From Suffering to Glory

--- Welcome to our Women's Bible Study on the Book of Mark, which we are calling Following Jesus. Today we're going to be finishing the gospel by going through chapters 15 and 16. In last week's lesson, we really focused on the emotional suffering of Jesus, right? The betrayal, the abandonment, and the rejection. And so chapter 15 will now describe a great deal of physical suffering and pain. But before we even get to that, there is another element that I want to point out to us, another type of suffering and pain, and that is the suffering and pain of injustice. That he will suffer and that we also suffer. When things are not right in the world, okay, there was no real legal justice that was being carried out here. There was just vengeance on the part of the Jewish leaders and politics on the part of Rome. Do you know how frustrating that is when things are unfair? Things going around you are unfair. It is a certain additional part of suffering and pain. So I'm going to put our roadmap up for today. Again, we're going to use sort of geographical locations to go through our lesson. And we're going to be in Pilate's palace, and then Golgotha, and then at the tomb, and then we're going to end with the Great Commission. When I was thinking about the suffering that Jesus went through, we know that glory waits on the other side. Suffering is always followed by glory. And so I've decided to title this lesson, From Suffering to Glory. And that is really what we're going to experience. So let's start in chapter 15, verse 1. And as soon as it was morning, remember in our last lesson, the rooster had crowed twice. So we're at morning here. The chief priest held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council, and they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate. Now Mark does not explain in his letter who Pilate is, but remember predominantly he was writing this for Roman hearers. They knew who Pilate was. They knew that he was the governor over this area or the procurator or prefect, if you will. And he was usually in Jerusalem during the Passover to sort of keep the peace. And when the Jewish leaders brought Jesus to Pilate, they did not bring him because of a charge of blasphemy, which is what they had said. You're blaspheming, saying you are the son of God. That's not why they brought him. The Roman procurator would not have cared a whit about their religious issues. They brought Jesus to Pilate on charges of treason against Rome because he, they said, he said he's the king of the Jews. Well, that's something that Pilate could get traction with. So verse two, and Pilate asked him, are you the king of the Jews? And he answered him, you have said so. And the chief priest accused him of many things. And Pilate again asked him, have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you? But Jesus made no further answer so that Pilate was amazed. And we learn here a little bit about what's going on in Pilate's head, because this situation with Jesus being brought to him is super inconvenient for him. He has nothing to gain and some things to lose. He probably would rather have never dealt with this at all. Pilate repeatedly says in here that he finds no fault with Jesus. Okay. Now what Mark doesn't tell us, but what we learned from Luke is at this point, Pilate said, when Pilate found out that Jesus was from Galilee, he's like, oh, that's Herod's problem. And so he offloaded Jesus off to Herod. We read nothing about that in here, but that happened. So Jesus goes off to Herod, Herod finds nothing wrong, sends him back to Pilate. Okay. But what's interesting is I want to tell you what Luke said about that. Look at this, I'll put it on the screen. Luke 23, 12, and Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day for before this, they had been at enmity with each other. Isn't that fascinating how a common foe or a common problem creates a connection. So Pilate and Herod became friends over this. Interesting. But now Pilate had to deal with Jesus because Herod had sent him back and he still has his problem. But he, I think that Pilate felt like he sort of had an ace up his sleeve because he had cultivated this little routine during Passover of giving the Jews a favor. And so he was going to play that card and see if he couldn't just like get Jesus to walk off by doing that. Look at verse five. Now at the feast, he used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked. And among the rebels in prison who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas. And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them. And he answered them saying, Oh, do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews? Because that would solve his problems. And he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priest had delivered him up. But the chief priest stirred up the crowd to have him released for them Barabbas instead. And Pilate again said to them, well, then what should I do with the man that you call the King of the Jews? And they cried out, crucify him. And Pilate said to them, why? What evil has he done? And they shouted all the more crucify him. So Pilate wishing to satisfy the crowd because he is only motivation is political, released for them Barabbas. And having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace