defend herself, but in her defense, isn't this what we've done to the gospel?

[5:01] We have segmented it so that the calendar often dictates when and where we present it. Which part of it? The incarnation at Christmas.

[5:14] The resurrection at Easter. It seems the resurrection is this one tiny footprint detail that we sort of raise once a year at Easter.

[5:24] Where we do our part, we ensure we do our social media upload. He is risen. And then for 364 days, we sort of do the micro-bublet thing.

[5:35] Where we go back to our caves and the resurrection is seemingly forgotten about. Until the next Easter. And actually, when you consider the sheer amount of verses in our songs that we sing, it's not long before you realize that even in our songs of worship, we spend the vast majority of our verses singing about the cross.

[5:58] Oh, to see the dawn of the darkest day. No, I don't. I want to see the dawn of the brightest day that ever was. Give me the resurrection day, any day.

[6:10] But yet, we are so quiet about this occasion. As I was studying, I couldn't help but ask myself, why? Why are we so quiet about it?

[6:23] Why is the resurrection so often an afterthought? Why is the resurrection not spoken boldly of as of the first century Christians? Why have we become so accustomed to forgetting this victorious Sunday that was a foreshadow of all Sundays and, better yet, eternity?

[6:47] Rightly, we speak about the cross. And the Apostle Paul himself said that he decided to know nothing amongst the Corinthians except Christ and him crucified.

[7:00] 1 Corinthians 2, 1-2. Yes, if you read on, he says that his message and speech did not rest in plausible words of wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that their faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

[7:23] That was his goal. That the church's faith would not be dependent on man, but in the power of God.

[7:34] In God himself, who has all power, and thus all authority, which has been our sermon title all along. So I ask, what is your faith dependent on today?

[7:50] Or, where is your faith placed today? See, the more I thought about my initial question of why perhaps we think so little about the resurrection, I couldn't help but think, is it because maybe, perhaps just maybe, we do not know the power of God?

[8:12] Or if we do know it, perhaps we doubt the power of God, or rather the God who wills it. Because if I'm completely honest, dare I say that sometimes, I struggle to believe in the power of God.

[8:31] Have we relegated it to working, that his power works in the days of old, in the past?

[8:45] Or have we theorized it, like it's some sort of mathematical formula? In other words, have we put God in a box of our imagining?

[8:56] We get our packing tape, so to speak, and seal that box shut. Creating a God in our own image. We're often frustrated and angry, because in our minds, we serve a little, powerless God.

[9:13] A God who is ineffective, a God who is not sovereign, a God who is unable to make a change. Does that sound familiar?

[9:25] You and I may not have the physical body of Jesus to place in a tomb, but we so often have the very mindset of the disciples living our lives of that Friday and that Saturday, struggling with the reality of that Sunday.

[9:45] If we're honest, our Jesus looks a lot more like the one the world thinks about than the Jesus that rose victorious, defeating sin and death.

[9:58] And so, verse 42, when the evening had come, since it was the day of preparation, that is, the day of the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

[10:17] So, the context is, it's late Friday, Jesus has been crucified earlier that day from 9 a.m. And after hanging on the cross for what is an agonizing six hours, he finally breathes his last, not before crying out, it is finished.

[10:36] Mark 15, verse 37. And this, Mark tells us, was watched by some of the women who followed him. Mark tells us that it is now evening because evidently it is still sometime before 6 p.m., which would be the next day for the Jewish people.

[10:56] But it's after 3 p.m. because Jesus has died. This day, what we call the preparation day, was the day before the weekly Sabbath, but also, it was the definitive day before the annual Passover festival began.

[11:16] So, the festival, if you remember, of Passover, was that yearly reminder of God's ability to save, how he had rescued the slaves out of Egypt in a glorious display of his mighty power, culminating with when he passed over their houses because they had covered it with this mere lamb's blood.

[11:39] That annual reminder of the grace, the mercy, and the power of God to completely save in the midst of judgment. And here is Christ hanging there on the cross, having died for the sins of the world, covering those who would believe in him from the judgment by taking their place.

