Bearing Fruit and Growing (Colossians 1.1-13)

Introduction

We give thanks to God for his blessing on this church which has endured for many years. Our prayer is that it may continue, and indeed accelerate, as we journey together into the future he has for us.

Whenever a friend of mine visits another church, I always ask, “How did you find it?” And what I mean by that question is not “what was the building like?”, or “what do they wear?”, or “how many people were present?”, or “which songs did they sing?” or “did you find out about their finances?” 

What I’m interested in is what I call the “spiritual temperature” of church. In other words, did the people seem to be on fire for God or apathetic? Did you find them outward-looking and welcoming or a bit cliquey? Was the Bible teaching sound and life-giving or dull and lacking conviction? Was their worship vibrant and energising or lethargic and tiresome? Was the atmosphere there full of faith and the Holy Spirit or a bit worldly and dreary? 

Our reading today, from Colossians 1, is all about those kinds of issues. It’s about the personality of the church in Colossae and the impact it was having beyond its four walls. 

Colossae, like Stockton on Tees, was a meeting place of many different worldviews and beliefs. There was a great plurality of different ideas that were all tolerated as long as they didn’t result in civil disorder. Our secular society works in much the same way today. You can believe what you want as long as it doesn’t offend or limit the rights of someone else.

Hearing About What God Is Doing

And for the church in that town, the Apostle Paul’s prayer was surely what he would pray for the church in this one; (v10) that we would live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way.

As far as we know, Paul never visited Colossae. The nearest he got to it was when he started a church in Ephesus, about 100 miles away, but he knew about it because one of his converts in Ephesus, called Epaphras, later took the gospel to his home town of Colossae. He took the essential DNA of the church in Ephesus and put it somewhere else. Hold on to that thought, I’m going to come back to it. 

But notice this; Paul never went anywhere near this church and yet he can say in v4, “We have heard of your faith... and your love.” 

In fact, three times in this short passage Paul says; “We’ve heard all about you.” So it was a church with influence. There is something about the work of God there that became news. It was heard about and talked about hundreds of miles away. What was it about that little church that caused ripples throughout the wider region? 

Growth and Fruitfulness

In v6 you get the answer; “The gospel is bearing fruit and growing… among you.” 

Paul repeats that in v10. He prays, “that you may please the Lord in every way, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God.”

One of the unmissable hallmarks of an individual or a church where God is at work is that there is growth and fruitfulness. God wants you and me to be growing and bearing fruit in such a way that people get to hear about it. 

Let me ask you bluntly and directly; do you think you are growing? Is your faith deepening? Is your heart for God getting bigger? Do you have a healthy appetite for God’s presence? Are you forgiving as the Lord forgave you? Are you further on in God than you were this time last year? Are you asking God for more faith, deeper joy, greater love, and increased generosity...?

Growth and fruitfulness are unmistakable evidence of spiritual health. Spiritual stagnation and unproductiveness are signs that something is wrong and needs sorting out.

So what’s the secret of spiritual growth and fruitfulness? Well, the Bible says here that before you can ever make an impression on your community, the gospel has to make its mark on you.

Here’s how it all works in a nutshell; first, God does a work in your heart and you change – and you then enrich the life of your local church making it stronger and more healthy - and only then, when the whole church is alive and vibrant, is there an impact on the wider community. But it starts with each individual growing and bearing fruit.

If you look closer at verses 6 to 9 you can see that they reveal a sequence. 

In v6 it says “you heard the word of the gospel.” In other words, somebody articulated the good news about Jesus and your ears tuned in. It appealed to you enough to listen up and take an interest. That’s vital.

But hearing the gospel is not enough. I mean, I have heard about pulsars, quasars, phantom energy, black holes and dark matter. I have heard that they exist out in space and are fundamental to the structure of the universe. But that doesn’t mean I understand what they are. 