that is the governor's headquarters. And they called together the whole battalion, which is a very large group of the soldiers. So on top of the emotional suffering and pain, which we went through last week, now we see this, what I call an intellectual suffering and pain because of the injustice and the mockery going on. But then also the physical suffering and pain enters in here as well. Verse 17, they clothed him with a purple cloak and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him and they began to salute him. Hail King of the Jews. And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him. Now, according to both Jewish and Roman customs, that was to be done outside of the city limits, outside of Jerusalem. That's why they led him out. So that takes us to our next geographic location, which is Golgotha, verse 21. And they compelled the pastor by Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus to carry his cross. And it makes me wonder if Alexander and Rufus weren't contemporaries of Mark. And that's why he mentioned they may have been friends, both having lived in Jerusalem. Otherwise, why mention the boys that are, you know, the sons of this guy. And they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull. And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And this may be because, do you remember in our last lesson at the last supper, Jesus had said, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God. And he did not. And they crucified him and divided his gardens among them, casting lots for them to decide what each should take. And I love how Mark organizes the next passage by giving us three time stamps here. And here comes the first one. And it was the third hour when they crucified him. Now the hours begin basically at sunrise. Let's just say six in the morning. So the third hour would have been about nine in the morning. Okay. And the inscription of the charge against him read, the king of the Jews. Usually they would create a placard or something that a criminal would wear describing why he was being crucified, murderer, thief, whatever. But on Jesus' placard, it said, king of the Jews. And with him, they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, oh, you who destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. There's the mockery. So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another saying, he saved others. He cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the king of Israel come down now from the cross that we may see and believe. Remember they always wanted a sign. Those who were crucified with him also reviled him. And here comes our second time stamp that Mark gives us verse 33. And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. So from about noon, until three in the afternoon, there was darkness over the whole land." Now, this wasn't darkness from a sandstorm or from an eclipse or something. This was a miraculous and a mysterious darkness that settled over the whole land. History tells us the people as far away from Egypt experienced this darkness. Now, since it was the Passover, the Jews who knew their history, who were celebrating their history, who were celebrating God's deliverance of them out of Egypt, out of their bondage, bringing them on their journey to the Promised Land, this is on their mind right now. Certainly they should have connected the dots, and many of them probably did, connected the dots, because do you remember what the ninth plague was before the firstborn of Egypt was killed? The ninth plague was darkness for three days. And look what God did here to sort of give this same effect, darkness for three hours before Jesus Christ, the real Passover Lamb, was sacrificed to take the sins, to cover the sins of the people. Isn't that interesting how God did that? I love that Mark gives us that so succinctly. Here comes the third time stamp. At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which means, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Which is a quote from the opening of Psalm 22. Psalm 22 is a lament of someone in great distress and suffering, in injustice at the hands of an enemy. And so Jesus on the cross, he quotes their Psalm, which they would have known very well. And of course, it held an additional meaning for what was going on. But it's this. So this is the ninth hour, the final lap of suffering and pain, separation from the Father while he was bearing the sins of the whole world. And up until this point, Jesus had experienced many things in life. He had a lot of experiences, but there's one thing that he had never, ever, ever experienced in his life. And that is the consequences of sin. He had never sinned. Now, by the time each one of us was a two or a three year old, we had probably experienced the consequences of sin already. We had done something naughty that we weren't supposed to do, and we were beginning to understand, hopefully from our parents, that there was consequences to our sins. Jesus never experienced consequences for his sin. So at this moment, he was suffering now the consequences of sin by bearing the sins of the entire world. And sin separates us from God. So in my Bible reading this week, I was in 2 Corinthians, and I want to show you a scripture that just so perfectly explains this in New Testament words.

