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All right, so we've been in the book of Mark since the beginning of this calendar year and today is our last

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Sunday in this

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Series, so we're gonna we're gonna jump

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Right in all right, so if you have your Bible go ahead and open up to Mark chapter 16

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And if you don't have a Bible of any sort there's paper ones. There's printed ones out in lobby you can take home

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With you they're free if or you can just download one from any of the digital app stores

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Those work as well. I use those all the time

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We're gonna read Mark 16 goes Matthew Mark Luke John in what's called the New Testament

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We're gonna read eight verses we we have a tradition of just giving the scriptures our full attention

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When we read them together as part of the sermon and one of the ways we do that is by standing together as we are able

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You're also welcome to sit if you are more comfortable doing that but as I read

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Here we go Mark 16 verse

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One says this

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When the Sabbath was over on Saturday night Mary Magdalene Mary the mother of James in Siloam

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Bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus's body

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Very early on the first day of the week that Sunday morning just after sunrise

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They were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb

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But when they looked up they saw that the stone which was very large had been rolled away

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As they entered the tomb they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side and they were alarmed

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Don't be alarmed. He said you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene who was crucified

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He has risen he is not here see the place where they laid him but go tell his disciples and Peter

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He is going ahead of you into Galilee there. You will see him just as he told you

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Trembling and bewildered the women went out and fled from the tomb

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They said nothing to anyone because they were afraid

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Let's pray

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God of every tribe every tongue

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every color every nation

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Every single person and identity I pray

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To you today, and I thank you for the scriptures

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Thank you that we have them that they've persisted throughout the millennia

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I

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Pray that whatever you have for us to learn today that that it would stick that it would become a part of the framework of our faith

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That our faith would become stronger that we would become more like your son Jesus

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Amen, thanks y'all I can have a seat

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Alright so including the day we have spent

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14 Sundays walking through the 16

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Chapters of the gospel of Mark if you were to be a part of a church of what it was considered like an expository

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Verse by verse kind of thing we could have spent

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16 chapters we could have spent two years and going through 16 chapters

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But 14 weeks was still a long time to talk about one book and for 16 chapters

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Mark has been telling us

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The first version of the story of Jesus that we have we've said that many times

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This is the oldest version of the gospel that exists

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And along the way we've been pointing out over and over again how mark is always thinking like an author

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He's intentionally writing things in a certain way putting stories together telling things in a certain order

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He's adding specific details

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He thinks are important for specific reasons he's connecting stories back to their cultural and their ethnic

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identity in their history

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So today

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We could talk about the significance of the spices

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Or the significance of Jesus being in the grave on the Sabbath or we could talk about the stone

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That was in front of the tomb or the kind of tomb or whose tomb is it?

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Was or about the young man dressed in white robes that were only left by mark to assume was an angel

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He doesn't say that it was an angel

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But if all mark does say

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Sticks out to me the most about these eight verses is just how much

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He doesn't say

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Because after everything mark has written

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When we finally get to the resurrection the thing that so much of christianity thinks of as the most important moment

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In our religious history mark gives us only

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Eight verses

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That's it and he ends his book abruptly

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After verse eight if you have a physical bible or even in a digital

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Bible you might see some other verses that are in italics, right?

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Those are verses that scholars agree were added much later

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In large part because they didn't think that mark ended it with long enough of an explanation

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They didn't think he'd said enough apparently mark didn't know what in epilogue was

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Because as often as i've pointed out that mark isn't just a person

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As often as i've pointed out that mark isn't just writing down a random order of events that he's thinking like an author

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Purposely putting things together this is one place where it becomes abundantly obvious that he is not a

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modern

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author

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Because in any modern story there's almost always a what in epilogue

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It's the little bit of the story that ties up the loose ends the bit that resolves the dangling participles the part

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That helps you process the aftermath of the climactic moments of the story that you just read saw

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Or experience and it is usually longer than eight verses

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Think about it

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What happens at the end of star wars a new hope we see luke and han receiving?

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medals

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From leah standing next to an empty-handed

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Handed chubaca. I don't know. He did all the same stuff. Why didn't he get a medal?