But a bit further in v6 it says about the gospel, “You truly understood it.” That is to say the message of the gospel rang true and made sense to you. Your eyes were opened to the truth about the gravity of sin and the sweetness of salvation and you said, “Ah yes, I see that now.” 

But understanding the gospel is not sufficient either. I understand how planes fly; it’s basic aerodynamics; thrust must be greater than drag, and lift must be greater than weight. I can understand that perfectly well, but I have never learned to actually fly a plane. 

So in v7 Paul goes beyond just hearing and understanding. He says, “You learned it.” He’s talking about life-related biblical training so that theory becomes personal experience.

That’s where these believers were. They had first heard, then understood, and finally really learned or grasped the gospel of God’s grace. 

Where do you think you are on that scale? The truth about you and God’s plan for your life – are you at stage 1 (have you just heard it?) Or do you think you have progressed to stage 2 yet (do you really understand it?) Or have you made it to stage 3 now (have you properly learned and grasped it so it is an integral part of who you are?) 

This is so important. It’s why we work really hard on biblical preaching and encourage everyone to be in a Life Group. Our aim is that everyone here has heard, understood and learned the gospel so we are all growing and bearing fruit.

There are four different ways in which I see us growing and bearing fruit, and I want to end by saying a few words on each.

1) REACh

We have made a start in growing the building here. We are very blessed to have the facility we have, and I thank God for the vision of generations before me. But the truth is that parts of our building fit what God was calling the church to be in the 1950’s and 60’s. This is 2018. And we should not ask those who will come after us to fit in with what God was doing decades ago.

If we do not change, we will find ourselves perfectly equipped for a world that no longer exists. So we have to find a way of honouring the heritage of the past, without ever being controlled by it. 

Jesus said that new wine needs new wineskins. He didn’t advise us, he commanded us in the great commission, to make disciples and preach the gospel to all creation, not become curators of a religious museum. So REACh will continue and we will not rest until we’ve finished the job.

2) Discipleship for Everyone

But even with the best church building on earth, if we are not all growing in our discipleship, we are failing as a church. Discipleship means a lifelong programme of learning to live more like Jesus did. It's our job to train people to be more like Jesus in his character, to think more like Jesus in his priorities and to minister more like Jesus in his anointed power. 

From June onwards, we are going to be intentionally focusing on this. Because we know that there is a great temptation to sit comfortably, get some popcorn and just enjoy the show. That is not the church Jesus is building.

Jesus modelled to all his followers how to preach good news to the poor, how to heal the sick, how to drive out demons and how to feed the 5,000. Then he said, “Right, now it’s your turn. You do it. And when you’ve done that, tell someone else how to do it.” That is what we’re about.

3) Equipping Leaders

Because the 10.30am congregation has grown in size over the last few years, All Saints’ has increased in complexity. There are more people to get to know, to keep up with, to look after, and to involve.

Logistically, it takes longer to administer Communion and serve coffee; queues are longer meaning servers get home later... The parking challenge, already tricky two years ago, is now even more so. On so many levels, we simply cannot operate like we did before.

This means we have involve more people in decision making, train more people and give them responsibility. For example, because the pastoral caseload has grown so much, Peter is now co-leading the pastoral team with Karen and he is training to take funerals too, releasing me for other things.

The leadership of Connect is now shared between 6 different people. We have identified new Life Group leaders. I have invited new faces into the service leading and preaching teams. We aim to double the size of the prayer ministry team.

4) Planting Out

Finally, I mentioned Epaphras earlier, the man who first took the gospel from Ephesus to Colossae and established a new church there. This is the way the early church grew. Churches sent out leaders with teams who began to grow and bear fruit where they went.

All Saints’ has gospel-shaped DNA which multiplies wherever it goes. When the Alan and Nicky went to Central Stockton with a few others ten years ago, a church facing closure came alive.

When Sylvia went out five years ago there were virtually no children or young people and only very formal services where she went. Now there is lots of youthfulness and a growing congregation.

