Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Empty Tomb

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

All four of the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) tell us that the women followers of Jesus on Easter Sunday morning found the tomb empty and heard a message from the angel. Of those four accounts, Mark’s is the shortest. In two wonderful verses, we have the entirety of the life-changing message of the resurrection, of Easter. There are three aspects to this message: 1) there is a word of challenge to change your mind, 2) there is a word of grace to change your heart, and 3) there is a word of mission to change the whole course and shape of your life in the world. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 8, 2007. Series: King's Cross: The Gospel of Mark, Part 2: The Journey to the Cross. Scripture: Mark 16:1-8. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. Many religious teachers sought to live as good examples. Only Jesus explicitly stated that his purpose was to die. Today on Gospel in Life, Tim Keller is teaching through Mark's account of Jesus' final days and ultimate death on the cross and how that can change us from the inside out. The scriptures found in March 16, verses one through eight. When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James and Salome, bought spices so that they might go to a noite Jesus' body.

Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb, and they asked each other, who will roll away the stone from the entrance of the tomb. But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. Don't be alarmed, he said.

You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter. He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you. Trambling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone because they were afraid. This is the Word of the Lord. All four of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, and John, all tell us that the women followers of Jesus on Easter Sunday morning found the tomb empty and heard a message from the angel, actually got a message from

Jesus through an angel. And of those four accounts, it's not surprising to find that Mark's is the shortest. He's always the shortest, the most economical, but in these two wonderful verses, verse six and seven, inside the message you've got the entirety of the life-changing message of the resurrection of Easter. It's a life-changing message, and there's three aspects to it. I want to look at with you. And there's a word of challenge to change your mind in there. And there's a word of grace to change your heart. And there's a word of mission to change the whole course

and shape of your life in the world. There's a word of challenge for your mind, a word of grace for your heart, and a word of mission for your whole life. Look, first of all, there's a word of challenge for the mind. You're looking for Jesus, he says, but he's not here, he's risen, see the place you ought to be, he's not there. Now, this is a challenge for the mind.

Think of this, there were dozens of messianic movements, you know, in the decades before and after Jesus' life and death. There were dozens of messianic movements in Israel. And almost every case, the messianic leader was killed in many cases executed and every other movement after the death of the leader collapsed. Everybody went home. That was it, except this one. Out of all those dozens of movements, one movement, only one movement, didn't collapse

after the death of the leader, and not only did it not collapse, but it basically exploded in over 200 years that essentially took over the Roman Empire and today is the by far the largest religious faith on the face of the earth Now what made it different? I mean there were dozens of these movements dozens of these Messianic movements with Messianic leaders Who's whose leaders were killed? Why this one utterly different? Why totally different now? The Christian church says, the reason it was different,

was because this messianic movement found after his leader was killed that he came back from the dead and he appeared to his followers. That's what changed everything. That's why they didn't go home. That's why they exploded. Now today, we live in New York City

and most of the people around this building, for example, who live here, just don't believe that. All right, well, then they have to come up with an alternate explanation for why this one little movement among all these hundreds of movements exploded like this. And they say, well, we don't know what happened. The one thing we do know is we don't know, because these texts like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all we know is that they were written many years after the case. They're legends, they're not history, and therefore we can't really know

what the real events were. We really don't know. But Mark challenges that. Challenges you're thinking. If you were here last couple of weeks, we'll, you know that in eight verses, in Mark 15, verse 40, Mark 15, verse 47, and in Mark 16, verse 1, three times in eight verses, Mark writes down

the names of these women who saw this. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph and Solomon. Three times. You say, why they're redundancy? It's kind of weird. Why would you write it down? You told us once. Why you keep telling us over and over and over again. And the answer of Richard Balkham, who is a British scholar, who understands something about ancient historiography, is that

this is not a legend. This is, this has all the marks of the way historians did history in those days. Historians, ancient historians, gave more credence to the oral histories of living eyewitnesses, still living eyewitnesses. They put those sources as more valuable than written documents. Why? If the eyewitnesses were still around and they were still alive, you could cross examine them

and you could corroborate what they said. And therefore, living eyewitnesses were always the source of choice for history. And Richard Bachman says, when you see these women's names put down over and over and over again, what you have is the eyemark, earmarks of not legend. But history, these are footnotes, these are citations. These women must have been alive at the time that Mark was writing, or he wouldn't have used them, because that's how historians used eyewitnesses.

What Mark was saying by putting their names down was he was saying, anyone reading this document, anybody reading this, if you want to check out whether what I'm telling you is right, go talk to these three women. They're still alive and they can corroborate everything I said. So this is not how legends are written. This is history.