So there's that final lap of suffering, bearing the consequences of sin, not just one person's sin, but for the whole world when you have never yourself sinned. Verse 35, and some of the bystanders hearing it said, behold, he's calling Elijah. And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink, saying, wait, let us see whether Elijah will come and take him down. And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. Mark is always very succinct, very direct, very quick in what he says. And so this verse where he says he uttered a loud cry and breathed his last, fascinating. That's just, there it is. He could have said, and he died. But look what God did at that moment that he died. The curtain in the temple was torn. It was rent in two, torn in two. I love that, that as we close this chapter on suffering with breathing his last, it completely opens the door on glory, from suffering to glory, right? Now, we have studied the dynamics of the temple because we went through 1 and 2 Kings Part 1, Solomon and the house of the Lord. And we studied in depth how the temple was set up. And you probably remember that you went into the holy place, and then there was another inner chamber called the most holy place. And what separated those two places? There was a curtain that separated it. Only the high priest went into the most holy place with the sacrifice, but once a year. And now, as Jesus breathed his last, his suffering has ended, his glory has been restored. That is open. He went into that place to pay for the sins of the world. No more priest has to go in with the blood of goats and bulls to pay for our sins. Jesus did it himself. And can you imagine what it was like for those people to discover this miraculous and mysterious tearing of the curtain? What in the world? I want to show you from Hebrews,

And that is the story of salvation. That is the story of our redemption, right there, to see that if anyone hears the message of Jesus Christ and what happened to him, believes that God raised him from the dead, believes that his payment, that he paid for the consequences of my sin is sufficient to cover my sin and ask God to forgive my sins, we can be saved. We can enter into God's family. We may become God's children. We may experience eternal life. We may go from suffering to glory because of this right here. So, verse 39, some people that were there had these spiritual eyes to see, and it says, and when the centurion who stood facing him saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, truly this man was the son of God. There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James, the younger, and Joses, and Salome. When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women who came up with him from Jerusalem. And starting right here, Mark takes some time to really focus on the women, on the ministry of the women, and the message of the women. And I really like this because, remember, we said that John Mark was raised in Jerusalem. His mother Mary's home was one that was frequently visited by Jesus and the disciples, and will be again after the resurrection. And so she, when it says, and many other women who came up from Jerusalem, Mark's mother may have been one of those many other women. He doesn't tell us. But we're going to move on to the third location now on our roadmap. And what I want to point out here is people who took risks to be included in this story. Let's start at verse 42. We're at the tomb. And when evening had come, since it was the day of preparation, that is, the day before Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage, and he went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 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. And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud, and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Joses, saw where he was laid. Now this took a lot of courage on the part of Joseph to approach Pilate and ask these things. Okay, was it wise to come before Pilate and associate yourself with someone who had just been crucified? Was it going to be good for his future on the council, for him to express his allegiance with the body of Jesus? Would Pilate even give him the body? He wasn't family. There was a lot of risks that he took, but Joseph stepped up and moved forward. And I like how Mark tells us, he did. took courage. That was what was going on. That was what God had planted in his heart. And sometimes it takes courage for us to do things that might have a lot of bad ramifications. Just don't even think about it. Just take courage and go move forward. But it also took courage on the part of the women who had followed Joseph to see where he was laid. Think about these women and the courage that they needed. Would they be threatened on the way? Would they even be able to access the body once they came back after the Sabbath? What about the guards? This was not a safe environment for women. But they also took courage and just moved forward and did what God had put in their hearts to do. And I like to think about that. So we're going to start chapter 16. When the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome, brought spices so that they may go and anoint him. And very early 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 as an understatement. Usually they were about two tons. Okay. So this is pushing a couple pickup trucks out of the way. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were 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. Confirming what Jesus had predicted all along, that he would rise on the third day and he would go and meet them up in Galilee. And that's what the messenger said. He's risen. He's not here. He said, see the place where they laid him? You know, it's empty, but go tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him just as he told you. And 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. It's obviously why they would be fearful. Okay. Because in their day, the testimony of women meant nothing. No one would have listened to them. So they've been given a message that no one is going to listen to. So of course they were fearful. But I want to point out again, what Mark told us about the risks that these women took. They were witnesses of the crucifixion. They were there. They were at the cross, 1540. They were witnesses of the burial. They followed Joseph to the burial place in verse 47. They were witnesses of the empty tomb here in 1605. And they were given the message of the resurrection in verse six. Look, no one else got all those things. Nobody else. There was no group of disciples, no one particular person that was able to witness all the same things that this group of women did. Isn't that sweet? I think that that's really precious. But the silence on their part in verse eight was only temporary because Matthew tells us that they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and they ran to tell his disciples. Now, we have 11 more verses to go. And in your Bibles, probably all of your Bibles, there's a heading on top of that that says, some of the earliest manuscripts do not include Mark 16 verses 9 to 20. So we're left to wonder a few things. Were these 11 verses written by Mark? A lot of people say there's different mechanism of writing here. It doesn't sound like Mark. We're left to ask, did someone else add them later? Perhaps a scribe that was copying this and say, this ends too abruptly. I'll borrow a little bit from the other gospel writers and give it a good solid ending. Perhaps. If verse eight was truly the end of Mark's writing in the gospel, why was it so abrupt? Well, he was an abrupt guy. That's true. However, some people think he may have died right at that point. He was martyred. And so that's a possibility. We have a lot of unanswered questions, but here's the point. This longer ending is truly missing from some of the oldest and most reliable manuscripts. However, I like how the ESV writers say, we're going to include it here because its inclusion or its exclusion really has no doctrinal effect if we do it or if we don't. So we're going to read through it. We're going to simply read through it and then wrap up our study. Verse nine. 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. She went and told those who had been with him and they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. 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. Afterwards, he appeared to the 11 themselves as they were reclining at table and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. And he said to them, go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe. In my name, they will cast out demons, they will speak in new tongues, they will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them. They will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover. So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs. So the title that we gave to this entire Bible study was Following Jesus. And as we opened up the book of Mark, what we saw was Jesus offering, inviting those first few disciples, come, follow me, right? And then the title I gave to this last lap, this last session, was From Suffering to Glory. And we end the study with Jesus as example, as a suffering servant, who was then glorified. And so this raises questions for us if we're trying to apply this gospel to our lives. The question that we should be asking ourselves is, are we to follow Jesus in this example of suffering as well? And the answer is yes. Are we to expect glory to follow our suffering as well? And the answer is yes. We also, like Jesus' example, we go from suffering to glory. We experience a lot of suffering in this life. You know, I've pointed out the different types of suffering that we saw Jesus experience in these last two sessions. We talked about the emotional suffering. We talked about the intellectual suffering, which is maybe a weird term, but when things are not fair, when there's injustice going on. And then we talked about the physical suffering. And you know what? We go through those things in life too. But it's a reminder that this is temporary. This is really Peter's account that Mark had written. So what I want to do is I want to end with something that Peter himself wrote in his first letter. I'll put it on the screen for us. First Peter 4, 12 and 13. And what I like about this is he handles these concepts of from suffering to glory. He says, Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings. Look, that's why we answered our question. Yes, we are intended to share in Christ's sufferings. That you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. However that works out in our life, whether his glory is revealed as we pass from this life and go and meet him in glory, or as he meets us in the air, whichever way it happens, we also will go from suffering to glory. So don't be surprised at the trials we face. Don't be surprised at the suffering. We've just studied the suffering servant who went through those things and left us an example to follow. So let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you so much for this book, for enabling us to gather for these 12 weeks and to study this. And Lord, probably thinking about from suffering to glory isn't the most feel-good concept we could ever possibly dig out of scripture, but it's what you show us here in this passage. And so we want to embrace that, and we want to let that be a layer over our lives to understand that as long as our feet are planted on this earth, there is a certain amount of suffering that will go with it. Lord, I pray that you would help us suffer for the kingdom and do it well, knowing, Lord, that our glory awaits us when we meet you, when we go to be with you, Lord. Lord, there's a lot of concepts that we cover. in this book. And I just pray that you would bring to our minds at your pleasure, Lord, the things that we have studied, the things that maybe seven weeks ago meant a lot and we have kind of forgotten. Lord, we trust you to bring those things to our mind when we need them. And we just thank you for the ability to be together and to study your Word. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. ---