When Stuart and Nichola went to Sunderland two years ago, they had a congregation of 6; 4 of whom were them. Now they’re getting over 60, people are coming to faith, and God is growing his church on that tough estate.

What we have here, what God has so graciously done among us, is too precious to keep to ourselves. And whenever we give it away, God pours even more back in. Jesus said, “Give, and it will be given to you – with an added bonus and a blessing.”

When Paul comes as curate here in July, his focus will be to gather a team of hopefully about 30 people to go with him and his family from here and do the same again about three years from now. The church he will go on to is not viable in its present form and is facing closure. But we believe God has a new day for that community.

I want to ask you to pray, perhaps especially if you live nearer to there than here, and ask God if he might perhaps be calling you to join that new plant team. It won’t be to keep doing with more people what has led to decline there for decades. It will be new wine in a new wineskin. People are going to meet Jesus, come to faith, be filled with the Holy Spirit, be added to the church and it will grow and bear fruit.

Ending

I think we are entering one of the most exciting chapters in All Saints’ life. The best is yet to come! It is an honour to be called by God to lead this church and serve you all.

Let’s stand to pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 22 April 2018

Go Into All the World (Mark 16.9-20)

Introduction

You cannot help but notice that we make a much bigger deal of Christmas than we do of Easter.

In general culture, Christmas basically starts as soon as Halloween is over, at the start of November. Ugly jumpers and plastic Santas start to appear everywhere like a terrifying scene from a Zombie film. There’s Christmas adverts, Christmas cards, Christmas parties, Christmas bonuses, Christmas shopping, Christmas cake, Christmas crackers Christmas pudding … And of course, there’s the inexplicable annual fuss over who’s going to be Christmas Number One. Does anyone actually care about that? It all builds up to December 25th.

As for Easter, well, no one even knows what month it’s going to be in let alone the exact date. And apart from Easter eggs appearing on Boxing Day, and an Easter bunny vaguely turning up in March, the general sense of anticipation for Easter in our society is frankly underwhelming.

And it’s the same in church. Attendance at Christmas vastly exceeds attendance at Easter. And yet, Easter is infinitely more important than Christmas. I mean, while the Apostle Paul never once even mentioned Jesus’ birth at Bethlehem, he said the cross and resurrection were matters of first importance.

If the first Easter actually happened like the New Testament says it did, it has prominence and precedence and pre-eminence at the very top of the short list of life’s absolutely essential things.

If it didn’t happen like the New Testament says it did, then the Bible is fake news, church is a waste of time, Christians are deluded, everyone you love who has died you will never see again and I’m no better than a snake oil salesman for what I’m saying today. But if it happened…

Simon Gathercole, Cambridge University’s leading expert on the historical evidence for Jesus wrote in The Guardian last year, that the “abundant historical references leave us with little reasonable doubt that Jesus lived and died. The more interesting question… is whether Jesus died and lived.”

The Empty Tomb

As we saw last week, one Sunday morning, as far as we can work out the dates, we’re not 100% sure, but it was very possibly 5 April 33AD, three women peer into a tomb just outside Jerusalem’s city walls. They expect to see human remains, hard and cold and possibly starting to smell unpleasant.

And what do they see? Nothing. Nothing but a discarded, bloodstained burial shroud left behind and a stranger telling them what is blindingly obvious; “Jesus is not here. That’s where he was, right there, but that was then and this is now.”

Sometime very shortly before they arrive, the most momentous chapter in world history is being written. The Bible, in Ephesians 1, describes the magnitude of that event by saying “God placed all things under Christ’s feet.”

Think about those feet for a moment.