[12:03] Here, the true lamb of God brings true salvation by his blood. And here we find one unlikely individual, a member of the group of the very people that had condemned Jesus to die, Joseph of Arimathea.

[12:21] We're told he's a member of the council. This is the Sanhedrin, the 70 ruling elders of Israel. So who is he?

[12:33] Because he appears in all four gospels. So we're told by Luke in chapter 23 that he came from the town of Arimathea, which is thought to be Ramah, where Samuel was born, the prophet Samuel in the Old Testament.

[12:50] And we're also told that he was a good and righteous man and that he had not consented to the actions of his peers when they cast the vote against Jesus in condemning him to die.

[13:04] Matthew tells us that he was a rich man and had himself become a disciple of Jesus. Matthew 27. And then John corroborates this, adding that he was actually secretly a disciple of Jesus for the fear of the Jews.

[13:22] John 19, verse 38. In our passage, Mark tells us that Joseph was a respected member of the council, that he himself was looking for the kingdom of God.

[13:36] So he was living expectantly. He was seeking the Messiah because he was seeking God's kingdom reign. But also that Joseph was clearly a little timid because he took courage.

[13:50] he had to psych himself up to go to Pilate and ask for the body of Jesus. In other words, he was risking it all as he took courage.

[14:02] He was risking his secret exposure of being a disciple of Jesus. In a sense, by going to Pilate to request the body of Jesus, not only was he risking himself, making himself an accomplice to the former political rival to the reign of Rome, but he was also outing himself to the fellow angry colleagues who had been a little too eager to ask for the death of Jesus not so long ago that very day.

[14:30] What would they think? What would they do to him? He was laying it all on the line. The respect, the influence, the status, the wealth, the comfort.

[14:45] More than that, though, he was laying down the fear. Gone was his timidness. Gone was the fear of being outed as a follower of Christ.

[14:58] He took courage. He boldly approaches Pilate, seeking the body of Jesus to give him an honorable burial. Because you see, the bodies of criminals who were crucified were often left to be eaten by the birds, by the Romans.

[15:15] The Jewish custom, however, forbade that you would leave a body hanging on a tree overnight. And Joseph, being the righteous man that he was, sought to honor this law.

[15:30] And so he asked Pilate. And we're told Pilate was, in verse 44, Pilate was surprised to hear that Jesus was already dead. And he summoned the centurion to ask, you know, is he dead?

[15:44] And the centurion confirms this. Now, we could probably do a whole sermon series on Pilate and his actions. Because if we know anything about Pilate, this guy has had the most bizarre day of his existence.

[16:00] He has had a whole crowd of people turn up uninvited to his house early doors. That's pre-coffee if anyone's interested.

[16:10] They're demanding that they kill a guy because he claimed to be the son of God. He's become friends with his enemy on this day. He's released a known murderer.

[16:23] And then he has knowingly condemned a man he knew to be innocent to death. All the while probably spending the rest of his day being nagged by his wife, giving him the first century equivalent of I told you so.

[16:37] Because he clearly hadn't listened to her. Matthew 27 verse 19. This is not a guy you would want to go and ask for a favor of right now.

[16:48] He hears Jesus has already died and he's surprised. Evidently people took longer to die in the cases of the two thieves. They had to break their legs to hasten their death. And so I asked Dr. Google how long does someone take to die if they're crucified?

[17:07] I'm not sure if that flags up somewhere. But Google said it takes anywhere from six hours to four days which I thought was a pretty long time.

[17:24] But it also explains Pilate asking for verification because he evidently couldn't believe it. and I'm also thinking that Pilate also had some trust issues.

[17:37] But nonetheless the centurion confirms it and I wonder if it is the same centurion from earlier who had confessed there at the cross that surely this man was the son of God talking about Jesus as he died.

[17:51] nonetheless that's just conjecture with his corroboration the request is granted and Joseph goes along and buys a linen shroud and takes Jesus down verse 46 of Mark.