And if you want to know, in a sense, the slam dunk proof that this is history, not legend, we'd say it every Easter, might as well say it again. Have you ever heard of Kelsus, C-E-L-S-U-S, Kelsus? He was a Greek pagan philosopher, lived about 80 years after the life of Jesus. He was very, very down on Christianity. He wrote a number of books trying to refute Christianity.

He didn't like it and he gave all the reasons why it couldn't be true. So he was very formidable. But you know what one of his strongest arguments was against the truth of Christianity? Here's what he said. He said, one of the reasons we know that Christianity can't be true is because the accounts of the resurrection are based on the testimony of women. In fact in his documents he says, and we all know that women are hysterical. And everybody else in the ancient world said, yeah, that's a problem, yeah, that's a real

big problem, see. Now, why did Kelsa know that that was an incredibly strong argument in those days? Because in ancient cultures, women were marginalized, and it was hard to believe in their testimony. But don't you know what that means? It means that if Mark was making this up, if the Christians were making up these stories, they would never have put women in as the only eyewitnesses

to Jesus, empty tomb. The only possible reason to explain women in these accounts is if they actually saw Jesus. The only way to account for them being depicted as the first eyewitnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is if they were. And therefore, this can't be legend. This must have happened or it would never exist.

See, Mark is challenging you. He says, this is a historical document. This really happened. That's pretty strong case. Well, you know what, New Yorkers say though, well, okay, okay, okay, I don't know quite what to say about that. I mean, I've been here for almost two decades

and I've been talking to New Yorkers about this. And say, well, all I know is this, ancient people were credulous about miracles. They believed in miracles, but we modern people now know that miracles can't happen. We have a world view that makes it impossible to believe in the resurrection. They were open to the reports.

People heard that he'd raised him to the dead. He said, oh, must be true. But that back then, you see, people believe that sort of thing. But we now know that that can't be true. Mark challenges you on that. Oh, yeah, he does. Why? Have you noticed?

Now, if you're reading through the book of Mark, and some of you've been coming regularly, and we've been going through the book of Mark, if you read through the book of Mark, and it's not hard, it's very short. You'll see that again and again, Jesus says, I will rise on the third day to His disciples. He says at Mark 8, He says at Mark 10, Mark is a writer of great economy of style, and therefore if it's in there twice, it means Jesus was saying it over and over and over and over again. Jesus was saying, I will die, but I will rise on the third day.

I will rise on the third day. I will rise on the third day. I will rise on the third day. Okay. You notice something weird? Third day. Okay. No male disciples around.

And the female disciples had bought all the spices and the perfumes with which you annoyed a dead body, very, very expensive. Nobody, it all was expecting this. Nobody was expecting this. And in fact, it's a very strange story. If you're Mark, if you're the gospel writer Mark, you're trying to write a credible story. And you say that Jesus over and over and over again

said to His disciples, I'm gonna rise on the third day, I'm gonna rise on the third day. Why wouldn't you have anybody, not one person, not one person, not one disciple sitting around saying, huh, it's the third day. Maybe we ought to go take a look. What could it hurt? Wouldn't you think that? Wouldn't anybody, I mean, you know, he's a third day, third day, third day, he's dead. It's a third day. Well, maybe we gotta go look.

Nobody says anything. In fact, they do not expect it at all. They don't even think of it. In fact, you notice the very last line of what the angel says, he's tweaking. He says, he did tell you about this. And they still don't get it. They say, what, what, what? Now, why would Mark write that? about this. And they still don't get it. What?

What? Now, why would Mark write that? He wouldn't have made it up. But here's the point. It was as inconceivable. The resurrection was as inconceivable as impossible for them to believe as it is for us. For different reasons.

Now, the Greeks did not believe in resurrection because the Greek worldview said, well, salvation is liberation of the soul from the body, so there's absolutely no way that resurrection would be part of salvation. And the Jews, some of the Jews, believed in a future general resurrection when the entire world was renewed, but had no concept of an individual rising from the dead. And see, now, what I'm trying to get you to see, if you have doubts about the resurrection of Jesus, if you just say, oh, it's a nice symbol,

but we can't believe it really happened. So what Mark's trying to get you to think of is this, CS Lewis says, we tend today to be guilty of what he called chronological snobbery. It was chronological snobbery. It's saying, well, you know, those primitive people, you know, they were credulous, but you see, we can't believe in that sort of thing today. They couldn't believe in it either.

For different reasons. Look at the Jews. Jews were the last people in those days. And even today, the last people in the face of the earth to worship a human being as God. The concept that a human being could be the resurrected from the dead's son of God was just absolutely impossible for their worldview. It was impossible for their worldview, but they did believe it.