·         those feet that first took proud little steps in his dad’s carpenter’s workshop

·         that went all over the dirty roads of an occupied land

·         that stepped towards untouchables when everyone else walked away

·         that walked on water in the middle of the night

·         that were washed by the tears and dried by the hair of a grateful and forgiven woman

·         that gave way under the weight of the cross on the way to death

·         that curled up in agony as they were smashed against the coarse wood of his cross by a nail the size of this one

·         that hung limp and lifeless as Jesus was lifted down dead from the cross

·         that turned stone cold in the cool of the tomb…

But as the sun rises on that first Easter Day, all of a sudden Jesus’ ankles begin to tingle, and his toes begin to wiggle, and his feet begin to move, and his legs begin to stretch - and he kicks off his burial shroud and walks towards the one-and-a-half ton door of the tomb which cannot stay in place as out from the grave he strides, victorious over death forever!

The First Witnesses

As I said last week, the earliest manuscripts we have of Mark’s Gospel, end abruptly, and in mid-sentence. Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony and Hergé’s Tintin and Alph-Art are works that were never completed. We know why. Schubert and Hergé both died.

But no one knows why Mark’s Gospel lacks the ending it obviously builds up to. It’s like an Agatha Christie whodunnit that finishes with Poirot getting everyone together and saying that the murderer is in the room, but never getting revealing who it is.

So a few decades later, when the other three Gospels had been written, someone else, not Mark, decided to tidy up the ending a bit and that’s why v9-20 in our Bibles are written in italics. Scholars universally agree. Verses 9-20 were added later by someone else.

But everything in this postscript is found in the other three Gospels or in Acts except one little detail, and I take this to be the Word of God and authoritative for us.

So let’s look at it now (page 967). It says in v9 that Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene. The other three gospels all agree.

It tells us here that Jesus had delivered her of seven demons. To have one is a right pain in the neck – she had seven of them. Just think of the oppression, the burden, the constant grinding down, the heaviness, the darkness, the torment she lived with…

An ancient tradition says Mary Magdalene had been a prostitute. We don’t know - and we don’t need to know what the demons were or how she got them.

All we need to know is that when she met Jesus, at his word of his command, they had to go and her living hell was over.

No wonder she loved him! No wonder she stayed to the very end at the foot of the cross and no wonder she was first to arrive at the tomb. This was perhaps the first man she ever met to treat her with courtesy and respect as a woman and not as a commodity.

As Matthew’s Gospel also testifies, she bursts in to the house where the men are “mourning and weeping”.

So the women are up, running around, organising the whole shebang, sorting the funeral out, getting stuff done, while the men are all sitting around at home, feeling sorry for themselves and whining like puppies in a pet shop.

Not one of them has the wit to say, “Hey guys, do you remember when Jesus said he would go up to Jerusalem, be rejected, be crucified, would die, get buried and after three days rise again… well, you know he said it not once, not twice but three times… well, you know he actually did go to Jerusalem, get rejected, and crucified, died, and is now buried… well, do you think the last bit might happen as well?” They’re too busy sniffling and whimpering to even think of it.

In fact, even when Mary Magdalene tells them in v11 that he 1) is alive and 2) that she has actually seen him, they do not believe it.

Verse 12. Later that day, as Luke’s Gospel also says, two of them go for a walk to Emmaus, meet Jesus, return and tell the others. They still don’t believe it. They simply dismiss it as rubbish.

Verse 14. As John’s Gospel also says, Jesus meets with all the eleven this time. Jesus has to say, “Stop doubting, and believe.” And finally, reluctantly, uneasily and hesitantly they come to see and believe that Jesus is alive.

But as v15 and 20 say, when it all sinks in they start spreading the message over the whole then-known world. They do it during a reign of terror organised against them. They don’t fear death. They are just fine with being eaten by lions and wrapped in pitch and set aflame for torches in Nero’s garden. Because they know Jesus is alive. Death is no longer fearful or final for them.

Charles Colson was known as President Nixon's "hatchet man” and he was one of seven men jailed for his part in the Watergate scandal. Whilst doing time in the federal Maxwell Prison in Alabama, he became a Christian.

And reflecting on his experience he once said this: “I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Everyone was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely not!”