[18:07] So in the three hours before 6pm Joseph is doing some serious leg day action because he is running around he's seeking permission from Pilate he runs to the market to buy the linen shroud before Sabbath starts runs to the cross to take Jesus down from the cross and then he ensures that he's carried to the tomb to bury him.

[18:34] John tells us in chapter 19 verse 39 that he actually has some help in the form of Nicodemus lo and behold another member of the same council so that's at least two out of 70 who are known believers.

[18:52] I find it interesting that of all people who are risking defilement in this scenario if you remember from our time in Leviticus touching a dead corpse would render you unclean and therefore this would disallow them from taking part in the Passover festivities the next day I find it interesting that it is these two people who knew the law like the back of their hand who we often boo because it's the Pharisees but actually here it is these two people that are wanting to give Jesus a decent burial it's not his disciples it's these two guys it is these two men who it could be argued Jesus himself had said of it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God Mark 10 verse 25 and yet because of the power of God even what seems difficult or impossible is possible with

[20:04] God Mark 10 verse 27 it is the power of God in action in these two men and we should not belittle the power of God in the transformation of men and women whilst the disciples hide and mourn in secret it is these two former closet believers who believe who before had come to Jesus in the shadow of the night they're now the ones doing the brazen burying we're told by Matthew that this was Joseph's very own tomb and by John that it was a garden it was in the garden nearby to the crucifixion and that it was a tomb in which no one had yet been laid John 19 verse 41 and we've probably all seen a picture of what this tomb would have looked like cut into the cliff with a big massive rock and then inside what would have been basically some sort of benches built into the wall!

[21:08] that's where they would have laid the bodies but more on that later but again Mark tells us all of this the burying of Jesus is witnessed by some women who are now the shift of focus as Mark tells us Mary Magdalene verse 47 Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid when the Sabbath was passed Mary Magdalene Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices so that they might go and anoint him they witness a physical Jesus being buried his body is taken down from the cross and put in the tomb before it's sealed these women are ascribed by Luke to having been with Jesus throughout his ministry along with the 12 they were helping him to support the ministry work we've got Mary Magdalene there a woman probably from the town of Magdala she is mentioning in chapter 16 verse 9 of Mark to have been cured of seven evil spirits

[22:22] Luke 8 verses 1 to 2 also says the same this is someone who had literally experienced the power of God in her life seven there being the number of completion or perfection which means she was completely possessed at one point and now we have her freed of demonic possession but possessed by the love for her saviour these women go and buy spices to anoint Jesus seemingly it is now the evening of the Saturday Mark doesn't I mean all the gospels don't really talk about the Saturday so the Saturday is really something I personally I've just always thought what happened on that Saturday but evidently nothing happened so we just skip straight to the evening but they planned to go and honour Jesus one last time by anointing him to offset the odours of decomposition they obviously had also forgotten what Jesus had prophesied regarding his death and resurrection three days later if you recall he had said in Mark 14 verse 8 that he'd already been anointed for his burial nonetheless they get up the next day and very early on the first day of the week when the sun had risen they went to the tomb and they were saying to one another who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb and looking up they saw that the stone had been rolled back it was very large it is Sunday

[24:08] Sunday morning and the sun had risen this was a new sunrise there had never been a sunrise like this one before they just didn't know it yet in their eagerness of devotion a pressing question is asked who is going to roll the stone away which is a legitimate question because if you actually look at how much these stones sort of weighed it's often speculated between 1,000 to 1,800 kilos now for reference a forward focus is between 1,200 and 1,500 kilos that's some serious weight and just in case anyone had doubts about the size of this rock Mark just to clarify tells us it was very large the three women together could not do it by themselves and yet what they see is the stone has already been rolled back and entering the tomb again I'm wondering what's going on in their minds

