Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 16:6
And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.
6. he is risen ] When exactly He had risen no man knoweth, for no man saw. But that it was true did not admit of doubt. When the Apostles Peter and John visited the tomb an hour or so afterwards (Joh 20:3-10), they went in undismayed, but it was empty. The Holy Body was gone! There were no traces of violence. All was order and calm. The linen bandages lay carefully unrolled by themselves. The facecloth that had covered the Face lay not with them. It was folded up in a place in the empty niche by itself. But He was not there. He had risen even as He had said.
behold the place ] where, indeed, He had been laid by kindly hands, but which did not contain Him now.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Mar 16:6-7
He is risen; He is not here.
The words of an angel
Here we have the first gospel sermon preached after the gospel had been finished on the cross, and sealed by the fact of the resurrection. Not a sentence that dropped from the speakers lips by accident; nor are its words mere words that came uppermost, as though some other words might have done as well. They hold the germ of which the preaching of all true evangelists is but the expansion.
I. The first title under which Christ was proclaimed by a messenger from heaven after his crucifixion.
1. Jesus. The name given at the annunciation. Now it is fulfilled. He has saved His people from their sins. Henceforth this name shall be above every name. All through our life in time let us sing with Bernard, This name is sweetness in the mouth, music in the ear, joy in the heart; and all through our life in eternity let us expect to penetrate deeper and deeper into the soul of its beauty, and glory, and meaning.
2. Jesus of Nazareth. A lowly title, despised by men.
3. Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified. Words used among men to express contempt, an angel is proud to use; and the last phrase of degradation which His enemies flung at Him on earth was the first title under which He is proclaimed by a flaming prophet from heaven.
II. The first notice of Christs resurrection. Christs resurrection is-
1. A mystery.
2. A miracle.
3. A victory over death.
4. A fulfilment of His promise. (G. Stanford, D. D.)
The angels words
I. This message brings to us the glad tidings that he who once died for us now lives for us. For the salve of convenience in the presentation of thought, we may be permitted to speak of Christs death as having two aspects in its saving efficacy-a heavenward and an earthward aspect,-and we assert that its power in both directions depends upon the truth that He is risen.
1. The heavenward aspect. Our benefit, in this direction, from the death of Christ, depends on our trust in Him, and not on our ability to explain precisely what His death has done. We know, at any rate, that it has done all that was necessary, and that not only has He died, but also risen again. His resurrection, sanctioned by the seal of law and all the pomp of heaven, gave to His redeeming act the most public and solemn satisfaction.
2. The earthward aspect. He who is our Saviour must be our Saviour every day, and our Saviour in every place; our Saviour from Satan, from the world, and from ourselves. Not only must we, by the heavenward efficacy of His death, have the forgiveness of sins; but, by its earthward efficacy have Him with us as a living presence, ever at work by the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Some time ago the agents of Anti-Christianity placed posters about London, on doors, on walls, and on wooden fences, advertising the question, Will faith in a dead man save you? If, as thus insinuated, the Christian faith is like this, then Christianity is a shock to common sense. Dead Hampden will not take a hand against tyranny; dead Milton will not sing; dead Wellington will not fight; dead Wilberforce will not work for the emancipation of slaves in the Soudan; a dead lawyer will not save you from legal complications; a dead doctor will not save you from the grasp of fever; and just as fantastic, and just as insane, is the conception of salvation by faith in a dead Saviour-a Saviour who is behind eighteen centuries, a Saviour who was crucified but of whom we have been told nothing more. Without the resurrection all the gospel would collapse, as an arch would collapse without the keystone.
II. The grave is the only place where the true seekers of Jesus may not find him.
1. He is not here: this will not apply to heaven.
2. He is not here: this will not apply to any earthly solitude.
3. He is not here: this will not apply to the walks of human life. A Christian may say of his place of business, Here I pass most of my life; this is my souls battlefield; and will Christ leave me to fight my battles alone? Never! Here, in my commercial life, one may say, Christ is with me, quickening my conscience, and holding my soul in life, while I seem to be only dealing with questions of material, colour, and shape; or with distinctions of weight and currency; or with tables of value, or calculations of outlay, or rates of exchange. It is an axiom of sanctified reason and a sovereign article of faith, that Christ most is-where Christ is most wanted; and that wherever I am, if I want Him, and seek Him, He is near to my heart as the sun is to that which it shines upon.
4. He is not here: this will not apply to the worshipping assembly.
5. He is not here: this will not apply to the place where the prodigal stands in his rags and tries to pray, but is speechless; it will not apply to the place where the backslider bemoans himself; it will not apply to the spot where some interceding soul, whose concern for some other soul has risen to the point of intolerable, bursts into the prayer, Lord help me!
6. He is not here: Christ is not in the grave. To think of Christ as among the dead would be to give up faith in Christ. Christ is the life; He cannot, therefore, be among the dead; He must, therefore, be everywhere except in the grave.
III. The seekers of Jesus have nothing to fear, even from that which may look most alarming. When we are overpowered with a sense of the awful other world, let us remember that angels and ministers of grace are all our friends. We and they are under the same Lord, at home in the same heaven, choristers in the same service.
IV. All who know the glad tidings are bound to tell them to others. (G. Stanford, D. D.)
The women at the sepulchre
Very signal and very beautiful was the devotedness of these women. They put to shame the stronger sex.
1. Their faith, it is true, was weak. They cherished no hope of finding Christ alive. They had forgotten His own express prediction.
2. Yet, if there be no faith to admire, there is great love to commend.
3. And then, what zeal was in their love. They well knew how carefully the grave had been closed; but they did not turn back at the prospect of a difficulty which they might justly have reasoned was too much for their strength. Theirs was the love which seems to itself able to break through rocks, though hope might have been perplexed had it been called upon for a reason.
4. And love had its reward. They came with the pious intent of anointing the dead, and themselves were anointed with the most fragrant tidings that ever fell on mortal ear.
I. The information given to the women.
1. Their fears are quieted. Be not affrighted. They had no need to be terrified at the glories of an angel, who had not been alarmed at the indignities heaped upon their Lord. They who could come seeking the crucified Nazarene in the grave were not unworthy to hold converse with celestial beings themselves.
2. But the women needed more than the quieting of those fears which the apparition of the angel had naturally excited. They wanted information as to the disappearance of Christs body, and this was quickly furnished. There is something remarkable in the reasoning of the angel. He calls upon the women to behold the place where their Lords body had lain, as though its mere desertion were evidence enough of the fact of a resurrection. And so, in real truth, it was; to all, at least, who like the women, knew and considered the characters and circumstances of the disciples of Christ. The body was gone. Either, therefore, it had been raised from the dead, or it had been removed for the purpose of deception. If removed, it could only be by some of his immediate followers and adherents. But could they have stolen the body? The supposition is absurd. In believing that Christ was raised from the dead, I believe a miracle for which there was adequate power; but in believing that Christs disciples stole away His body, I believe a miracle for which there was no power at all. Hence the simple fact, ascertainable by the senses, that Christs body had disappeared, was, and should be still, sufficient evidence of the resurrection.
3. It may not, however, have been only as proving the fact of a resurrection, that the angel directed attention to the deserted grave; but yet further, because there would be high topics of meditation and comfort suggested by the fact that it had been hallowed by the body of the Lord. Pause awhile, that you may gaze on the consecrated spot, and gather in the wonders with which it is haunted. So interwoven is the fact of Christs resurrection with the whole scheme of redemption-so dependent is the entire gospel, whether for its truth or its worth, upon its not being possible He should be holden of death,-that if we could but fix attention on that empty grave, we should give hope to the desponding, constancy to the wavering, warning to the careless, comfort to the sorrowing, courage to the dying. Oh, linger awhile at the tomb in holy meditation. Solemn thoughts may steal over you, and brilliant visions may pass before you. That empty vault is full of sublime, and stirring, and glorious things-things which escape the mere passer-by, but present themselves to the patient inspector.
