Hello, you're listening to Second City Sermons,
a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown,
Harrisburg. This epiphany in Lent, we're back
in the Gospels, specifically the Gospel of Mark.
We are seeing the revelation of God in Jesus.
Mark is showing us the true King becomes a servant
for us. He says right at the heart, the Son of
Man came not to be served, but to serve and to
give his life as a ransom for many. And Mark
is nearly always asking his audience, what do
you make of that? So, what do you make of this
good news? We'd love to meet you and we hope
you'll consider coming and joining with us each
Sunday morning at 10 a .m. in the heart of Midtown
Harrisburg. You can find us online at secondcitychurch
.org and on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
We hope you enjoy this sermon. God bless. Let's
pray. Lord, we bless you this morning. We are
so glad to be in your house and to hear again
this central story to our faith that the tomb
is empty. Jesus, you conquered death, you conquered
sin, you conquered Satan by rising from the from
the dead. The very curse that is upon humanity
on this earth because of sin, you have reversed
because of righteousness. The righteous one dying
for the unrighteous. God, I pray their hearts
to be lifted up in astonishment and amazement
that maybe even like these women we might have
a degree of holy fear and awe, wonder at what
God has done. God bless us now today as we contemplate
this story again, story of all stories, the risen
Christ in whose name we pray. Amen. All right
Some of you may know that there has been some
controversy Around the new Snow White movie and
you are all thinking right now. Why is he starting
a Easter sermon like that? Well, I hope it I
hope it'll eventually make sense. We'll see It's
true. There's some controversy around it. It
had a budget of 218 million and it only Made
42 million its opening weekend sad It's almost
certainly going to be a financial flop. Rotten
tomatoes, for those of you who are abreast of
these things, currently it's at 39%. The IMBD
rating is 1 .6 out of 10. That's actually less
than half of rotten tomatoes. And Google has
it at 6%. Poor casting choices. These are some
of the reasons politically motivated CGI characters
harmful racial stereotypes It's too simplistic.
It's too predictable. It lacks suspense. It lacked
emotional depth It seems as though the controversy
was mostly around people saying it's just so
bad But not like a bad evil way, you know just
bad Poorly done and I don't know. I didn't see
it. I don't I don't know Okay. We did though,
a couple weeks ago we were down in Richmond,
Virginia. We were down there for my niece's bridal
shower and we were hanging out with some friends
and one of our friends went to go see it with
her daughter and they loved it. And she had a
theory about why it's gotten such bad reviews.
I thought it was kind of interesting. So I'm
always thinking like, what can I share in a sermon?
I put this one away. And she said, you know,
I don't know if it's so bad or if we just live
in a world where you can review anything and
we are so polarized that we take any and every
opportunity, just lambast anything we do not
like or doesn't fit into our narrative or whatever
you have you. And so she was saying, you know,
I'm not sure that it's so much of a reflection
of something so poorly done as rather, it's the
poor state of people. That in fact, we are bad.
To be honest. don't know By the way, there's
controversy because it's so bad And I don't know
if that has to do with how bad the movie is or
just how bad we are but it's bad Some of you
know that the original Snow White and the seven
dwarves Came out in the year 1937 it actually
came out in December right before Christmas they
knew all the way back when when to release certain
things. Three months prior to that, another great,
maybe the greatest fantasy was released. The
book The Hobbit by J .R .R. Tolkien came out
just months apart, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
and the Hobbit. We know that Snow White was released
actually in Great Britain in 1938 and Tolkien
went to go see it. and he went to go see it with
his good buddy, C .S. Lewis, and went to go see
Snow White together when it was released in England.
I would have loved to have just watched them
watch it. I'll just say this, they didn't really
like it. Lewis wrote this, dwarves ought to be
ugly, of course, but not that way. He said of
Snow White, they had bloated, drunken, low -comedy
faces. I like those little guys. Sounds a little
bit like a Reddit review. But keep in mind, these
were the authorities of fantasy. Tolkien, he
used words like loathing, vulgarity, corruption,
disgust, nausea to describe Snow White. Now,
writing about Walt Disney particularly, he said
that he was hopelessly corrupted. I'm going to
get it together here. He wrote, though in most
of the pictures proceeding from his studios,
There are admirable or charming passages. The
effect of them, of all of them to me is disgusting.