In v16 Jesus says, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

John’s Gospel says the same thing in chapter 3. “Whoever believes in [Jesus] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”

The gospel speaks in plain language. No one can say that God has not made himself clear enough. No one can say, “Oh, why doesn’t the Bible say anything about believing? No one said anything about having to believe anything. I thought God just wanted me to be a nice person.”

Believe it or not, this point needs to be made as much in church as out of it. There are people up and down this land, faithfully attending church services week in, week out, all entirely in vain because they have never been converted.

I actually heard about someone the other week who is training as a lay assistant to conduct Christian funerals, who doesn’t really believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

That’s like someone who hates kids applying to become a teacher. Or someone who thinks what people really need is prolonged pain training as a nurse.

The Australian Professor Gerald O’ Collins says: “In a profound sense, Christianity without the resurrection is not simply Christianity without its final chapter. It is not Christianity at all.”

He’s right. If we don’t believe that Jesus died and rose again we are not Christians; we are still condemned by our sins, estranged from God and lost for all eternity.

Signs and Wonders

But wherever the good news about the risen Christ goes, there will be signs and wonders to authenticate it. Verses 17-18 summarise the entire Book of Acts, which is a documentary of the early church.

You can read in Acts about deliverance from demon possession, laying hands on the sick for healing and people speaking in tongues they haven’t learned, it’s all there. But it’s not only in the Bible. If Jesus is really alive today, he heals the sick today.

Jean Smith from Cwmbran in Wales was in her mid-sixties. She had been blind for sixteen years. She had a white stick and a guide dog. An infection had eaten away at the retinas and mirrors behind her eyes – they could not be replaced. She was in constant pain.

Jean went on a local Alpha course. On the day away, focusing on the Holy Spirit, she felt the pain leave her, though she was still totally unsighted. She went to church the following Sunday to thank God that all the pain had gone. She was anointed with oil and prayed for in Jesus’ name. And as she wiped the oil off her forehead, she noticed, to her astonishment, that she could see the communion table. God had miraculously repaired her retinas.

She had not seen her husband for sixteen years. She was shocked at how white his beard was! She had never seen her daughter-in-law before. Her six  year-old grandson used to guide her around the puddles to avoid her getting her feet wet.

He said to her, ‘Who done that Gran?’ She said, ‘Jesus made me better.’ ‘I hope you said thank you, Gran’ he said. ‘I will never stop saying thank you,’ she answered.

Ajay Gohill was brought up as a Hindu and worked for the family business in a newsagent in North London. At the age of twenty-one he contracted erythrodermic psoriasis, a chronic skin condition. His weight dropped from 11.5 stone to 7.5 stone. The disease was all over his body from head to toe. He lost all his friends. His wife and son abandoned him. He wanted to die.

But as he lay dying in hospital he cried out to God. He looked in his locker and found a Gideons Bible there. He opened it at Psalm 38.

My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly.

I am bowed down and brought very low; all day long I go about mourning.

My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body.

I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart…

Lord, do not forsake me; do not be far from me, my God.

Come quickly to help me, my Lord and my Saviour.

Every verse of that Psalm seemed to be about him. He asked God to heal him and fell into a deep sleep. The next morning, he woke up, totally healed. His skin was new like a baby’s and his life was turned around. He was reunited with his son. When interviewed in a church service he said, ‘Every day I live for Jesus.’

I found a picture on social media last week of our good friend Mike Taylor from Tees Valley Youth for Christ with a 13-foot python. It reminded me of v18. I don’t think we’ll introduce snake-handling services at All Saints’ any time soon, though if you want to arrange one when I’m on holiday I have no objection… But in Acts 28, Paul was bitten by one but was unharmed.

The one thing you can’t find in either the Gospels or Acts is any witness to drinking deadly poison and surviving. Well, let’s give that a go eh?  Opens can of Red Bull and drinks… If I’m still breathing by the end of this talk, I think that might count...