II. The commission with which the women were entrusted.
1. The glad tidings were not for them alone; and the angel directs them to hasten at once to give intelligence of the glorious fact. Were not these women highly honoured? Were they not well recompensed for their zeal and love? They became apostles to the apostles themselves; they first preached the resurrection to those who were to preach it to the farthest ends of the earth. As the first news of death came by woman, by woman came the first news of resurrection.
2. What a breaking forth of long-suffering and forgiving love is there in the fact, that the tidings were first sent to the disciples of the Lord. It seems to have been the first object of the risen Redeemer to quiet the apprehensions of His followers to assure them that so far from feeling sternly towards them on account of their desertion, He had returned to life for their comfort and welfare. Christ did not think little of having been deserted; but He knew how His disciples sorrowed for their fault; that they loved Him sincerely, notwithstanding their having been overcome by fear; and He gave a proof of His readiness to forgive and welcome the backslider, whensoever there is compunction of heart, in sending the first tidings of His resurrection to the men who had all forsaken Him and fled.
3. And this were but little. The disciples as a body had indeed played the coward; yet they had rather avoided standing forth in His defence, than shrunk from Him in open apostacy. One only had done that-denied his Lord-denied Him thrice, with all that was vehement and blasphemous in expression. Alas for Peter! But oh! the gracious consideration of Christi for indeed it is His voice which must be recognized in the voice of the angel: Go your way; tell His disciples and Peter. Those two words-and Peter-thrown into the commission are, I might almost say, a gospel in themselves. To all repentant backsliders, Easter brings glad tidings of great joy.
III. The promise.
1. There was an appropriateness in the selection of Galilee for this meeting of our Lord with His apostles, forasmuch as he was likely to be known to numbers there, He having been brought up in Nazareth, a city of Galilee, having wrought His first miracle in Cana of Galilee, and having laboured most abundantly in Capernaum and the neighbouring coast.
2. Moreover, as Galilee was called Galilee of the Gentiles, from its proximity to the territories of the heathen, this fixing the place of meeting on the confines of Judea might be intended to mark that all men had an interest in the fact of the resurrection, or that the blessings of the new dispensation were not to be restricted as had been those of the old.
3. And if it were only to the then living disciples that the promise pertained, of meeting their risen Lord in Galilee, assuredly some place there is of which it may be said to the Church in every age-There shall ye see Him. He goeth before you is, and always will be, the message to the Church. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
The holy womens Easter and ours
Ah! my brethren, let us see whether, in our annual pilgrimage to the grave of our Lord, we have anything of the love which shows so conspicuously in these zealous women. It is so easy for us to keep Easter with high pomp and gratulation, coming to a tomb which we know to be empty, because death has been vanquished in his own domain, that we may readily overlook the strength of that affection which glowed fervently towards Christ whilst supposed to be dead-dead, too, with every circumstance of indignity and shame. When now the Church marshals her children in solemn precession, and leads them up to the place where the Lord was laid, there is a thorough consciousness that mourning is about to be turned into joy, and all remembrance of Christs having died as a malefactor, is perhaps lost in the feeling of His having come forth as the resurrection and the life. What would it be, if as yet we only knew Him as Jesus of Nazareth which was crucified, and not as the Son of God who stripped the grave of all victory? Is it not too much the fact that (if such expressions may be used) we tolerate the humiliation of Christ, in consideration of His subsequent triumph, just as we can overlook the circumstance of a mans having been born a beggar, when we know him to have become a prince? We put up with, though we dislike, the cross, because we know that it conducted to a throne. And yet what ought so to endear to us the Redeemer, as the shame and the sorrow which He endured on our behalf? When ought He to seem so precious in our eyes as when, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He gives His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that pluck off the hair? Oh! that heart has scarcely yet been touched with celestial fire, which is forced to turn from Christ in His humility to Christ in His glory, ere it can be kindled into admiration and devotedness. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
The place where they laid the Lord
I. Consider the manner in which He was committed there.
1. He was committed there by persons of remarkably interesting character. Joseph of Arimathea: Nicodemus.
2. He was committed there with many tokens of regard and affection.
3. He was committed there with unostentatious quietness and privacy.
II. Consider the ends which, by his committal to it, were accomplished there.
1. His committal to that place confirmed the reality of His death.
2. His committal to that place fulfilled the declarations of ancient prophecies and types.
3. His committal there completed the abasement of His humiliation.
4. His committal has delightfully softened and mitigated the terrors of the grave for His people.
5. By His committal there He immediately and necessarily introduced His own mediatorial exaltation and empire. This was the last step towards His exaltation; it provided for and secured it.
III. Learn the lessons which are inculcated there.
1. The tenderness and devotedness of His love.
2. The duty of unreserved devotedness to His will.
3. The abounding consolations we possess, in reflecting on the departure of our Christian friends, and in anticipating our own. (James Parsons.)
The risen Christ
Eight hundred years after Edward I was buried, they brought up his body and they found that he still lay with a crown on his head. More than eighteen hundred years have passed, and I look into the grave of my dead King, and I see not only a crown, but on his head are many crowns. And what is more, He is rising. Yea, He has risen! Ye who came to the grave weeping, go away rejoicing. Let your dirges now change to anthems. He lives! Take off the blackness from the gates of the morning. He lives! Let earth and heaven keep jubilee. He lives! I know that my Redeemer lives. For whom that battle and that victory? For whom? not you. (Dr. Talmage.)
The lessons of the empty grave
I. It is full of consolations.
1. It proclaims that life reigneth. The sorrow of earth is the seeming supremacy of death. The worlds creed is a belief in death as the Lord God Almighty, the terror and destroyer of all things. But the empty grave of Christ teaches us that not death, but life, reigns.
2. It shows that love reigns. Death seems to suggest indifference on Gods part to human woe. The resurrection tells a very different tale.
3. It restores hope to man. What Christ wins for Himself He wins for all.
4. It tells of redemption being perfected. It is accepted by God; or the great Prisoner of Hope would not have been discharged. And, accepted, Christ rises to reign, from a higher vantage ground and with new sovereignty. We have a Saviour now on the throne of all things.
II. Lessons on life and duty.
1. Self-sacrifice is the secret of goodness, success, and joy. The way of the cross always leads to some heaven. No love is ever lost, nor any sacrifice ever fruitless.
2. Nothing can by any means harm the good. By doing wrong we inflict the only thing worth calling injury upon ourselves. (R. Glover.)
The empty tomb
He lies there no longer. He was not lying there when the angel addressed Mary Magdalene. With most tombs the interest consists in the fact that all that is mortal of the saint, or hero, or near relative, rests beneath the stone or the sod on which we gaze. Of our Lords sepulchre the ruling interest is that He no longer tenants it. It is not as the place in which He lies, it is not even chiefly as the place wherein He lay, it is as the place from which He rose-that the tomb of Jesus speaks to faith. (Canon Liddon.)