Some of them have given me nausea. Oh dear me,
I got to get together now. One of the articles
that I read, this wasn't a quote, but one of
the articles that I read said that Lewis expressed
surprise, surprise that anything, anything human
could be so bad. And so good. But here's what's
interesting is that their response actually had
to do with the way the bad was portrayed and
the way the good was portrayed. Meaning that
the bad wasn't quite bad enough. And the good
was sort of sloppy good. You know, slapstick
humor of the dwarves, sing -songiness, names
like Dobie. Not honestly good, makeup good. Not
honestly bad, kind of makeup bad. They said that
Disney's took the real bad out of the story.
Tolkien, you may know, wrote an essay. I'd encourage
you to read it in 1947. It's called On Fairy
Stories. And in that, he actually says, the association
of children and fairy stories is an accident
of our domestic history. He says, in some ways,
what's happened is they've domesticized fantasy
and fairy stories, dumbing it down in a way,
making the bad not so bad and the good not so
honestly good. You probably know that Snow White
came from one of the great Stories of the Brothers
Grimm written in 18 or published at least in
1812 And I think you ought to hear actually just
how bad the bad is in the original Snow White
You may remember that That's the stepmother the
witch figure there, you know, she tells the huntsman
bring back the heart in a box That's not the
original. In fact, this is what she says to the
huntsman originally Take Snow White out to the
woods I never want to see her again kill her
and as proof that she is dead bring her lungs
and her liver back to me Yeah, yeah, that's bad
And this is how she dies at the end she doesn't
just fall because of some rocks this is the quote
from the original Then they put a pair of iron
shoes into burning coals. They were brought forth
with tongs and placed before her. She was forced
to step into the red hot shoes and dance until
she fell down dead. You're not laughing now,
are you? That's bad. It's evil. The good, their
critique was, was not good enough. It's not bad
enough. Dopeyness. In the way, they would say
the good was sort of a sappy and a shallow kind
of good. Said you have the Shire against Mordor,
right? It's the word. If Gandalf against Sauron.
I want to suggest to you this warning rather
quickly, but I want to suggest to you that part
of the controversy around Christianity is actually
How much it says the bad is really bad, and how
much it says the good is actually deeply, unbelievably
good. It's a true fantasy. The bad's really bad.
We've been in the Gospel of Mark together as
a church this year, and so I thought, okay, our
resurrection text this morning is gonna be from
Mark, so that's what we have before us. And one
of the things I want you to see is actually this
dynamic of how Mark seeks to really focus in
on on the bad for us, and then how he shows us
the good. And a lot of this, this happens a lot
when we're reading Mark, is he gives these little
details, and often it's in those details that
we actually are able to see well the text. We
see some of these details of the badness first.
First details that we see in our text this morning
is actually, interestingly, sort of the Jewish
observance of the Sabbath, but in the context
of Roman subservience, the Jewish subservience
to the Roman rule. So verse 42, if you look down
there, it says, when evening came, since it was
the day of preparation, that's the day before
Sabbath. It sort of highlights for you, okay,
it's this Jewish context that's taking place,
and then it jumps in. Joseph of Amherstia respected
member of council who was also himself looking
for the kingdom of God. Okay, you have this man
He's living in this Jewish world. He's expectant
for what God would do but says he took courage
Meaning that even though he had a good amount
of power. He's a member of the council. He certainly
had Financial means like you wouldn't believe
he's able to carve this great tomb out of the
rock. He has to take courage because why? He
has to go and ask just simply for a body from
the Roman ruler Roman ruler for a dead body.
What these details are telling us is that the
bad is actually really bad. Why? Because here's
what's going on. The Jewish story was telling
us and told the Jews that really the whole hope
of the world was on this, that God was going
to act through the Jewish story, Jewish people,
for the blessing of the whole world. I mean,
if you go back to the beginning, right? We look
at this this fall actually. If you go back to
Genesis and you see just how awful things are.