[25:23] I like I'm a very visual person so I like to imagine this what is going on they see a young man sitting on the right side dressed in a white robe and they are alarmed and he said to them do not be alarmed you seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified he has risen he is not here as they enter that tomb what were they hoping to find certainly not this that the detail should be so specific as to which side this young man wearing a white robe was sat seems to suggest that the presence of this young man held their utmost attention and he says to them those famous words we love to post on social media he is risen he says a few more things but first let's see what he says he tells them to not be alarmed in response to their obvious alarm this word translated as alarmed can mean to be amazed astonished in fear or terror but it can also mean bewilderment being perplexed in uncertainty this is a typical reaction when man is faced with the supernatural particularly whenever angels are presented in the bible men and women all over the bible the first thing what are they told do not be afraid these women could not understand what had happened second he simply states the facts essentially he tells them

[27:07] I know why you're here do you know why you're here you seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified the reference to Jesus by his hometown Nazareth identifies him as the very real human who had in fact died who had been crucified in the next breath he says the man that you are seeking is not here essentially who you thought he was or the person you think you're seeking is not the person you think you're seeking I find it interesting that the first proclamation of the resurrection was so great that an angel was the first to utter these words he has risen clearly disbelief was written all over their faces because as the angel tells them they who had witnessed the day today life of Jesus they who had witnessed his death minute by minute they who had seen the precise spot where Jesus had been buried he invites them to take a look he says see see the place where they had laid him they being

[28:32] Joseph and Nicodemus of course there is grace here it's almost as I was reading it was speaking of how God meets us where we are not where we should be but literally where we are in our understanding our situations and our failings the angel thirdly tells them to go and tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before them to Galilee where they will see him just as he told them he would just like he said he would God keeps his word all along Jesus had told them he would rise again and at least on four different occasions in Mark Jesus had specifically told his disciples of all that would happen to him and yet evidently they had not believed in Mark verses 8 31

[29:37] Mark verse 9 sorry Mark chapter 9 verse 31 as well Mark chapter 10 verses 33 to 34 when he tells them that he's there he's going to Jerusalem he will be beaten and mocked and they will hang him and then after three days he will rise and then in Mark chapter 14 verse 28 he tells them but after I am raised up I will go before you to Galilee and we cannot be harsh with the disciples here because we have our struggle like I mentioned earlier about believing this right let alone believing that Jesus will come back we're a lot alike and we often care to admit nonetheless

[30:38] I often wonder why the disciples had not already been at the tomb way before sunrise on this day having witnessed all that Jesus had done all the miraculous workings never not once had he said something that had not come true what about that time with the donkey when he's celebrating the Passover meal what about that time with the fish with the coin in his mouth which I find so bizarre but he said to Peter go and you know go get this fish basically it's got a coin in his mouth and he finds this fish of all things never not once did Jesus say something and it proved not to be true was this time a stretch too far was the hand of God too short to reanimate a dead body and bring it back to life I think not they had all witnessed with Lazarus and also some of them with the little girl so why not with Jesus is there something that perhaps today you're thinking likewise yeah yeah he can do all those things but there's no way that God can touch this situation this thing is just too huge it's too impossible

[32:04] I simply state what was said by another angel in Luke chapter 1 verse 37 nothing will be impossible for God the power of God is far greater your God is too little God is far more God than the God you imagine him to be and so they went out and fled from the tomb for trembling and astonishment had seized them and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid and so they flee trembling and bewildered I'm sure all of us would do exactly the same and they're overloaded by all sorts of thoughts and emotions and Mark said that they said nothing to anyone but we know that's not true it's not in the sense that they didn't perpetually keep silent because otherwise

[33:11] Mark wouldn't be writing this so it's probably meaning that they were silent for a little while now technically this is how Mark ends with verse 8 and abrupt as it is it just ends it kind of does a Jonah on us and this is what the scholars call the shorter ending of Mark the longer ending which we're looking at is the rest of the verses in chapter 16 because you will probably notice in your Bibles there is a note that says in some of the earliest manuscripts do not include 16 9 to 20 namely this passage does not appear in some of the earliest the two earliest manuscripts that we have the Codus Sinaticus and the Codus Vaticanus if I can say that word so it ought to mean that basically verses 9 to 20 are thought by consensus to have been later added by someone else other than