Importance of the resurrection to the Christian
Let us suppose-it is a terrible thing for a Christian even to suppose-but let us suppose that our Lord Jesus Christ had keen betrayed, tried, condemned to death, and crucified; that He had died on the cross, and had been buffed; and that, instead of rising the third day, He had lain on in His grave day after day, week after week, year after year, until corruption and the worm had done their work, and nothing was left of His bodily frame save perhaps a skull and a few bones and a little dust. Let us suppose that that was proved to have happened to Him which will happen to you and me, which does happen as a matter of course to the sons of men, to the wealthy and to the poor, to the wise and the thoughtless, to the young and the old,-that which certainly happened to all the other founders of religion and martyrs, to Socrates and Confucius and Mohammed and Marcus Aurelius; what would be the result on the claims and works of the Christian religion? If anything is certain about the teaching of our Lord, it is certain that He foretold His resurrection, and that He pointed to it as being a coming proof of His being what He claimed to be. If He had not risen, His authority would have been fatally discredited; He would have stood forth in human history-may He forgive me for saying it-as a bombastic pretender to supernatural sanctions which He could not command. If He had not risen, what would have been the meaning of His death? Even if it still retained the character of a martyrdom, it would have been only a martyrdom. It could not have been supposed to have any effect in the invisible world: to be in any sense a propitiation for human sin. The atoning virtue which, as we Christians believe, attaches to it, depends on the fact that He who died was more than man, and that He was more than man was made clear to the world by His resurrection. As St. Paul tells the Romans, He was powerfully declared to be the Son of God in respect of His holy and Divine nature by His resurrection from the dead. If He had rotted in His grave, what must we have thought of His character as a religious teacher? He said a great deal about Himself which is inconsistent with truthfulness and modesty in a mere man. He told us men to love Him, to trust Him, to believe in Him, to believe that He was the way, the truth, and the life, to believe that He was in God the Father, and the Father in Him, to believe that one day He would be seen sitting on the right hand of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven. What should we think of language of this kind in the mouth of the very best man whom we have ever known? What should we think of it in our Lord Himself, if He was, after all, not merely, as He was, one of ourselves, but also, nothing more? He proved that He had a right to use this language when, after dying on the cross, at His own appointed time He rose from the dead. But it is His resurrection which enables us to think that He could speak thus without being intolerably conceited or profane. Faith in the resurrection is the very keystone of the arch of Christian faith, and, when it is removed, all must inevitably crumble into ruin. The idea that the spiritual teaching, that the lofty moral character of our Lord, will survive faith in His resurrection, is one of those phantoms to which men cling when they are themselves, consciously or unconsciously, losing faith, and have not yet thought out the consequences of the loss. St. Paul knew what he was doing, when he made Christianity answer with its life for the truth of the resurrection (1Co 15:14). (Canon Liddon.)
Christs resurrection the Christians hope
Christ is risen. O how do those words change the whole aspect of human life! The sunlight that gleams forth after the world has been drenched, and dashed, and terrified with the black thunder drops, reawakening the song of birds and reilluminating the bloom of the folded flowers, does not more gloriously transfigure the landscape than these words transfigure the life of man. Nothing short of this could be our pledge and proof that we also shall arise. We are not left to dim intimations of it from the reminiscences of childhood; vague hopes of it in exalted moments; splendid guesses of it in ancient pages; faint analogies of it from the dawn of day, and the renovation of spring, and the quickened grain, and the butterfly shaking itself free of the enclosing chrysalis to wave its wings in the glories of summer light: all this might create a longing, the sense of some far-off possibility in a few chosen souls, but not for all the weary and suffering sons of humanity a permanent and ennobling conviction, a sure and certain hope. But Christ is risen, and we have it now; a thought to comfort us in the gloom of adversity, a belief to raise us into the high privilege of sons of God. They that are fallen asleep in Christ are not perished. Look into the Saviours empty and angel-haunted tomb; He hath burst for us the bonds of the prison house; He hath shattered at a touch the iron bars and brazen gates; He hath rifled the house of the spoiler, and torn away the serpents sting; He is risen; He is not here. They that sleep in all those narrow graves shall wake again, shall rise again. In innumerable myriads from the earth, and from the river, and from the rolling waves of the mighty sea, shall they start up at the sounding of that angel trumpet; from peaceful churchyards, from bloody battlefields, from the catacomb and from the pyramid, from the marble monument and the mountain cave, great and small, saint and prophet and apostle, and thronging multitudes of unknown martyrs and unrewarded heroes, in every age and every climate, on whose forehead was the Lambs seal-they shall come forth from the power of death and hell. This is the Christians hope, and thus we not only triumph over the enemy, but profit by him, wringing out of his curse a blessing, out of his prison a coronation and a home. (Archdeacon Farrar.)
Christs resurrection
Christ is the resurrection; therefore its source and spring, its author and finisher, in a sense in which no other can be. When He emerged from the tomb on the morning of the worlds great Sabbath, He brought life and immortality with Him, by which the pearls of the deep sea, before awaiting the plunge of the diver, the treasures, before lying in the dark mine, were by Him seized and brought up to the light of day. Life and immortality were brought to light by the gospel, and with this knowledge in our minds, we seem to stand by the Saviours broken sepulchre, just as a man stands upon the shelving brink of the precipice from which some friendly hand has snatched him, shuddering as he thinks of the awful death that he has only just escaped. Look, and see the place where the Lord lay, and tremble-but rejoice with trembling. Is the stone there yet? If it is, if the stone is not yet rolled away, if the grave clothes and spices yet shroud and embalm the corpse, then let the darkness come and blot out the sun, and bid a long, long good-night to all the worlds hopes of life, for existence is a feverish dream, and death shall be its ghastly but its welcome end. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept. (W. M. Punshon, D. D.)
The triumph of good
As a noble sonata, whose melodies are broken with pathetic minors and clanging discords, ends in a burst of triumphant harmony, so the story of the life of Jesus, beset with sins and piteous with sorrows, is crowned at last with the glory of His exaltation. (C. M. Southgate.)
The absent corpse
When we wander through a graveyard and look at the tombstones, or go into the church and examine the old monuments, we see one heading to them all: Hic jacet, or Here lies. Then follows the name, with date of death, and perhaps some praise of the good qualities of the departed. But how totally different is the epitaph on the tomb of Jesus! It is not written in gold, nor cut in stone; it is spoken by the mouth of an angel, and it is the exact reverse of what is put on all other tombs: He is not here! (S. Baring Gould, M. A.)
The resurrection guarantees success to Christianity
During the years that followed the outbreak of the French revolution, and the revolt against Christianity which accompanied it, there was an extraordinary activity in some sections of French society directed to projecting a religion that might, it was hoped, take the place of Christianity. New philanthropic enthusiasms, new speculative enthusiasms, were quite the order of the day. On one occasion a projector of one of these schemes came to Talleyrand, who, you will remember, was a bishop who had turned sceptic, and so had devoted himself to polities; but whatever is to be said of him, he was possessed in a very remarkable degree of a keen perception of the proportion of things, and of what is and is not possible in this human world. Well, his visitor observed, by way of complaint to Talleyrand, how hard it was to start a new religion, even though its tenets and its efforts were obviously directed to promoting the social and personal improvement of mankind. Surely, said Talleyrand, with a fine smile, surely it cannot be so difficult as you think. How so? said his friend. Why, he replied, the matter is simple; you have only to get yourself crucified, or anyhow put to death, and then, at your own time to rise from the dead, and you will have no difficulty. (Canon Liddon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 6. Jesus of Nazareth] The Jews had given this name to Christ by way of reproach, Mt 2:23; but as it was under this name that he was crucified, Joh 19:19, the angel here, and the apostles after, have given him the same name, Ac 4:10, c. Names which the world, in derision, fixes all the followers of God, often become the general appellatives of religious bodies: thus Quakers, Puritans, Pietists, and Methodists, have in their respective times been the nicknames, given in derision by the world, to those who separated themselves from its corruptions. Our Lord, by continuing to bear the name of the Nazarene, teaches us not to be too nice or scrupulous in fixing our own appellation. No matter what the name may be, as long as it implies no particular evil, and serves sufficiently to mark us out. Let us be contented to bear it, and thus carry about with us the reproach of Christ always taking care to keep our garments unspotted from the world.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
6. And he saith unto them, Be notaffrighteda stronger word than “Fear not” in Matthew(Mt 28:5).
Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth,which was crucified!“the Nazarene, the Crucified.”
he is risen; he is nothere(See on Lu 24:5, 6).
behold the place where theylaid him(See on Mt 28:6).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And he saith unto them, be not affrighted,….
[See comments on Mt 28:5],
[See comments on Mt 28:6], where the same things, and almost in the same words, are said as here.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Be not amazed ( ). The angel noted their amazement (verse 5) and urges the cessation of it using this very word.
The Nazarene ( ). Only in Mark, to identify “Jesus” to the women.
The crucified one ( ). This also in Mt 28:5. This description of his shame has become his crown of glory, for Paul (Gal 6:14), and for all who look to the Crucified and Risen Christ as Saviour and Lord. He is risen (). First aorist passive indicative, the simple fact. In 1Co 15:4 Paul uses the perfect passive indicative to emphasize the permanent state that Jesus remains risen.