You know the original sin of the fathers goes
to the next chapter where a brother kills his
brother and uncles are vying and his power struggles
then things are so bad that the flood happens
and they're so bad they're rebelling against
God the towers is of Babel's bill and then says
I've got to do something about just how bad this
is Abraham I'm gonna bless you and through your
offspring all the nations of the world are going
to be blessed That's the story of Israel that
they are living too. And what happens right here
is we are reminded yet once again that simply
enough, can I just bury this body of this Jewish
rabbi, this teacher, and you know what? You can't
just do that because you are under the heavy
thumb of Rome. It's bad. The hope of the world
seems totally gone. It is bad. But Really, actually,
it's the next details that give us a greater
sense. And that's because the next details, especially
in light of just hearing about Pilate, tells
that an innocent man is dead. So, you know, I
just mentioned that Joseph of Amithea, he goes
to Pilate. But here's an interesting thing. If
you keep Pilate in mind, what you might remember
is that in the Gospel of John and in the Gospel
of Luke, Pilate actually tells us twice in John
and once in Luke, this man's done nothing wrong.
That's the pilot. We're supposed to be remembering
that. And actually in the Gospel of Matthew,
what we learn if we read the Gospel of Matthew,
what we find is that his wife even has this dream
and she says, don't deal with this man. He's
innocent. Don't engage with him. So the pilot
story should be going on in our minds. We're
thinking, here's an innocent man. An innocent
man that is put to death. But actually what's
really kind of wild is that Mark seems to just
beat into us this fact that he is dead. He's
dead. Listen to this again. If you want to look
down, you can follow along with me, but you can
also just listen to it. This is verse 44 and
verse 45. Pilate, again, keep all that in mind,
mentioned twice, the end of 33 and 44, trying
to help us keep in mind Pilate's position on
all this. 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. Now, of
course, there's a way to write that that doesn't
emphasize this, right? He was surprised that
he should have already died and summoning the
centurion, he asked him, was it true? And when
he learned from the centurion that it was true,
what's Mark doing for us? Mark is saying, this
innocent man died. There is no question. Pilate
adopted it. He says, wait, go check it out. He
checks it out. He's like, yes, you have to confirm
it. And Mark again and again is telling us, this
man died. Don't think it's, you know. Figma of
your imagination just wishful thinking some you
know story that's kind of made up The bad is
bad in the Bible the innocent man the only innocent
man goes to death in the Bible We continue on
what we find is The death actually of hopes and
dreams for the kingdom of God, it's kind of interesting
So if we continue on, sorry, in verse 45 and
46, again, remember 43 and 44, you have Pilate
mentioned at the end of 43 and then at the end
of 44 to give context for those. Well, at the
end of 45 and the beginning of 46, Joseph again
is mentioned. He's actually mentioned three times
in the story of Arimathea. So verse 45, you know,
when he learned from the centurion that he was
dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. And Joseph
brought a linen shroud and taken with him. Listen
to this, all the details. He bottled it in shroud,
taking him down, wrapping him in linen shroud.
He laid him in a tomb. Joseph is doing all these
things. He buys the thing, he takes him down,
he wraps him, he lays him. And what do we know
about Joseph? Well, what we'd first heard about
him, he was a respected member of the council
who was looking for the kingdom of God. Which
is to say, That for this man in this little detail
that we're given is that in this story the hopes
are dashed We actually have another great story
in Luke 24 that we're gonna see next week But
the hopes are dashed your greatest desire got
to act in the world, right? It was looking for
the kingdom of God Gone What I'm saying to you
is that this story that we have in the Bible
is not glossing over things It's not dumbing
down the tragedy, the evil, the badness of it
all. It's sort of putting it right in our face.
This is bad. As if to continue on, what we have
here is next is we have the Mary's. Some of you
might have noticed in verse 47, it says Mary
the mother of Joses. The second part of that
says Mary the mother of James. To be honest,
we don't know if those are the same people or
not. They're the Marys. There's quite a few Marys
in the story. If you're really interested, I
shouldn't get into it. The mother in 47, that
word is not necessarily there. It's kind of debated.
I'm not going to get into that. Here's the point
with the Marys. They prepare these embalming
spices. Why are they doing this? Why would they
do this? But because the body is going to stink.
There's no question in their mind that their
great loved one, who they spent all these years
with, Mary, her son, who heard the angel Gabriel
long ago, say what God was going to do in and
through her, preparing spices, because her son's
body is going to rot. There is no glossing over
the evil, the bad, the fact of death, the effect
of sin in this world. It doesn't happen in this
story. Of course, there's also a theological
description that's taking place in all of this.