[34:24] Mark to give it a proper ending as someone who wants to aspire to be a writer I have to say I appreciate that longer ending you know what I don't appreciate Jonah's ending just ends but I'm not a scholar and I'm not learned in textual criticism but I did do A-level history so I understand the implication that the closer a manuscript is to the time of the original writing the fewer the copies that it has undergone and thus the less opportunity for additions or alterations and there's loads of stuff online that you can research and go down this rabbit hole listen to this triple PhD guy but I will say this there is nothing in verses 9 to 20 that contradicts what is said elsewhere in the gospels and therefore we can say what is written here is valid

[35:24] I say that because I was reading the commentary and it didn't even bother with the rest of the verses it just finished with verse 8 and basically a footnote but hey that's scholars so let's continue so from 9 to 20 it's basically a summarization of what has happened except it tells us that he Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene from whom he had cast out seven demons and then she goes and tells those who had been with Jesus as they were in their mourning but when they hear from her that he is alive and had been seen by her they would not believe it and then after that he appears to two other disciples as they're going on the walk who then come back and tell the rest we've seen

[36:26] Jesus and again they're not believed that Jesus appeared first to Mary John tells us in John 20 that the two disciples also encounter Jesus as they're walking into the country is probably Luke 24 on the road to Emmaus and Jesus basically does this historical legendary shall I say exposition of the whole Bible to them right the issue is clear it is that same old malady that plagues all humans unbelief do you believe that a crucified dead man somehow rose up after three days after being dead and walked out of the tomb I've got a bit of a sermon analogy I suppose but it's actually it's funny to me and Rachel when she's watching this because

[37:33] I think God's got a sense of humour so in our house we bought a house last year and the shower extractor fan has not worked we've tried everything it has not worked we need to get an electrician if anyone's an electrician here talk to me afterwards however however I will say this we've tried everything last night as I was writing the rest of the sermon I hear this noise and I'm like what is that yeah yeah someone's doing it it's like you were there so I walked I walked to the shower and this thing is on out of nowhere I kid you not out of nowhere it's on and I'm like hang on this is 12 o'clock this is 12 o'clock and I'm like no there's no way so I don't care Rachel's fast asleep she's been asleep for like two three hours and

[38:33] I'm there like Rachel this thing is working and she kind of like she goes back to sleep she doesn't believe me so I I'm like you know what I'll just finish!

[38:47] I'll look so I woke up this morning went into the shower 6am and this thing is working and I'm like praise God we don't need to get an electrician and had my shower etc and then was having breakfast I said well what do you think she said what do you mean it's working and she said no it's not she goes to the shower you know you turn the light on and the thing comes on it was dead quiet I could not for the life of me I don't know I could not believe it dead quiet I know 100% so anyway I don't want to go sensational on you but however it is sensational to me so I try it I try it and it doesn't work it's not working the thing is dead quiet but however

[39:47] I was just thinking I was like this is so hilarious I'm going to talk about the resurrection and about people recounting things which are they're not believed by them because Rachel didn't believe me and she probably still doesn't that this thing was heard but what it did tell me is the nature of the human psyche how when something happens and we don't quite believe it our first thing that we go to is did we imagine it doubt so I was trying to read like what are the most common things that people come up with when you talk about the resurrection and one of the things is well the disciples clearly hallucinated this whole thing they clearly imagined it okay one person maybe what about two people what about three yeah what about 500 at various different times over 40 days

[41:09] Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 6 if Jesus was not really dead oh sorry that's the that's the quote it's later on that he tells us that if Jesus is not really dead and it's his whole spiel in chapter 15 1 to 8 then what we have believed is in vain excuse me just trying to find my notes apparently I have jumped ahead of myself in my excitement that's fine that's okay all right one of the other things that also came up as an objection to the resurrection was that he didn't die at the cross that

[42:31] Jesus didn't die at the cross he just merely fainted and then later woke up in the tomb hmm really somehow a severely injured man somehow rose up after however long rolled back this two ton rock and then stumbled out all the whilst being injured again!