Behold the place ( ). Here is used as an interjection with no effect on the case (nominative). In Mt 28:6 is the verb with the accusative. See Robertson, Grammar, p. 302.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted (ho de legei autais me ekthambeisthe) “Then he said to them, do not be startled or greatly astonished,” or be not afraid, Mat 28:5; Luk 24:5; You are not to have a spirit of fear, but assurance, hope, Rom 8:15; 2Ti 1:7.
2) “Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified;” (lesoun zeteite ton Nazarenon ton estauromenon) “You all seek Jesus, the Nazarene, the one who has been crucified,” the Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified one, Mat 28:5; and they were perplexed, Luk 24:3-4.
3) “He is risen; He is not here:- (egerthe ouk estin hode) “He was raised, and He is not here,” any longer, any more, Mat 28:6; as He said He would, Mat 20:19; Mat 26:32; Mar 9:31; Mar 10:34; Luk 18:33; Luk 24:7.
4) “Behold the place where they laid Him.” (ide hotopos hopou ethekan auton) “Behold the place, empty place where they (Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus) put Him,” Mat 28:6; The empty grave, formerly filled with the body of Jesus, and sealed by the Roman Seal, and guarded by Roman Sentinels, around the clock, was visible evidence of the resurrection of Jesus, Mat 27:62-66; 28:11-15; He had told them while living, even in Galilee, that He would rise after His death and burial. The angel of the Lord here certifies that what Jesus had foretold them was now fulfilled, Luk 24:6-8; Mat 16:21; Mat 17:23; Luk 9:22.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(6) Be not affrighted.The words agree substantially with those in Mat. 28:5-8, but omit the fuller appeal to the women to remember the words which their Lord had spoken while He was yet with them in Galilee.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
‘And he says to them, “Do not be amazed. You seek Jesus the Nazarene who has been crucified. He is risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him.” ’
The angel’s message is simple. Jesus the Nazarene is no longer there for He is no longer dead. He is risen. The place where His body had been laid was empty, for He was gone. He was indeed risen, bodily. The simplicity of the message, and its significance takes the breath away. Death had been conquered. He who had been crucified has triumphed. Everything must now be rethought. Everything must begin anew.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mar 16:6. Be not affrighted The speech of the angel to the women, in this and the next verse,informs them, in a concise and emphatical manner, of every particular that might satisfy their affectionate curiosity, and dissipate their fears; for they were afraid to ask him any questions. Mr. West has observed, that the appearance of an angel upon this occasion was highly proper, nay, we may almost say, necessary. Jesus had but two days before been put to death by the rulers of the Jews, as an impostor; one, who by the authority of Beelzebub cast out devils, and, by assuming the character of the Messiah, blasphemed God. His sepulchre also was guarded by a band of soldiers, under the pretence of preventing his disciples from carrying on the imposture begun by their master, by stealing away his body, and giving out that he was risen from the dead, in consequence of what he had said before the crucifixion. Under these circumstances, the attestation of heaven was necessary, to shew that God, though he had suffered him to expire on the cross, had not forsaken him; but, on the contrary, had co-operated with him even in his sufferings, his death, and burial, and resurrection from the dead on the third day, having by the secret workings of his providence, and his Almighty power, accomplished in every point the several predictions of Jesus relating to each of those events; events which, at the time of those predictions, none but God could foresee, and which nothing less than his all-controuling power could bring about. The descent therefore of the angel, and his rolling away the stone, was a visible proof that the finger of God was in the great work of the resurrection, was a proper honour done to him who claimed to be the Son of God, and unanswerably refuted theimpious calumnies of those who, upon account of that claim, stiled him an impostor and blasphemer. The next thing to be considered in this matter is, the internal evidence which the several appearances of angels to the women,&c. carry along with them of reality and truth; for by some infidels they have been treated as mere illusions, and by others as downright falsehoods. That these appearances were illusions, the effects of superstition, ignorance, and fear, has been insinuated rather than asserted; but, I apprehend, has never been attempted to be proved. Waving therefore a vain search after arguments which I presume are not easy to be found, or they would have been produced by those who have so diligently laboured to ridicule the Christian faith, I shall proceed to lay down a few observations, tending to prove the reality and truth of these appearances of the angels to the women.
The angel first seen by the women, was that described by St. Mark, in the form of a young man (sitting within the sepulchre) on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; at the sight of whom, the women (Mary and Salome) discovering great signs of fear, he saith unto them, Be not affrighted, &c. That this was a real vision, and no phantom of the imagination, is evident from these particulars. 1st, As it does not appear from this or any other account, that the women, upon coming to the sepulchre, were under any such terrors or perturbation, as are apt to fill the fancy with ideal spectres;on the contrary, they went thither a little after day-break, prepared, and expecting to find the dead body of Jesus, there, and purposing to embalm it; about the doing of which they had been calmly conferring by the way:Song of Solomon 2 nd, by their coming with a design to embalm the body, it is plain that they had no notion either of his being already risen, or that he would rise from the dead. And therefore, 3rdly, had the angel been only the creature of a disturbed imagination, they would scarcely have put into his mouth a speech that directly contradicted all the ideas upon which they proceeded but one moment before. 4thly, It is to be observed farther, that the illusion must have been double; two senses must have been deceived, the hearing and the sight; for the angel was heard as well as seen: and though this frequently happens in dreams, and sometimes perhaps in a delirium, or a fit of madness, yet I question whether an instance exactly parallel in all its parts to the case here supposed, was ever known; for no two people dream together exactly alike, nor are affected in a delirium with exactly the same imaginations. 5thly, The words spoken by the angel refer to others spoken by Christ to his disciples before his passion, in which he told them, that after he was risen, he would go before them to Galilee. According to this promise or prediction, of which the angel here reminds them, he bids them tell the disciples from him, to go into Galilee, and promises them that Christ will meet them there. Now as not only the resurrection, but the personal appearance of Christ, is implied in these words, the reason above given in the third particular, concludes in the present case still more strongly against supposing them to have proceeded only from the imagination of the women; for the sudden change of whose opinion from a disbelief of the resurrection to a full and explicit belief of it, no adequate cause can be assigned. For if it should be allowed that they knew of this prediction of Christ’s (which however does not appear), yet the business which brought them to the sepulchre makes it evident, that till that instant they either did not recollect, not understand, or not believe it. And if it be farther said, that upon their entering the sepulchre, and not finding the body of Jesus, this prediction might naturally come at once into their heads, and they might as suddenly and as reasonably believe Christ to be risen as St. John did, whosefaith was built upon no other evidence than what these women had now before them; I answer, that allowing St. John, when he is said to have first believed the resurrection, had no other evidence than those women now had, or might have had; yet it is to beobserved, that St. John was in a fitter disposition of mind to reflect and judge upon that evidence than the women. St. John ran to the sepulchre, upon the information given him, by Mary Magdalene that the body of Jesus was removed thence, and laid she knew not where, nor by whom: and as the sepulchre was at some distance from his habitation, many thoughts must naturally have arisen in his mind, tending to account for the removal of the body; and among the rest, perhaps, some confused and obscure hope that he might be risen from the dead, pursuant to many predictions to that purpose delivered by him to his disciples. But whatever his thoughts were at the time of his coming to the sepulchre, (about which, it must be owned, nothing can be offered but mere conjecture) it iscertain, that he had leisure to reflect upon the predictions of his Master, and to examine into the state of the sepulchre, which both he and Peter did (and that implies some deliberation and presence of mind); and that, after this deliberate examination, he departed quietly to his own home; whereas the women are represented as falling into the utmost terror and amazement immediately upon their entering into the sepulchre, and continuing under the same consternation till they were met flying thence by Christ himself. Under such a disorder of mind, can we suppose them capable of recollecting the predictions of Christ about his resurrection? of considering the proofs of their accomplishment arising from the state of the sepulchre; and of persuading themselves at once that he was not only risen from the dead, but would personally appear to his disciples? and then, immediately upon this conviction, of fancying that they saw an angel, and heard him assure them in a distinct manner, that Christ was risen; call them to review the place where he had been laid, and bid them tell his disciples that he would meet them in Galilee?In a word, if this supposed illusion proceeded from a strong persuasion that Christ was risen from the dead, whence arose that belief? If it arose from cool reflection upon the predictions of our Saviour, and the state of the sepulchre (the cause of St. John’s faith), whence came their terror? which, if not previous to the apparition of the angel, was at least prior to the words Be not affrighted, with which he first accosted them. If it be urged, that this terror was of the nature of those causeless and unaccountable terrors called panics, it may be answered, that this is giving a name instead of a reason; and is in effect saying nothing at all, or no more than that they were affrighted, but nobody can tell why or wherefore. 6thly, It is observable, that the speech of the angel to the women consists of ten distinct particulars: As, 1. Be not affrighted. 2. Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. 3. He is risen. 4. He is not here. 5. Behold the place where they laid him. 6. But go your way, tell his disciples. 7. And Peter. 8. That he goeth before you into Galilee. 9. There shall you see him. 10. As he said unto you.The order and connection of which several particulars are no less remarkable thantheir number; and therefore, taking both these considerations into the account, I leave any one to judge, whether it be conceivable, that women under so great a terror and distraction of mind, as to fancy that they saw and heard an angel, when there was no such thing, should be able to compose a speech for this phantom of their fear and imagination, consisting of so much matter, order, and reason,and proceeding upon the supposition that they were not then convinced that Christ was risen from the dead, though the belief of his resurrection is presumed not only to have preceded, but even to have occasioned this illusion. I have dwelt the longer upon the examination of this first appearance of the angel to the women, because the settlingof the nature of that, will save us the trouble of entering into a particular discussion of the rest, the several articles of which will fall under one or other of the foregoing observations.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
6. ] From the of Matt. I should be inclined to think that his is the strictly accurate account. This word implies that the angel accompanied the women into the tomb; and if so, an imperfect narrative like that in the text might easily describe his whole appearance as taking place within.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mar 16:6 . , “be not affrighted” (as they had been by the unexpected sight of a man , and wearing heavenly apparel ); no after the verb here, as in Mt. after , where there is an implied contrast between the women and the guards ( vide on Mt.). , etc., Jesus ye seek, the Nazarene, the crucified. Observe the objective, far-off style of description, befitting a visitor from another world. , etc.: note the abrupt disconnected style: risen, not here, see ( ) the place (empty) where they laid Him. The empty grave, the visible fact; resurrection, the inference; when, how, a mystery ( , Euthy.).