Seriously though, the early church historian Eusebius wrote about Barsabas, the apostle who replaced Judas Iscariot, “drinking lethal draughts and surviving” but that’s an ancient tradition, not in the Bible, and in any case I wouldn’t try it at home.

Ending

I’d better draw to a close. And as I do, I leave you with this thought.

In every major city on this earth you will find shrines to holy men and women, famous celebrities, great heroes and outstanding leaders. Sometimes at a tomb, other times at the place where a fatal accident took place. You’ll often find memorials there with flowers, handwritten cards and candles.

It was customary for Jews in Jesus’ day to dedicate a shrine venerating the last resting place of a prophet or holy man. But nothing like this was ever done at Jesus’ tomb. No one really went there. No one gathered around the site to light candles or write prayers or shed a few tears.

I visited the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem when I was 20 years old.

As you can probably see from the picture, it’s a beautiful and quiet little space with a simple, empty 1^st Century tomb hewn into the rock. I asked one of the guides there if this is where he thought Jesus’ body had been laid, and he said, “Honestly, I really don’t know. It could be. If it’s not this one, then it would be one quite like it.”

The bottom line is this: no one knows where Jesus’ body was put. Because no one ever went there! Why would they? What would be the point? It doesn’t matter! Who cares? There’s nothing there! Jesus is alive!

That is the news the first Christians spread everywhere, turning the world upside down. And that, my friends, is the exact same message we have for our generation which is just as needy as theirs was.

Nine months ago, we began this series in Mark with the very first verse which says, “The beginning of the good news about Jesus the messiah.” The beginning of the good news is that Jesus is alive. And so can you be.

Let’s stand to pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 8 April 2018

On the Third Day... (Mark 16.1-8)

Picture courtesy of the Lumo Project

Introduction

Well, we have finally arrived at the last page of the Book of Mark. We’ve been going through this Gospel since last June last and here we are in chapter 16 on Easter Sunday.

The Shock

It all starts with the men nowhere to be seen. Cowering in a room somewhere, they are feeling terrified and utterly crushed.

But women, as we know, are made of stronger stuff. As we saw last Sunday, there they are at the cross. They never leave his side. They stay to the end. They attend the burial. Then the sun sets on Friday to start the sabbath.

24 hours later, as soon as night falls on Saturday, the sabbath ends, and they go shopping for burial spices. They will have the gruesome job of washing and embalming Jesus’ butchered dead body as soon as it’s light.

So up they get, before dawn on Sunday morning. Already, they’re thinking about what their morning’s work is going to look like. They will tenderly wipe dried blood stains from Jesus’ stone-cold feet and hands, from his lacerated back and legs, from that great gash in his side. They will wash his hair and beard, matted with blood and sweat.

They will be the last to touch that face that looked at them with such love. With a deep breath, not holding back their tears, they will gently close his lifeless eyes for the last time. Then they will lay their perfumed spices on his body and leave.

I just love the servant heart of these women. Why did they do this? It was their love and devotion for Jesus. It was the least they could do. In life they cared for him; in death they would honour him. They knew he had given it all for them. Nothing was too great a sacrifice to give back in return.

So they set out at first light, carrying their jars of spices, and it occurs to them on the way that the tombstone is going to take some shifting. As they’re thinking about the weight of this great slab of rock, and the physical impossibility of rolling it, and maybe having to wait until some men arrive to help they look up and see that someone has already moved it.

Who did it? Where are they? When did they do it? And why? And as they go in, bracing themselves for the sight of a dead body in a messy burial shroud, they are startled to see there’s nothing there, except a young man sitting to the right.

No wonder it says they were alarmed. This tomb, this sepulchre, this place of the dead now has no body in it. It’s heart-stopping. It’s shocking; it’s distressing. What on earth is going on?

“You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He is not here. He is risen.”

They were freaked out. Mark says they “went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (Mark 16:8).

Jesus had said three times, in plain language, that the leaders would reject him – they did. That he would suffer - he did. That he must be killed – he was. And that he would rise again. No one understood it then.