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At the end of harry potter we find out if no spoilers if I know

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That's why I I have a pause look my wife my wife my lovely beauty

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I have it if harry is married we find out if he has kids

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wink wink

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Even as something as silly as a movie like elf you find out that buddy's dad opens a new publishing house

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That he publishes buddy's story that it becomes a bestseller that jovi and buddy have a child together

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You find out all of this resolving information that makes you feel good about what comes after epilogue tell the story

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after the story

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Even in the other gospels that came after mark matthew gives 20 verses

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To describe what came next luke the longest of all the gospels gives us 53

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Verses talking about what happened after the crucifixion from the resurrection on

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John the latest one written the youngest gospel that we have

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gives 55 verses

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He goes into the most detail about events and things that happened after the death

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Jesus they understood

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Apparently the value of an epilogue, but mark

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All together mark uses 77 verses to describe jesus as arrest trial torture death and burial

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But the resurrection gets eight

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now

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I

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Further like really critical people in the room because this would be me so I put it in my notes to say this

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I know that mark didn't use verses

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Mark didn't use verses right we added the verse numbers later

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But I think you get the point that verses are marked out based on the amount of words

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That are there mark just used

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far fewer words to end

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the story than anybody

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else

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I

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I'm sure there's a list of

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Legitimate scholarly and theological reasons that we could go through. I think the one that I want to focus on

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fits with how mark

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wrote

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the rest of his book

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Because all of mark's gospel has been like this we've said it before this freight train

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That was headed

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towards a crash

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Mark's gospel is a

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Disaster

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Every page is just picking up steam mark is intentionally building the tension

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naming

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The stakes over and over with every story mark is is he's making it more and more obvious that jesus knows

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Stoking the fire shoveling more coal

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into the engine

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Chapter after chapter mark is building up to one thing

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And it sounds funny saying it, but it's not the resurrection

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At least it's not the resurrection on its own

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Because by the time we read about the resurrection mark treats it almost like an afterthought

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Listen there is no christianity without the resurrection. I'm not minimizing the resurrection today is resurrection

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Sunday christ is risen

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He is risen indeed on easter. We celebrate the resurrection of jesus the resurrection is critical to our faith

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period but there is no resurrection without a

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crucifixion

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So mark spends chapter after chapter building up to jesus being arrested and then

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77 verses on the brutality of what they did to him

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Only eight verses on what came next

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Because as miraculous as the resurrection is stay with me here

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Jesus had already answered the question can someone be raised from the dead

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Mark shows jesus doing that

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He brought gyrus his daughter back to life in the book of john we see john jesus bringing lazarus

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Back to life after three on the days on the fourth day even

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So this may be surprising to you, but resurrection is not the biggest surprise here

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Mark spent so much time on what leads up to the cross and so little time on what came after because mark

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Doesn't want us to forget just how stunning it is that god would let himself be killed on a cross

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There's no long drawn out epilogue after the cross because epilogues are designed to be orienting

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To soften the emotional landing after the climax, but mark doesn't want us coming down so easily

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from the shock of what we should be feeling

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Because this is shocking

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It is scandalous it borders on the ridiculous

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Even the impossible the god would allow the humans that he created to murder him

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Maybe that doesn't sink in for us because we're 2 000 years removed and we didn't see this happen

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We have no point of reference some of us have seen a fight some of us have been in one some of us maybe have seen

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Or experienced some level of hurt physical harm. Maybe some of us have even seen movies that depict torture

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But when we think of jesus, we don't see the

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Trauma we think of the triumph and we forget the pain

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That when jesus was handed over pilot had him flogged

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Flogged means wit

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His hands would have been tied to a post about the pain of the cross

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Flogged means wit his hands would have been tied to a post above his head to stretch out his body

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And then a whip that was made of strips of leather with bone and bits of lead embedded in the ends would have been

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Slapped across his back and then yanked back towards the person holding it

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Slicing skin tearing it away from him

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Cutting his back his sides his legs rome designed these whips first to cut then to tear and also to bruise

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Whatever didn't rip apart after only a few lashes jesus's body would have been bleeding profusely

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His skin there's no other way to describe it it would have been ribboned