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Mark
THE INCREDULOUS DISCIPLES
THE ANGEL IN THE TOMB
Mar 16:5 – Mar 16:6
Each of the four Evangelists tells the story of the Resurrection from his own special point of view. None of them has any record of the actual fact, because no eye saw it. Before the earthquake and the angelic descent, before the stone was rolled away, while the guards perhaps slept, and before Love and Sorrow had awakened, Christ rose. And deep silence covers the event. But in treating of the subsequent portion of the narrative, each Evangelist stands at his own point of view. Mark has scarcely anything to say about our Lord’s appearance after the Resurrection. His object seems mainly to be to describe rather the manner in which the report of the Resurrection affected the disciples, and so he makes prominent the bewildered astonishment of the women. If the latter part of this chapter be his, he passes by the appearance of our Lord to Mary Magdalene and to the two travellers to Emmaus with just a word for each-contrasting singularly with the lovely narrative of the former in John’s Gospel and with the detailed account of the latter in Luke’s. He emphasises the incredulity of the Twelve after receiving the reports, and in like manner he lays stress upon the unbelief and hardness of heart which the Lord rebuked.
So, then, this incident, the appearance of the angel, the portion of his message to the women which we have read, and the way in which the first testimony to the Resurrection affected its hearers, may suggest to us some thoughts which, though subsidiary to the main teaching of the Resurrection, may yet be important in their place.
I. Note the first witness to the Resurrection.
He was a youth. ‘The oldest angels are the youngest,’ says a great mystic. The angels ‘excel in strength’ because they delight to do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word.’ The lapse of ages brings not age to them who ‘wait on the Lord’ in the higher ministries of heaven, and run unwearied, and walk unfainting, and when they are seen by men are radiant with immortal youth. He was ‘clothed in a long white garment,’ the sign at once of purity and of repose; and he was sitting in rapt contemplation and quiet adoration there, where the body of Jesus had lain.
But what had he to do with the joy of Resurrection? It delivered him from no fears, it brought to him no fresh assurance of a life which was always his. Wherefore was he there? Because that Cross strikes its power upwards as well as downwards; because He that had lain there is the Head of all creation, and the Lord of angels as well as of men; because that Resurrection following upon that Cross, ‘unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places,’ opened a new and wonderful door into the unsounded and unfathomed abyss of divine love; because into these things ‘angels desire to look,’ and, looking, are smitten with adoring wonder and flushed with the illumination of a new knowledge of what God is, and of what man is to God. The Resurrection of the Prince of Life was no mystery to the angel. To him the mystery was in His death. To us the death is not a mystery, but the Resurrection is. That gazing figure looks from the other side upon the grave which we contemplate from this side of the gulf of death; but the eyes of both orders of Being fix upon the same hallowed spot-they in adoring wonder that there a God should have lain; we in lowly thankfulness that thence a man should have risen.
Further, we see in that angel presence not only the indication that Christ is his King as well as ours, but also the mark of his and all his fellows’ sympathetic participation in whatsoever is of so deep interest to humanity. There is a certain tone of friendship and oneness in his words. The trembling women were smitten into an ecstasy of bewildered fear as one of the words, ‘affrighted’ might more accurately be rendered, and his consolation to them, ‘Be not affrighted, ye seek Jesus,’ suggests that, in all the great sweep of the unseen universe, whatsoever beings may people that to us apparently waste and solitary space, howsoever many they may be, ‘thick as the autumn leaves in Vallambrosa’ or as the motes that dance in the sunshine, they are all friends and allies and elder brethren of those who seek for Jesus with a loving heart. No creature that owns His sway can touch or injure or need terrify the soul that follows after Christ. ‘All the servants of our King in heaven and earth are one,’ and He sends forth His brightest and loftiest to be brethren and ministers to them who shall be ‘heirs of salvation.’ So we may pass through the darkest spaces of the universe and the loneliest valleys of the shadow of death, sure that whosoever may be there will be our friend if we are the friends of Christ.
II. So much, then, for the first point that I would suggest here. Note, secondly, the triumphant light cast upon the cradle and the Cross.
Brethren, let us lay this to heart, that unless we believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the saying ‘He was crucified’ is the saddest word that can be spoken about any of the great ones of the past. If Jesus Christ be lying in some nameless grave, then all the power of His death is gone, and He and it are nothing to me, or to you, or to any of our fellow-men, more than a thousand deaths of the mighty ones of old. But Easter day transfigures the gloom of the day of the Crucifixion, and the rising sun of its morning gilds and explains the Cross. Now it stands forth as the great redeeming power of the world, where my sins and yours and the whole world’s have been expiated and done away. And now, instead of being ignominy, it is glory, and instead of being defeat it is victory, and instead of looking upon that death as the lowest point of the Master’s humiliation, we may look upon it as He Himself did, as the highest point of His glorifying. For the Cross then becomes His great means of winning men to Himself, and the very throne of His power. On the historical fact of a Resurrection depend all the worth and meaning of the death of Christ. ‘If He be not risen our preaching is vain, and your faith is also vain.’ ‘If Christ be not risen, ye are yet in your sins.’ But if what this day commemorates be true, then upon all His earthly life is thrown a new light; and we first understand the Cross when we look upon the empty grave.