[43:02] again I don't think so see the resurrection of Jesus was not an afterthought it is a crucial part of the gospel story and it is here that Paul has always had it in mind now we catch up because he says in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 1 to 8 that the gospel he preached to them the gospel in which we now stand is the one in which we are being saved if we hold fast to it Paul delivered this gospel as of first importance that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures that he was buried that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and then he appeared to Cephas to the twelve and then to the five hundred see our modern day message says Christ died for you but surely if we are

[44:05] Bible believing Christians the same is true to say and Christ rose for you as well he died so that our sins would be dealt with to quote one Christian rapper Shailen the cross was the payment the resurrection the receipt if he did not rise again then we are still in our sins because the resurrection was God saying the payment has been made if it is true if this resurrection story is true then that changes everything it means there is forgiveness of sins and a hope for a new life it means there is unimaginable power at work in the believer's life because

[45:14] Ephesians 2 verse 4 to 7 tells us that whilst we were dead in our trespasses God made us alive together with Christ raising us with him which means when Christ walked out of that tomb that Sunday morning guess what if you're a believer you and I walked out of that tomb with him we can too breathe the new breath of life we can rejoice we can rejoice because death no longer has a hold on us whatever our situation is this morning the same power that worked to raise Christ is now at work in you as a believer if you believe that it is this power it is this power that Paul could say was his desire to know

[46:18] Christ and the power of his resurrection because he knew it made such a huge difference Philippians 3 verse 10 and I wonder what our days and our weeks would look like if we began each day with the realization that Jesus is risen like truly not just saying yeah I affirm that but waking up praying Lord I believe you rose again I wonder what hour by hour minute by minute would look like if we held tightly to that truth and lived like it because one of the things we often say here at Calvary is that God is alive and among us you see to the world

[47:20] Jesus died in 33 AD whatever he was in life good teacher good example man who claimed to be God you name it to the world that Jesus died and stayed dead and the world doesn't need to hear about more dead men what the world needs to hear about is the man who died and came back to life the lamb who was slain and wrote again victorious as the conquering lion this news is too good to only think about in April or March sometimes I need this news today you need this news your neighbor and your family needs this news so as we close I want you to consider what would my life look like right now if I believed that the same power that resurrected Jesus on that Sunday is at work in me transforming me to be conformed to his image and if that's the case what if

[48:27] I dared to walk in the newness of this life starting today not because I can in my own strength but because of the spirit of power that dwells in me what obstacle then what fear what struggle is able to prevent me from doing what God wants me to do what's to stop us from saying Lord I want whatever you have for me today if you are a believer today I pray you know this truth and live boldly in the truth let this truth ring true again in your mind and heart let it reverberate through your whole body spirit and soul may the spirit empower!

[49:13] you love you love to live out the calling and if you're not a Christian today perhaps you you've thought about the resurrection and you just can't just get past that hurdle I pray that today your eyes would be opened I pray that today you would speak to us come speak to you know Simon Joe here Andy plenty of people here at Calvary would love to speak!

[49:39] with you would love to share with you this news because this news doesn't say you know what if you're struggling you can't come no it says come struggling come with your guilt and shame because only he alone can deal with it so come empty come to be emptied because the tomb is empty Jesus is alive shall we pray father god thank you so much for today thank you for what this message means lord thank you for just um using this time lord to speak to us i pray father that these things would not be quickly forgotten lord as we leave this place i pray they would trouble us that they would worry us they would they would excite us so lord we would go away from this place father just even in our uncertainties!

[50:59] even in our perplexity as as with the mayor with mary and and and the other women lord even in that lord use that situation i pray use this time lord!

[51:12] to just um to mold us to whom you want us to be to help us to believe lord where we're! we have believed father to keep on believing because this truth is too good lord to forget remind us again of the joy that comes from speaking about your resurrection speaking about the crucifixion knowing that lord you rose again three days later as you said you would help us jesus we pray to live out the life you call us to live lord we thank you again lord jesus in in your name we pray amen