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Like putting a piece of paper through a shredder

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His muscles bruised and cut his body before it ever touched the wood of a cross would have already been unrecognizable

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It is historical fact that victims of roman flogging rarely survived past the flogging

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Somehow jesus did so they took this king of the jews and they formed for him a crown made of thorns and they stabbed it into his scalp

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Pressing it down across his head thorns pushing their way between the skin and his skull

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At this point he would have been blinded by his own blood by his own sweat and because he couldn't see them verse 19 says that they struck him on the head with a staff they spit on him they mocked him

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They covered his bleeding and torn up back with a purple robe pretending that he was royal they fell on their knees and they were all covered in blood

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They covered his bleeding and torn up back with a purple robe pretending that he was royal they fell on their knees and they pledged their allegiance to him paying homage and worshiping this king of the jews

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Then in the same way that all earthly power ends just as the robe was fusing with his body they ripped it from his bloodied and decimated back

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They'd beaten him so badly mark tells us that he couldn't carry his own cross our mindset these days we think of something like this oh that doesn't look too bad

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Back then most likely it would have just been the crossbar at the top weighing anywhere from 75 to 150 pounds we think of strong jesus

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Unable to carry one railroad tie so a stranger was forced to carry it for him

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As jesus staggered to the place that he would die when they got to the place called galgotha they stretched out his arms they hammered nails through each of his wrists they drove a nail through both of his feet tacking them together

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Then they stood the cross up vertically now jesus was being crucified and he hung from his wounds for hours

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Can you imagine because if he slouched all of the weight would have been on the nails through his wrists I have arthritis in my wrists it hurts bad enough when I just bump it the wrong way

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Imagining hanging from something that's going through it if he wanted to push himself up the weight of his body is now on a single nail that's going through both of his feet

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Crucifixion would put your body in such a position that if you slouched if you just hung your rib cage couldn't expand and correct uh contract correctly so you couldn't breathe

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You couldn't breathe in and out like you're supposed to and so jesus wanted to breathe he had to pull himself up he had to push up on the pain that was in his feet

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So ultimately when his arms fatigued and his body cramped as every muscle seized and gave out jesus was suffocating under the weight of his own body

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Until his medically speaking until his heart finally just gave out this is what jesus had told them over and over would happen that I will go and I will die

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This unbelievable event and the absolute shock that comes with it the utter and complete stunning nature of jesus dying on a cross mark doesn't want us to forget

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Doesn't want to dilute the brutality of the crucifixion with the beauty of the resurrection they both have their place but lest we forget what he went through

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I think that's why he's so brief in his description of the resurrection because the resurrection took only a moment think about it the resurrection took a moment

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But his suffering was drawn out the good news of jesus christ is told by the gospel according to mark is that jesus rose from the dead and because his suffering was so total

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That his blood his work on the cross fully covers the sins of all the world that's the good news

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And now my epilogue

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Some of you may be familiar with the comedian named mike brubiglia

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He has this video that's floating around the internet right now that that I love because I'm an on time person

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And he says you know hey are there any late people and they go and he says see what what late people don't understand is that us on time people hate you

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I don't hate you I don't hate anybody

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But he says he says and here's why because being on time is so early it's so easy all you have to do is be early and early lasts for hours

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And being on time only lasts a moment and being late lasts forever and as he finishes it people walk into the show and he goes oh hey welcome to the show we were just talking about you

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So here's we close let me do it briefly as mark does and let me do what pastors do and let me spiritualize that story I just told you

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So if market said something similar he might have put it this way Jesus suffered for hours but the resurrection only lasted a moment but the salvation that it offers lasts forever

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So today I hope that this is something that you consider that you think about don't be late Jesus is here let's pray

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Jesus I thank you for what you did on the cross gosh it's so easy to forget so easy to boil it down to something that I wear around my neck or something that hangs on a wall behind me

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Remind us in a way that is not meant to leave us in a state of depression but in a way that leads us to feel a sense of gratefulness for everything that you were everything you did and everything that you are

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Because you bore the weight of the world you suffocated under it but now you have risen you have risen indeed and you dwell within your people in your name we pray amen