III. Again, notice here the majestic announcement of the great fact, and its confirmation.
‘He is risen.’ The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is declared by angel lips to be His own act; not, indeed, as if He were acting separately from the Father, but still less as if in it He were merely passive. Think of that; a dead Christ raised Himself. That is the teaching of the Scripture. I do not dwell here, at this stage of my sermon, on the many issues that spring from such a conception, but this only I urge, Jesus Christ was the Lord of life; held life and death, His own and others’, at His beck and will. His death was voluntary; He was not passive in it, but He died because He chose. His resurrection was His act; He rose because He willed. ‘I have power to lay it down, I have power to take it again.’ No one said to Him, ‘I say unto Thee, arise!’ The divine power of the Father’s will did not work upon Him as from without to raise Him from the dead; but He, the embodiment of divinity, raised Himself, even though it is also true that He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. These two statements are not contradictory, but the former of them can only be predicated of Him; and it sets Him on a pedestal immeasurably above, and infinitely apart from, all those to whom life is communicated by a divine act. He Himself is ‘the Life,’ and it was not possible that Life should be holden of Death; therefore He burst its bonds, and, like the ancient Jewish hero, though in far nobler fashion, our Samson enters into the city which is a prison, and on His strong shoulders bears away the gates, that none may ever there be prisoners without hope.
Now, then, note the confirmation of this stupendous fact. ‘He is risen; He is not here.’ The grave was empty, and the trembling women were called upon to look and see for themselves that the body was not there. One remark is all that I wish to make about this matter-viz. this, all theories, ancient or modern, which deny the Resurrection, are shattered by this one question, What became of Jesus Christ’s body? We take it as a plain historical fact, which the extremest scepticism has never ventured to deny, that the grave of Christ was empty. The trumped-up story of the guards sufficiently shows that. When the belief of a resurrection began to be spread abroad, what would have been easier for Pharisees and rulers than to have gone to the sepulchre and rolled back the stone, and said, ‘Look there! there is your risen Man, lying mouldering, like all the rest of us.’ They did not do it. Why? Because the grave was empty. Where was the body? They had it not, else they would have been glad to produce it. The disciples had it not, for if they had, you come back to the discredited and impossible theory that, having it, and knowing that they were telling lies, they got up the story of the Resurrection. Nobody believes that nowadays-nobody can believe it who looks at the results of the preaching of this, by hypothesis, falsehood. ‘Men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles.’ And whether the disciples were right or wrong, there can be no question in the mind of anybody who is not prepared to swallow impossibilities compared to which miracles are easy, that the first disciples heartily believed that Jesus Christ was risen from the dead. As I say, one confirmation of the belief lies in the empty grave, and this question may be put to anybody that says ‘I do not believe in your Resurrection’:-’What became of the sacred body of Jesus Christ?’
Now, note the way in which the announcement of this tremendous fact was received. With blank bewilderment and terror on the part of these women, followed by incredulity on the part of the Apostles and of the other disciples. These things are on the surface of the narrative, and very important they are. They plainly tell us that the first hearers did not believe the testimony which they themselves call upon us to believe. And, that being the state of mind of the early disciples on the Resurrection day, what becomes of the modern theory, which seeks to explain the fact of the early belief in the Resurrection by saying, ‘Oh, they had worked themselves into such a fever of expectation that Jesus Christ would rise from the dead that the wish was father to the thought, and they said that He did because they expected that He would’? No! they did not expect that He would; it was the very last thing that they expected. They had not in their minds the soil out of which such imaginations would grow. They were perfectly unprepared to believe it, and, as a matter of fact, they did not believe until they had seen. So I think that that one fact disposes of a great deal of pestilent and shallow talk in these days that tries to deny the Resurrection and to save the character of the men that witnessed it.
IV. And now, lastly, note here the summons to grateful contemplation.
‘Behold the place where they laid Him,’ and, looking upon it, let us think of that Resurrection as a prophecy, with a bearing upon us and upon all the dear ones that have trod the common road into the great darkness. Christ has died, therefore they live; Christ lives, therefore we shall never die. His grave was in a garden-a garden indeed. The yearly miracle of the returning ‘life re-orient out of dust,’ typifies the mightier miracle which He works for all that trust in Him, when out of death He leads them into life. The graveyard has become ‘God’s acre’; the garden in which the seed sown in weakness is to be raised in power, and sown corruptible is to be raised in incorruption.
‘Behold the place where they laid Him,’ and in the empty grave read the mystery of the Resurrection as the pattern and the symbol of our higher life; that, ‘like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.’ Oh to partake more and more of that power of His Resurrection!
In Christ’s empty grave is planted the true ‘tree of life, which is in the midst of the “true” Paradise of God.’ And we, if we truly trust and humbly love that Lord, shall partake of its fruits, and shall one day share the glories of His risen life in the heavens, even as we share the power of it here and now.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
not. Greek. me. App-105. Not the same as in the next clause and verses: Mar 16:14, Mar 16:18.
Jesus. App-98.
Which was crucified = Who has been crucified. Note the Figure of speech Asyndeton (App-6), leading up breathlessly to the climax = “there shall ye see Him”. Thus the passage is emphasized; and the “sudden reduction of ands’ “is not “an internal argument against genuineness”!
not. Greek. ou. App-105.
behold = look Greek. ide, App-133.:3.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
6.] From the of Matt. I should be inclined to think that his is the strictly accurate account. This word implies that the angel accompanied the women into the tomb; and if so, an imperfect narrative like that in the text might easily describe his whole appearance as taking place within.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Ye seek
Jesus ye seek — the Nazarene, the crucified; He arose! He is not here! The tone is of triumph. Cf. Psa 2:4.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Be not: Mat 14:26, Mat 14:27, Mat 28:4, Mat 28:5, Rev 1:17, Rev 1:18
Ye seek: Psa 105:3, Psa 105:4, Pro 8:17
Jesus: Joh 19:19, Joh 19:20, Act 2:22, Act 2:23, Act 4:10, Act 10:38-40
he is risen: Mar 9:9, Mar 9:10, Mar 10:34, Psa 71:20, Mat 12:40, Mat 28:6, Mat 28:7, Luk 24:4-8, Luk 24:20-27, Luk 24:46, Joh 2:19-22, 1Co 15:3-7
Reciprocal: Deu 20:3 – be ye terrified 2Ki 6:16 – Fear not Dan 10:12 – Fear not Mar 16:8 – for they trembled Luk 1:13 – Fear Luk 1:29 – she was Luk 24:5 – they Joh 6:20 – It is Joh 11:34 – General Joh 20:12 – seeth Joh 20:15 – whom Act 10:30 – behold
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE INVISIBILITY OF THE RESURRECTION
He is risen: He is not here: behold the place where they laid Him.
Mar 16:6
Why did no man see Christ rise? The loving women were too late. He was gone. After the Lord was risen, an angel had rolled away the stone with an earthquake and was sitting upon it. The guards had fled; the sepulchre was open and empty. The Lord had risen and gone. None had seen Him rise.
There is evidently a Divine beauty in the fact, and it has beautiful analogies.
I. Why no man saw Him rise.It could not have been otherwise, unless all the surrounding circumstances had been different. For this to be other, events and men must also have been other than they were. For not only the general body of the Lords followers, but the seventy, the nearer and truer ones who formed the one hundred and twenty at the beginning of the Acts, were utterly scattered; and even the eleven, all but John, who was probably with the Blessed Virgin. As to whether the guards beheld Him or not we are in ignorance. They are said to have trembled and become as dead men for fear of the angel; but nothing is said of their seeing Christ. They were clearly not worthy to see Him, and their testimony would have been worthless.
II. Would it have been better that the act of resurrection should have been seen?Simple faith answers No. Let us see why Gods dealings were best. It may be that a loving report to the Apostles was conveyed in the circumstances, as if it had been said, You would not be with Me in the hall. You did not see Me die. Shall you see Me rise? But, be this as it may, it is probable, from the subsequent conduct of the Apostles, that they were not prepared for such a sudden and, to them, astounding sight as Christs rising. They could scarcely have borne it, nor comprehended it, nor, perhaps, believed in it. Their faith still required education, and little by little grew to accept what they scarce believed in for joy when it was manifested. But, so far as we are concerned, this backwardness and slowness to believe, this state of mind, the very contrary of credulity, and the number of appearances, each of which is to us a separate proof, makes the evidential value of the manifestations of Christ risen much greater than that of Christ arising could have beenso far as we can perceive.