The evil in the world and the sin of the world
are so bad that the innocent must die. That the
God man, right, proclaimed to Mary long ago,
must actually be put inside a tomb. Must expire
Your sin demands the very death of God That's
how bad it is so wrong it is And I would guess
that today there may be some of you who Don't
think much of the Christian story. Maybe maybe
you don't buy it Just just allow this this little
bit to challenge you today That at least Christianity
doesn't gloss over the ugly Because you all know
I know how bad this world is So fraught with
not just not just wars between countries but
wars in our hearts wars in our families We know
how ugly the world is Christianity doesn't pass
over that as though it's nothing Now, here is
the very death of God, how wrong the world really
is. But it is also in this context that the good
shines. That the good is not a good of slapstick
humor and dopey dwarves and all that. If this
story tells us how bad the bad is, it is also
so deeply concerned with how much we know the
good. You know, your Bibles seem to have the
turning point in chapter 16, verse 1. That doesn't
seem to fit as well, I don't think. I think it
should start in verse 2, okay? So let me just
read to you just the beginning of verse 2. Actually,
yeah, let me read to you most of verse 2. And
very early, on the first day of the week, when
the sun had risen, Did you get that just just
those few little things very early? first day
of the week When the Sun had risen it is almost
as though you're saying mark himself is saying
wait a sec You thought You thought the bad is
just gonna gonna make it You thought that it
was just gonna be always as bad as you have always
experienced Something is about to happen I mean,
just these details that Mark gives us almost
want us to go, wait, what's going on? Something
new is breaking in. The embalming spices aren't
needed. And then consider the next deal, the
stone. It's almost as though Mark again is saying,
wait, something is happening. Never expected.
It's the impossible. Verse three and four. And
they were saying to one another, You know the
sort of things you say when you walk along the
side of the road Who will roll away the stone
for the tomb? In a sense of how grand it was
and how secure it was Verse four and looking
up they saw the stone had been rolled back and
Mark wants you to see just how good it is and
how wild it is and how unexpected Expected it
is it was very large What a simple statement.
You would have never guessed it. You'd have never
guessed it. It was very large. Something new
is breaking in. The impossible is happening.
The good is beyond what we would imagine. And
then there's the young man. Verse five, entering
the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the
right side dressed in a white robe and they were
alarmed. which I just thought is so wild. It's
almost like the good is so good that he's peaceful
about it. And he said to them, do not be alarmed.
You seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified.
He has risen. He's not here. See the place where
they laid him. The bat, he's crucified. See the
place where they laid him But the good and oh
how good how unexpectedly good he's risen The
tears that were flowing Right the world that
we live in where it just seems incessant the
wrong that happens The evil Empire crushing the
one ever to have lived he's risen he's not here
He's gone ahead you golly Of course trembling
and astonishment and fear grab a hold of them
right of course Here is true fantasy But the
best the best fantasy the bad is not merely a
little bad It's awful horrendous and the good
is oh so beautiful You know the controversy around
us and the resurrection the controversy still
Is that the cross declares to us that things
are even worse than you thought actually I mean
the God man had to become Human and actually
die an innocent death in the worst way possible
on the cross God Himself, that's what sin demanded
the torture and the affliction of God in the
flesh. It's way, I mean this is the offense of
the cross. You are way worse than you think.
Part of its controversy. Of course part of its
controversy is also, also is that the empty tomb
and the cross declare to you how wild, how amazing,
how unimaginably great God's grace is. unbelievable
the stone was large the boy was just sitting
there he is not here he's risen you see if Jesus
didn't die well then maybe God is just shrugging
off evil maybe if he doesn't come he's not thinking
it's much of a big deal you know Maybe we can
have a tame evil stepmother who just puts the
heart in the box. You don't have to face actually
what happened. If Jesus did die, then we can't
do that. We can't shrug things off. You're not
invited. You shouldn't dismiss the trolls. and
the wurakai, right? Or just simply turn a blind
eye to the power hungry, the money grabbers,
people that have hurt you, ways you've hurt others,
the sin that has been inflicted on you and the
sin that you've done to others. You are not invited
to turn a blind eye to that, because God has
not done so. People is evil. We don't have to
dismiss what has happened to us. Jesus had to
die and he did die, then it is God's own declaration
of just how bad things are, how awful the world
really is. But if that's true, as Christianity
says it is, the fact that Jesus rose from the
dead, the fact that he says he is risen, he's
not here, well that changes things too. Because
that actually means that even into this world,
In this world where the Empire is over the people
of God with their heavy thumb Ultimately saying
everything will be alright With you always I
Have control of it all as we saying death cannot
hold me down I've overcome I Will take you safely
to myself if God in Christ raised from the dead.