Why? You say, well, how could they have believed? It was impossible for their worldview, though it's different than yours. It was impossible for them to believe this for you to believe. But they believed it. Why? Because they let the evidence challenge their worldview.

See, what I'm afraid a lot of modern people are doing is they're just being intellectually lazy. They're saying, well, you know, our worldview doesn't make it possible to believe that. They did, no, it wasn't possible for them either. Well, then why do they believe it because they let, they had the intellectual integrity to let the evidence challenge their worldview? Do you? Do you? You have to come up with a historically possible alternate explanation for this little group exploding and changing the world when no other group did. You have to come up with an explanation for why hundreds and hundreds of people said they actually saw Him and why it changed their lives and spent the rest of their life preaching

it and then dying happily for it. Huh? You got one? See first of all, this is a challenge for your mind. Secondly, though, the resurrection is a word of grace for the heart. Look at this wonderful word. Tell his disciples and Peter, he is going ahead of you into Galilee where you will see him. Do you see what a word of grace that is? Okay, if you want to get understand why it's such a word of grace, consider what he didn't

say. He didn't say, you tell those faithless backstabbing cowards that I might see them if they grouvel and they better grouvel. If they have any hope of me reinstating them into the movement. Actually, that's perfectly warranted. You know what they did to him. But instead, here's what he's saying. He does not work the way you and I work.

Jesus does not work the way you and I work. What we say to people is, if you faithless backstabbing person, if you repent, I might love and forgive you. But Jesus says, I love and forgive you to make it possible for you to repent. What does he see what he's saying? He says, I will see you. He says, I'm going ahead of you. I've got my movement.

I want you part of my movement. He's forgiving them before they've repented. He's forgiving them so they can repent. There's a word of grace. There's a word of grace, but there's a bigger word of grace in this word of grace. You see what it is? Even bigger? It's the word Peter.

Why does he mention Peter all by himself? You know, there's a bunch of disciples. Why does he say, Tell the disciples and Peter. Why that? You know why. You know why. Because we've seen the story. That little word, that little addition, is

pastorally practical and theologically profound. It's pastorally practical because imagine, what if the message had just been, go tell the disciples to meet me in Galilee? I wouldn't have seen them in Galilee. If that's all, then Jesus, you know, that Jesus makes that message and the message comes to the disciples and they're all sitting around along with Peter and the message is Jesus

wants to see you in Galilee. And you know what Peter would have said? He would have said, you guys go, that can't be me. Not after what I've done, mirror what he did. What he did was a lot worse than what anybody else did. But you see Jesus specifically says, I have loving plans for my disciples and that means you too, Peter, you jerk." See, that's what he's saying. And that means you too. But you see, it's passively practical, but it's theologically profound because we talked

about this about a month ago. Look, here's what Jesus is saying. Peter ends up becoming the biggest leader, the head leader, right? Why? When he was the biggest screw up. But here's the theological profundity of the gospel. Because his screw up was the biggest, his repentance will be the deepest,

and his grasp of grace will be the greatest, and that will make him the most qualified person to be a leader in Jesus' movement. Now that is really weird. That is not the way the world works at all, but it's the way the kingdom of Jesus works, it's the way the kingdom of grace works. Here's why.

Religion understands that salvation is by strength. Hi, I'm Tim Keller. You know, there is no greater joy and hope possible than that which comes from the belief that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13 verse 4, although Christ was crucified in weakness, he now lives by the power of God.

If you grasp this life altering fact of history, then even if you find things going dark in your life, this hope becomes a light for you when all other lights go out. With Easter approaching, I want you to know the hope that stays with you no matter the circumstance, the hope that comes from the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In my book, which is entitled, Hope in Times of Fear, the resurrection and the meaning of Easter, you'll find why the true meaning of Easter is transformative and how it gives us unclenchable hope and joy even when we face

the trials and difficulties of this life which can be considerable. Hope and times of fear is our thank you for your gift this month to help gospel and life reach more people with the hope and joy of Christ's love. You can request your copy today by going to gospelandlife.com slash give. That is gospelandlife.com slash give. Thank you so much for your generosity. And as we prepare to reflect on the amazing love of Christ, demonstrated when he went to the cross to save us,