III. The argument from analogy.Is not the secrecy of the rising just what might have been expected from analogy? Were not the revelations of God to Abraham and Jacob private? Was not Moses alone at the burning bush, and when God passed by manifesting His glory? Only three persons were present at the Transfiguration. It is true that the eleven beheld the Ascension, but then they had been purified and strengthened by the great forty days.
Rev. W. E. Heygate.
Illustration
Who ever saw the earliest rose
First open her sweet breast?
Or, when the summer sun goes down,
The first soft star in evenings crown
Light up her gleaming crest?
Fondly we seek the dawning bloom
On features wan and fair;
The gazing eye no change can trace,
But look away a little space,
Then turn, and lo!tis there
As when, triumphant oer His woes,
The Son of God by moonlight rose,
By all but Heaven unseen.
(SECOND OUTLINE)
EASTER LESSONS
Not here, indeed, in one sense! Not here in the midst of enemies. Yet in another sense He is still here. He has not left us comfortless; He is with us yet by His Holy Spirit, with us in His Church, with us in His Sacraments. He is risen. In that one assurance stands our hope as Christians.
I. Jesus has proclaimed release from the wrath of God.That black cloud, which had hung over the earth since the first Adam fell, was cleared away on the bright Easter morning when the Second Adam rose. That heavy debt which we owed to our Heavenly Father, and which we had not wherewithal to pay, was paid when Jesus rose on Easter morning.
II. He is risen, and we are freed from the power of sin.Sin is no longer the ruling influence, and need no more have dominion over our mortal bodies. Satan cannot now lead us captives at his will. We are become more than conquerors through Him Who fought out that bitter battle on Good Friday, and rose triumphant on Easter morning.
III. He is risen, and we are freed from the power of sorrow.I do not tell you that we shall never more know sorrow, that this world has ceased to be a vale of tears; but I do tell you, O mournful ones, that you must not sorrow as those without hope. There is no grief so dark, no misfortune so desperate, that the light of the Resurrection cannot shine upon it and bring comfort. In the chamber of sickness, in the pinched home of poverty, in the prison cell, or the workhouse ward, in the agonised horror of the hospital, at the brink of the very grave itself, the power of the Resurrection asserts itself, and because Christ is risen, strength is given to us to rise out of the darkness of misery into the pure light of holy resignation.
IV. He is risen, and therefore the whole character of death is changed.The grave is no more a pit of destruction, but is now
That blessed tomb,
Become the room
Where lay Creations Lord asleep.
Death is no longer the grisly king of terrors, but the kind Friend who comes to set the sufferer free.
V. Jesus has risen, but have we risen with Him?Are we trying to lead the higher life, and to seek those things which are above? Otherwise what is the joy of Easter to uswhat the blessings of the Resurrection? We cannot be partakers of that Resurrection if, whilst Christ is risen, we lie still in the grave of corruption; if, whilst He has triumphed over sin, we are yet its slaves.
Illustration
It is no wonder that the Fathers of the Church lavished upon Easter Day every epithet of praise and affection; it is no wonder that they call it the Great Day, the Day of days, the Queen of days, the Sovereign of all Festivals. In the words of one, it is the Bright SundayGods Sundaythe Lords Day of joy. In the language of another it is Gods own Easter Day, the feast of feasts, solemnity of solemnities, so far passing all other feasts holden not only by or for men, but even those held in honour of Christ Himself, as the sun doth surpass and excel the stars (St. Gregory Nazienzen). And yet another (St. Chrysostom) calls it the desirable feast of our salvation, the day of our Lords Resurrection, the foundation of our peace, the occasion of our reconciliation, the end of our contentions and enmity with God, the destruction of death, and our victory over the devil. No wonder that in the primitive Church Easter was one of the three special seasons chosen for the baptism of converts, and that at this holy Festival certain of the Christian Emperors were wont to loose from prison all except the worst of criminals, since as Jesus delivered us from the grievous prison of our sins, and made us capable of enjoying immeasurable blessings, so ought we in like manner, as far as possible, to imitate the mercy and kindness of our Lord (St. Chrysostom).
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Chapter 26.
The Empty Grave
“And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, Which was crucified: He is risen; He is not here: behold the place where they laid Him.”-Mar 16:6.
The Fourfold Testimony.
We come now to the consideration of that stupendous event which created Christian faith, and which has been, ever since, the foundation stone of the Christian Church. Much has been made of the differences and inconsistencies of the various evangelists’ accounts. And, for my own part, I am not in the least disposed to deny that it is very hard to fit the various details supplied to us by the four evangelists into a connected and consistent story. It was a day of confusion and excitement. And something of the excitement and subsequent confusion seems to have crept into the narrative. It is impossible, therefore, to be sure of every detail; it is impossible to be sure as to the exact order in which the events of the day occurred. But the difficulty of reconciling the various stories as to the happenings of the first Easter morning in no way affects the truth of the Resurrection. It rather helps to establish and confirm it. For the differences go to prove this, that we have in the four Gospels the stories of independent witnesses. It is not a fourfold reproduction of the same story. It is a case of four independent accounts. And while there are differences in detail (as there always are in accounts of one and the same event written from varying view-points) the significant thing about them is that they are in emphatic and complete agreement about the essential facts, that on the first Easter morning the grave was found empty, and that Jesus Himself appeared to certain of His disciples alive!
The Angel’s Message.
“They entered into the tomb,” the chamber quarried out of the rock, “and saw a young man sitting on the right side, arrayed in a white robe.” And they were amazed. But their astonishment was soon changed to another feeling.
“Be not amazed,” said the angel to the women, “ye seek Jesus the Nazarene, Who has been crucified.” Notice how careful the angel is in his identification. “Jesus the Nazarene, Who has been crucified.” It was to dispel any doubt that might lurk in the women’s mind, as to whether they were thinking and he was speaking of one and the same person. “He is risen; He is not here: behold the place where they laid Him.” He is risen! that was the tremendous announcement the angel had to make. They could see His body was not there. But the reason for its absence was not that anyone (whether friends or foe) had stolen it. He had “risen again.” He had taken His body with Him. It was not a case of spiritual survival. It was a Resurrection. Christ in the totality of His personality-soul and body-had risen again. The women had come to anoint a corpse, and instead of that they were told of a living Christ. But when the angel uttered these three simple words, “He is risen,” he set men in a larger universe, he altered the current of human history, he changed the face of the entire world. Let us consider for a moment or two some of the wealth of its significance. “He is risen.” What did that imply?
The Messiahship of Jesus.
First of all, the Messiahship of Jesus. If my account of the condition of the disciples is correct, the Cross, while it had been powerless to kill their love for Jesus, had shattered their hopes. “We hoped,” said the two disciples, speaking in the past tense which as good as implies that the hope was dead and gone, “we hoped that it was He Who should redeem Israel.” The Cross laid any such faith in ruins, and out of the wreck only personal affection still remained. They could not help loving Jesus, in spite of the disappointment of their expectation, but the shameful death of the Cross finally disposed of all claims to Messiahship. Friday and Saturday these people were bewailing a lost leader and a discredited cause. But this simple announcement, “He is risen,” changed the entire outlook, totally altered their point of view. It was not Jesus only Who rose again from the grave. Faith, faith which had been buried in the same grave, rose again, buoyant, confident, exultant. The Jewish rulers by nailing Christ to the cursed Cross, had tried to brand Him as a slave, but by the Resurrection God proclaimed Him as His glorious Son. “He was declared to be the Son of God with power,” says St Paul, “by the Resurrection from the dead.” I fancy those great and splendid words of the second Psalm must have come back to the minds of the disciples when it really came home to them that Christ was alive. “The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed… He that sitteth in the heaven shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision.” On the Friday Pilate and Herod and the priests had conspired against the Lord’s anointed. Conspired, as it seemed, with success when Jesus hung dead upon the tree. But on the morning of the first day of the week the disciples knew they had conspired in vain. “Yet,” said God, by the Resurrection of His Son, “have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion.” “My King,” God’s Holy One, that was what Christ really was! The Resurrection was God’s testimony to Jesus. The rejected of men was the accepted and the honoured of God. They knew Jesus for what He really was as the result of the Resurrection. Their faith in His Messiahship revived. They were “begotten again” as Peter puts it, “unto a living hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” The hope that died in the Cross and was buried with Jesus in His grave, sprang up into new and imperishable life at the Resurrection. Priests and people might heap up what scorn and contempt they pleased upon Jesus. Easter morning proved Him to be “God’s King.”