And they still don’t get it now. What they hear is too big, too mind-blowing too world-shattering to really grasp. It simply does not sink in.

From Fear to Faith

All through Mark’s Gospel we have been watching people trying to get from fear to faith.

·         When Jesus calms the storm (Mark 4) the disciples are terrified. Jesus says, “Why are you so afraid. Do you still have no faith?”

·         When Jesus sets free a self-harming, demon possessed man (Mark 5) the locals are greatly afraid, but the man becomes a believer.

·         When Jesus heals a woman who touches the hem of his garment, he says “who touched me?” (also Mark 5) and she trembles with fear. Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid, just believe.”

·         When Jesus walks on water (Mark 6), the petrified disciples cry out, in terror. Jesus says, “Take courage! Don’t be scared, it’s me!” 

·         When Jesus’ glory is revealed in a blinding transfiguration (Mark 9) Peter, James and John are so frightened they don’t know what to say.

·         As Jesus walks up to Jerusalem heading for confrontation (Mark 10) those who follow are afraid.

·         When he gets there, (Mark 11) the religious leaders are scared of him because the crowd.

·         When Peter is accused of being one of his followers (Mark 14), he is gripped with fear and denies knowing him. 

·         When Jesus is on trial, (Mark 15), Pilate is afraid of the crowd and of losing his job, so he hands him over to be crucified.

This whole Gospel is about how scary and daunting it is to be around Jesus.

And now, right at the end, “trembling and bewildered, the women say nothing because they are afraid.”

Fear is a daily reality for us all. Amongst the most common phobias; fear of the dark, flying, heights and phobia number one; fear of a harmless creature the size of a £2 coin that you can exterminate by stepping on – the household spider. Don’t squash it. Kathie (who is every spider’s best friend) will pick it up and take it outside where it will be much happier.

I used to fear that I would lose my hair. Look where that got me! Two modern phobias are arachibutyrophobia (which is actually the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth). Clearly, a fate worse than death… And there is now a fear called nomophobia which is the fear of being without your smartphone.

These are all minor fears that affect your mood. But there are more serious ones that affect your life; fear of change, fear of loneliness, fear of illness, fear of exams, fear of failing exams, fear of facing your mum and dad after getting the results of exams, fear of financial hardship, fear of bullies, fear of the future, fear of death.

Nicky Gumbel said recently, “It is no coincidence that as the fear of God has decreased in our society, all the other fears have increased.”

Listen, you don’t need to fear the future. God is already there. You don’t need to fear death either. This is what Easter is about.

The Victory

On Good Friday, Death has Jesus on the ropes. It gives him an absolute pounding. There’s blood everywhere. It’s carnage in the ring! The crowd can hardly watch.

Left hook, right cross, a series of devastating jabs, then the decisive blow; a right uppercut! Jesus falls pulverised like a stone to the floor, motionless, lifeless, seemingly out for the count. Death walks around the ring, face gloating, arms in the air, basking in the glory of certain victory.

But just as the count goes to 7… 8… 9… suddenly the whole arena begins to shake. And sensationally up from the canvas gets Jesus. Death turns around and, is startled to see that this fight isn’t over yet.

And with one mighty blow, Jesus thumps it into the ropes with a force so hard, they snap, and Death falls utterly defeated to the floor below.

The crowd go wild! Even the referee can’t believe it, but he lifts Jesus’ arm aloft and declares him the winner, the victor, the undisputed champion of heaven and earth! Halleluiah, Christ is risen!

The Understated Ending

Kathie will tell you that I really enjoy mushroom soup. It’s my favourite. When I go to a restaurant, if soup of the day is mushroom I don’t need to look at the rest of the menu. I love it.