I pray you will find renewed hope and comfort in the historical fact of his resurrection. I'm saved if I'm good, I'm saved if I'm Marley, and spiritually strong, and I'm saved to the degree that I'm strong and I live up to standards, right? And in that view, failure and repentance disrupts the flow of God's power into to standards, right? And in that view, failure and repentance disrupts the flow of God's power into your life, right? Because salvation is for the strong,

and you've just been weak, and that disrupts. You know, repentance and failure is episodic and traumatic, and it disrupts the flow of God's power into your life. But the gospel says, you've got got all wrong. All wrong. Because the gospel says, salvation is by grace, not by your works. Salvation came through the weakness of Jesus Christ, dying for you on the cross. And salvation of Jesus is received when you admit your weak and when you admit your inability

and when you admit you need a savior. And if that's the case, then repentance and failure enhances. Repentance after failure enhances the flow of God's power in your life. Why? How? Okay. We hate admitting that we failed. We do everything we possibly can to avoid it.

We say, well, if you had my mother or my father or my, you know, I didn't have, you know, or if you had my situation or you had, we blame people, we do everything we possibly can. We just do everything we can other than repent. Everything we can other than to say, I'm a failure and take response to, I'm a moral spiritual, personal failure. You know why? Because it feels like a death. And it is a death.

But if you let your failure drive you deeper into the gospel, it becomes a resurrection. If you let your failure drive you into the gospel that says, you're saved not by your work and your past, but by Christ's work and Christ's past, then you know what happens? You know why it becomes a resurrection? It drives you deeper into the gospel, which means you come to see more than ever the

costliness of his love, the radicalness of his grace. You see your own flaws, but you also see how infallibly and infinitely and endlessly you are loved. And what that means, it makes you humbler and bolder at the same time. Nothing else does that. It gives you greater self-knowledge and greater self-forgetful. Nothing else does that. And on and on and on, you grow and grow and grow because the biggest repenters are the

biggest lovers. And the best leaders and the best counselors and the best parents and the best children and the best everything. Isn't that radical? It's a word of grace. And it comes at the resurrection because what's the resurrection means? It means your sins are forgiven. You know, when a criminal is put into jail and completes a sentence, fully, fully, fully

satisfies the sentence, so that the law has no more claim on him, he walks out free. Jesus Christ came to pay the penalty for our sins. It was a huge penalty, it was a huge sentence, but he must have satisfied it fully. You know why? Because in Easter Sunday, he walked out free. And that's God's way of stamping paid in full right across the history so that nobody can miss it. And because Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, God can come to you with a word of

grace saying, Peter, the biggest foul up, the biggest screw up, the biggest death will lead to the greatest resurrection. So if you take the word for your mind and let it challenge your worldview, and if you take the word for your heart and let it soften and change your heart, now finally there's a word of mission that will reshape the whole way in which you live in the world. And in fact there's two little words if you look at them. There's don't be alarmed and go. Don't be alarmed and go, go, go, go, tell people about the resurrection.

Go and communicate in every way about the resurrection. Don't be afraid and go. And you know what this means? It means if you understand the resurrection, it gives you freedom from the world and freedom for the world. Freedom from the world and freedom from the world and freedom from the world and freedom from the world. What do I mean?

Well, on the freedom from the world, here's what I mean. Why is it so hard to face suffering? Why is it so hard to face death? Why is it so hard to face a death of loved ones? Why is it so hard to face disabling and disease and physical ailments that keep you from being able to do what you used to be able to do? Why is it so hard sometimes to do the right thing

when you know it's going to cost you, cost you money, cost you reputation, maybe even cost you your life? There's many places in this world, and there's many places in history where in order to do the right thing knew that it was going to cost people their lives. You know why it's so hard to do the right thing when it's going to cost you? You know why it's so hard to face the problems of this world because we think this broken world is the only world we're ever going to have. We feel like this money is the only money we're ever

going to have, this body is the only body we're ever gonna have, but the doctrine of the resurrection doesn't just say, oh someday, you'll go to heaven and get consolation for all the things you've lost here. The doctrine of the resurrection is that God is gonna renew this material world, which means we're gonna get back all the things we lost. We're gonna get the things we never had, this material world.

Johnny Erickson, I think about her at every Easter. She was a young Christian woman who was in an accident when she was 18 and she's now a quadriplegic and she's paralyzed under the neck down. And she has to go to church in a wheelchair. And when she was still trying to come to grips with this horrible accident, she would go to church and she was a Piscopalian. Now the problem with being a Piscopalian and being in a wheelchair, she found,

was that at certain point in a Piscopalian service every week, the priest called everyone to kneel. And that just drove home to her the fact that she was in a wheelchair. And every time the priest would call people to kneel and she couldn't do it, she would burst into tears. And you know, it was really terrible. She was on the verge of having to become a Presbyterian.

