November 12, 2017

Don’t Look Away From the Son Of God Part 4

Mark 15:42-27

This is the final part of the series “Don’t look away from the Son of God”, we are ending chapter15 and are seeing the lifeless bloody body of our Lord being taken down from the cross and placed into a newly built tomb. All of the messages in our series have asked us not to look away from what has been happening in the gospel of Mark, every message has been filled with the unbelievable love of Jesus Christ from the initial arrest in the garden to the interrogation of the High Priests; from Pilate’s questions, to the soldier’s whips, from the actions of Simon of Cyrene to the final nails into flesh, love has flowed above and beyond the torrent of blood that ran from our Lord’s side. Love has been the constant current that has never wavered or lessened. Love is what has held our eyes transfixed upon that glorious message that has told us, not to look away but to absorb this amazing gift of life, the wonderful undeserved redemption from eternal blackness and despair. Now our Lord is laid in a tomb that has been carved out from the rock that surrounds Jerusalem, the Lord of lords is laid in a borrowed tomb, just as when he came into this world there was no room for him, and a space was donated. Don’t look away from this fact today, that Jesus had nothing of his own, even his clothes were ripped from him and gambled away.

My prayer as we end this series of messages is that we all see the life, death and burial of Jesus Christ in a way that we have never seen before. Every one of these messages has been a place where we have seen the sacrifice of Jesus anew, like we have never seen it before, that’s the reason for the title, “Don’t look away”. The burial of our Lord today in the text doesn’t signal the end for us, it is only the beginning. Don’t look away from this burial today, don’t look away from the surprise of Pilate as he is told that Jesus is dead. Don’t look away from Joseph of Arimathea or the women who saw where Jesus was laid. Don’t look away from this great truth this morning: truth and hope is not dead, but lives forever! Friday is just about over, but Sunday is coming, Sunday is coming for the disciples, and also for us our hope has not been extinguished by the grave, as a matter of fact we have been given victory over the grave because of Christ!