-God’s Testimony.
The Sacrificial Character of the Cross.
And the second thing the Resurrection did was this, it set the Cross in an entirely new light. In the popular conception of Messiah the idea of death had no place. He was to be a conquering Prince, and the deliverance He was to effect was deliverance from political oppressors and conquerors. In that conception of Messiah’s work the disciples shared, and therefore Christ’s death was the death-blow to their hopes, because it seemed fatal to Christ’s Messiahship. But in the light of Easter morning they felt they had to give a new interpretation of the Cross. After all, the person who died on the Cross was the Messiah, He was declared to be God’s Son with power. The Resurrection showed that death was in Messiah’s destiny. It was no mishap, it was no evil chance. It was part of Messiah’s work. The Resurrection was God’s seal of approval upon Christ’s dying. It was, as someone has said, “The Amen” of the Father, to the “It is finished” of the Son. And so, not all at once, perhaps, but gradually, the disciples came to understand that the Cross was not a martyrdom but a sacrifice. They began to realise that what Messiah came to deliver people from was not the Roman yoke but sin. And He delivered them from sin, by bearing it Himself, by enduring the death which was its punishment, by exhausting all the curse of it in His Cross. And so, in course of time, the Cross, which when they saw it reared had broken their hearts, became the ground of their confidence and hope. Instead of being the disproof of Christ’s Messiahship, they came to feel that it was in the Cross He fulfilled His Messianic mission. “God forbid that I should glory,” cries the greatest of them all, “save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It was the Resurrection that had transfigured it from a shame to a splendour.
Sin and Sacrifice.
And still it is only in the light of Easter morning that we can understand the Cross! The instinct for sacrifice is bedded deep in the human soul. Sin has got to be paid for, atoned for. And the payment cannot be a light one. Every sacrifice offered on Jewish or pagan altars bears witness to the sort of feeling men everywhere possess that life has to be given for life if sin is to be atoned for and forgiven. And that instinct of the soul is met and satisfied in the Cross. At the Cross men believe in the forgiveness of sin. They feel that in it atonement has been made. They actually receive the reconciliation. The Cross is to them the one full and perfect oblation and sacrifice, to which every other sacrifice in the world pointed. And what makes them believe it was a sacrifice is the glorious triumph of Easter morning. Had Jesus never risen again, men would never have triumphed in the Cross; they would never have received forgiveness and peace at the Cross; they would never have sung, “In the Cross of Christ I glory, towering o’er the wrecks of time.” Had there been no Easter morning, Christ’s death would have been just one more martyrdom and nothing more; and though He might have been the first and noblest of the martyrs, men would as soon have thought of looking to Socrates’ hemlock cup for salvation as to the Cross of Jesus, if He was a martyr to truth and nothing beside. It is Easter that illumines Good Friday. It is the empty grave that flings back glory on the Cross. If Christ did not rise, no sacrifice has been offered; no atonement has been made; no redemption has been won-we should be still in our sins. But with the empty grave before our eyes we can and do joyfully believe that He was delivered up for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.
The Living Christ.
And thirdly, it meant this, that Jesus was alive and with His disciples still. Now it cannot be too emphatically stated that union with the living Christ is the ultimate proof of our faith. That is how we live the Christian life, by living union with a living Lord. Christ Himself illustrated it by the figure of the vine and the branch. The branch lives only by vital union with the vine; the Christian lives only by a similar vital union with Christ. That is not only how we live the Christian life, that is the Christian life itself. “I live yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” He Himself had said, “Apart from Me, ye can do nothing.” He had comforted them then by telling them He would come back again. It was the Resurrection that ratified and fulfilled that promise. The disciples knew that Jesus was alive and with them still. And in fellowship with that living Christ they found themselves able to live the life and do the work. That is the secret of the brave and heroic lives they lived, that is the secret of the work they did-they were conscious of union with the living Christ.
The Message of the Empty Tomb.
That is what the empty grave does still, it assures us of the living Christ; and the living Christ is the spring both of our Christian life and service. It cannot be too often asserted, that the Christian life is not the attempt today to imitate the life of somebody who lived and worked in Palestine nineteen centuries ago. The Christian life is the life which we live as a result of our union with a living Lord. The imitatio Christi might easily degenerate into a very hard and exacting legalism; but there is nothing hard, or constrained, or legalistic about the Christian life. It is free, joyous, spontaneous, for it is just Christ living over again in us. “He was raised,” says Paul, “for our justification.” And that does not mean simply that only in the light of the Resurrection can we believe that His death was an atoning sacrifice which “justifies” us in the sight of God. It means that it was only the risen and living Christ Who could become the new life-principle for mankind. That is what the Resurrection has done-given us not a Christ without us as an example, but a Christ within us as a power. And it is that Christ within us Who is the hope of glory.
-The Source of our Power for Service.
Moreover, not only does the Resurrection give us a living Christ Who is our power for Christian life, it gives us a Christ Who is our helper in Christian service. These disciples would never have flung themselves upon a world had Jesus remained in Joseph’s grave. But when they knew He was alive and with them in the fight, they felt nothing was impossible to them. There is a significant sequence at the close of this chapter. “So then the Lord Jesus was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God-and they went forth and preached everywhere.” The vision of the Lord, and then the missionary enterprise; the certainty that Christ was alive, and then the abolition of fears. “They went forth and preached everywhere.” The world was against them! but what did that matter? A living Lord was with them! Up to Easter morning they had kept themselves locked in the Upper Room for fear. As soon as they knew Jesus was alive, they flung the doors open and preached Him without trace of apology or timidity to the men who had crucified Him. “The doors were shut for fear of the Jews”-that is one picture. “When they saw the boldness of Peter and John”-that is the other, and it was the living Christ Who made the difference. And He makes all the difference still. The tasks that confront us are vast, stupendous, appalling. But if we are quite sure of the living Christ we shall be strangers to fear. We shall fling ourselves with undaunted courage upon the most difficult of tasks saying with the Apostle, “We can do all things through Christ Who strengthened us.”
The Victory of Right.
Finally, that empty grave means this, that Right rules. There is much that is tangled and bewildering and perplexing in the events of this world of ours. Amidst all the perplexity and bewilderment the empty grave is a mighty comfort. There in symbol and type you get the result of the conflict between truth and falsehood, right and wrong, God and the devil. On the Friday it looked as if wickedness was triumphant, as if the only right was might; for Jesus, Who did no Sin, in Whom no fault could be found, was dead, and the priests were congratulating themselves on their victory. But the empty grave put another complexion on things. Victory lay not with Pilate and the plotting priests, but with Jesus. Eight was might! Let us go back to the empty grave when we are disheartened and discouraged. Right is might! Truth shall prevail! God must reign! We may seem to be living sometimes in truth’s Good Friday. But
“Truth pressed to earth shall rise again,
The eternal years of God are hers,
But Error wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies among her worshippers.”
Fuente: The Gospel According to St. Mark: A Devotional Commentary
6
The angel spoke encouragingly to the women, and let them know he was aware of their purpose in coming to the tomb. As an evidence for their eyes that Jesus was gone he led them to the spot where he had been laid.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mar 16:6. Be not amazed. This is probably not identical with the message in Mat 28:5-7, given outside the tomb, but a second one (reported by Luke also), which is, however, substantially a repetition of the previous one.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
The angel first calmed the women’s fears. They needed to stop being amazed since Jesus had predicted His resurrection and now it had happened. Then the angel explained where Jesus was. He was raised (Gr. passive tense, implying that God had raised Him)! The empty tomb testified to His resurrection. The same person who was crucified was now alive.
"It is significant that early Jewish polemicists never sought to dispute this fact." [Note: Lane, p. 588.]