But Easter saved her from being a Presbyterian, a fate worse than death, I'm sure. Because one day, the priest called her buddy to Neil and she was about the burst into tears. And then for some reason, she actually prayed the prayer but heel, and she was about the burst of tears, and then for some reason she actually prayed the prayer, but he was praying, and was about the resurrection, and suddenly it hit her. And in her book she says this, I suddenly realized that when I get to the wedding feast of the Lamb, the first thing I'll be able to do on my resurrected legs is to drop down on grateful

glorified knees and kneel quietly before the feet of Jesus. And then I'm going to get on my feet and I'm going to dance. And then she adds, can you imagine the hope that the resurrection gives someone who's spinal cord injured like me? Can you imagine the hope that this gives someone who's just manic depressive. No religion, no other philosophy, other than biblical faith, promises us new bodies, not just new minds and hearts, only in the gospel of Jesus Christ who people hurting like me find such enormous hope to live.

If you can't kneel or you can't dance and you long to dance in the resurrection, you'll dance perfectly. If you're lonely in the resurrection, you'll dance perfectly. If you're lonely in the resurrection, you'll have love perfectly. And if you're empty in the resurrection, you'll be half-satiation perfectly. And if you know that this is not the only world, this is not the only body,

this is not the only life you're ever gonna have, you're gonna have a perfect real life, this kind of life, concrete life. Who cares what people do to you? If somebody comes and says, if you do the right thing, I'm going to kill you, you can spit in their eye. Why? Because of the resurrection.

You can quote George Herbert poems to him. You can say, death used to be an executioner, but the gospel has made him for me just a gardener. Spare not, do thy worst. All thou canst do is make me better than I was before. Come on, death, the lower you lay me, the higher you'll raise me. You're free from this life in a way, and you can be brave, and you can make risks, and you can face the worst thing, even life in a way, and you can be brave and you can make risks and you can face the worst

thing even in life in a wheelchair. With joy, with hope. So first of all, it gives you freedom from the world. It really changes your whole approach, but then it gives you freedom for the world. What do I mean by that? The resurrection proves that God loves this world, this world. Every other religion conceives a salvation as escape from this material world. Your soul goes off to heaven or you go off into another realm of consciousness or something like that.

The resurrection proves that God doesn't just want to save souls with bodies. He doesn't want to just save the spiritual but the physical. That God must hate disease and he must hate poverty, he must hate hungry, he must hate death. And because he hates them, the resurrection proves that he does. We can start working against them. That's the reason we have an Easter sacrificial offering on Easter. That's the reason we put our money into the needs of the poor and the hungry at Easter. Because Easter means this world, this material world matters.

And I'm afraid from the world, four of the world. Martin Luther was one sast. Do you understand this? Listen, Martin Luther was one sast. If you knew Jesus Christ was coming back tomorrow, what would you do? And you know what he said? I'd plan a tree.

Think of how well it would do. See, you know the reason why you and I would never answer that. You know, that's not where your mind was going, was it? Because you don't understand ordinary life is what's going to be redeemed. There is nothing better than ordinary life except it's always going away and it's always solving a part in it. What is the word? Food and chairs by the fire and hugs and dancing and oceans and mountains. This world, God loves it so much that He gave His only Son so it could be redeemed and

made perfect. And that's what's in store for us. Can you live with the practical love for the needs of people and the practical freedom to give of yourself to those needs of people that the resurrection brings? Do you believe it really happened? Or do you think it's just a nice symbol? Can you imagine the preachers of the early church going out into the cities, the highways and byways and preaching to all the poor in the slaves which they did and

saying this? Let me tell you about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It didn't really happen, but it's a wonderful symbol of how good triumphs over evil. So let's be nice to each other. And can you imagine the slaves and the poor of the city saying, this is just what I need to lift me up above my life of grinding poverty and oppression. That's be nice to each other. No. Of course they didn't preach like that. That would never have happened.

That never would have changed their lives. And that's not what they said. Here's what the first preacher said. They said, we saw him. We touched him. And that proves that into this broken world has come the power of God and somebody is going to put everything right. So fight the brokenness of this world and hope and relax Because everything's going to be all right. Let's pray.

Our Father, we ask that you'd help us take Easter into the center of our lives and let it change us. Re-shape the way we understand our sin, reshape the way we understand, suffering, reshape the way we look at the needs of people around us, give us the life-changing dynamic of belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ we ask today and Jesus name we ask for it amen.

Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller. If you're encouraged by this podcast, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life monthly partner. Your partnership helps more people access this resource. Just visit gospel and life.com slash partner to learn more. This month's sermons were recorded in 2006 and 2007. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. you