And so this week I was pleased to see in my local supermarket Ainsley Harriot Cream of Wild Mushroom soup. Other brands are available…

But what set this particular brand head and shoulders above the competition for me was the little message in Ainsley’s own handwriting on the packaging. It says, “Irresistibly creamy with the rich taste and aroma of mushroom.” Mmmm, wow. And look, he even signs the corner of the box with a smiley face.

Driving home, I had visions of happy young women in gingham summer dresses, and wicker baskets under their arms, picking fresh, aromatic wild mushrooms for me in English forest glades. I dreamed of a lovely old copper pan on an Aga cooker with fresh cream being stirred into this mushroom heaven.

But while I was drinking my soup at home, I started to read the box. Made in Leeds? When I checked the ingredients, it could have been Chernobyl… Dipotassium phosphate. Maltodextrin. Trisodium citrate. Calcium carbonate. Mushrooms 1%... It’s basically a chemistry set with artificial flavouring.

Anyway, I mention this because of the complete contrast with this morning’s reading. The most ancient and reliable manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel literally say in v8; “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid of…”

No one knows why Mark’s Gospel ends so abruptly in mid-sentence.

What we do know is that the earliest Christians added v9-20 to round things off a bit later; it mentions speaking in tongues and driving out demons, being unharmed by poison and so on. Isaac will speak on that bit next week, and I expect a live demonstration from him of snake handing and poison sampling to bring the text alive…

But why does Mark’s Gospel end so abruptly? Maybe Mark was just finishing his Gospel when the authorities arrested him so he couldn’t complete it.

Or possibly Mark died before he wrote the ending.

Or it could be that Mark did finish it, but the last bit about Jesus appearing risen from the dead enraged some enemies, so they tore it off.

Or perhaps the edge of the scroll with an original ending was destroyed in the great fire of Rome. 

We just don’t know. We can ask when we get to heaven, though we probably won’t care then…

But if you spend 16 chapters writing about the good news about Jesus, you really want to end on a more positive note than; “Nobody spoke to a soul because they were really scared.”

But here’s the thing: a box of powdered soup is dressed up to sound like something off the menu of a Michelin five-star restaurant. All image and no substance.

But the Gospel that changes lives, that saves the lost, that heals communities, that prospers nations, that brings hope to the hopeless, and blessing to the world has no fancy packaging. There’s no exaggerated marketing speak. It’s not bothered about image or looking good. It’s all substance.  

All four Gospels confirm that it was women went to the tomb and were the first reluctant messengers of the resurrection. The 2^nd Century Pagan philosopher Celsus hated Christians. He called them “a council of frogs in the marsh, a synod of worms on a dung hill.”

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t believe in the resurrection. But do you know why? Because like everybody else in his day he said, “You can’t accept the resurrection because it is based on the testimony of women.” Gullible, hysterical, easily-led, representatives of the weaker sex. That’s what people thought.

Listen, if the Gospel writers made up a story about the resurrection to deceive to world, they would never, ever say it was women who witnessed it because nobody in that society would take them seriously.

They wrote what they did because that’s what happened. They didn’t care what it looked like in their misogynous world; they just reported the facts.

This is real. This happened. Thousands of Jewish men were crucified by Pontius Pilate between AD 26 and 36 – you only know the name of one of them. And this is why. If Jesus had not risen from the dead, nobody today would ever have heard of him.

Ending

Are you going to open your life to Jesus and experience his grave-busting power for yourself? Jesus is actually alive today. He is still changing lives every day. He brings real forgiveness today, true freedom, deep healing today, new life, fresh hope and a bright future today to all who come to him in faith. The Bible says, “taste and see that the Lord is good.” If you’ve never tasted the Lord’s goodness, come on, do it today!

Those women arrived at a cemetery expecting nothing, clinging to the old familiar past, never imagining that the Lord might change their lives forever.

Maybe that’s how you felt walking into church today? Here we go again… “Christ the Lord is ris’n todaaaay, aaaaaleluia…”

But the Lord is doing something new. Don’t look in the place of death. He is not there, he is risen.

Let’s pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 1 April 2018