If He rose from the dead, that is true. That
in the bleakest moments of your life, God is
holding you, saying it will be all right. If
I gave my life for you, if I conquered Satan
and death for you, you are always secure in my
love. Whatever pain cripples you, whatever fear
overcomes you, whatever experience seems to cloud
your judgment. Lord holds you in his hands All
of the bad is truly so bad But God says the good
is beyond your imagination Let me try to wrap
this up So at least some of you now know that
there's controversy around Snow White You all
do now. I've declared it to you. It's true. You
can look it up My guess is that some of you knew
that. Some of you might also know that in Tolkien's
great trilogy, Frodo, the great ring bearer,
leaves with the fellowship. Actually, let me
just ask this. What day do they leave from Rivendell?
December 25th. Interesting. Do you know what
day Frodo is at Mount Doom and destroys the ring?
It's March 25th. That's interesting. Now let
me put those things together for you. March 25th
has been the day for most of the church's history
that the church has celebrated what's called
the Feast of the Annunciation. The Feast of the
Annunciation is the day that we remember actually
Gabriel coming and meeting there with Mary. the
inception of Christ. And in the ancient world,
and actually it's been believed for as long as
we know, well in the ancient world a great prophet
would die actually on the day of his conception.
And so the church for a long, long time celebrated,
it was March 25th. By the way, March 25th was
also the day that for a long time, The new year
began, because the new year began at the day
of Christ's death. Anyway, for many years, people
believed that March 25th was the day of that
first Good Friday long ago. You see, what I'm
saying is that, and you might know this actually,
I hope you, gosh, this is kind of getting to
the nerdy Lewis Tolkien kind of stuff. We've
already gone there, so let's keep going. So if
you know that Tolkien really didn't like actually
he gave Lewis a really hard time for the Narnia
books Because they were too explicit about Who
Jesus is by the way, he's the lion And and he
didn't like how explicitly was he thought fantasy
should be hiding things more But you know what
what Tolkien did is he had not the ring bearer
Who was taking this ring of power, right? which
is the ultimate sign of corruption and how it
corrupt others hearts. But he actually has the
cross bearer carrying this sign of power and
corruption and sin and making his way not up
Mount Doom, but up Mount Calvary. And what does
he do is he crushes it. He destroys it there
on the cross. And how do we know he does that?
Because of the empty tomb. That's it That is
the great fantasy told you that Lewis knew that
I hope you know that and what it makes a great
great story But it tells the truth The true account
of the way the world is and You have to wrestle
with that. Does your accounting of the world?
Taking the consideration how truly awful things
are And yet how deeply beautiful and hopeful
things are. Friends, that is what we have in
Easter. That is what we have in the cross. God's
saying the bad is beyond what you could have
thought. And the good is beyond what you would
ever imagine. That is why we celebrate Easter.
Let me pray for us. Lord God, Heaven. God we
bless you that you are the one who took on Satan's
sin and death perfectly on the cross that you
destroyed the powers of this world That would
weigh us down. It would cause such global catastrophe
Take our hearts and twist them They would cause
the likes of sour men to grab and to destroy
goodness of the world and all the rest Lord how
evil evil is and Yet Lord we are so delighted
that you take that on that you don't brush it
aside You go to the place where evil is most
pronounced a Roman cross and you die there the
innocent one for those who are guilty and You
conquer Satan's sin and death in the resurrection
or we bless you for this this morning. We praise
you. We worship you we adored you and God, I
pray that you lift our hearts to this reality.
God, whether we have been following you for decades
upon decades or whether this morning we're here
and we don't know why we're here and we're not
even sure we like being here, but God, I pray
that you might move in our hearts a little bit
to say, does my account of the world even make
sense of these things? Challenge us with the
cross and the empty tomb this morning. Do this
great work and let's look. We bless you. We say
hallelujah. Praise be to God for the great work
you have done in whose name we pray. Amen. Thank
you for listening to Second City Sermons podcast.
We hope this sermon has encouraged you to worship
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