S60 || The Ultimate Victory: Why The Empty Tomb Changes Everything || Mark 15:42 - 16:8 || Session 60 || Verse by Verse Bible Study

The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ stand as the most profound events in human history—the hinge point upon which everything turns. When examining these world-changing moments, we discover both the raw humanity of those who witnessed them and the divine power that transformed their lives forever.

The narrative brings us face-to-face with Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple who kept his faith hidden until the critical moment when courage was required. As a respected member of the Sanhedrin council, Joseph risked everything—reputation, position, and possibly his life—to approach Pilate directly and request Jesus's body. His journey from secret believer to public disciple mirrors the struggle many Christians face today in workplaces and social circles where faith expression carries consequences.

What makes the resurrection account so compelling is the meticulous detail preserved by eyewitnesses. From the Roman centurion who professionally verified Jesus's death to the women who observed exactly where the body was laid, the narrative eliminates any possibility of confusion or substitution. These same women, arriving at dawn with burial spices (clearly not expecting resurrection), discovered the seemingly immovable stone already rolled away—a powerful reminder that God specializes in removing obstacles we consider insurmountable.

The variations between the four Gospel accounts, rather than undermining credibility, actually strengthen it. Real eyewitness testimony from different perspectives rarely aligns perfectly, especially during chaotic, emotional events unfolding over several hours. Most telling is the unanimous agreement that women discovered the empty tomb first—a detail no fabricator in first-century Jewish culture would include given the inadmissibility of female testimony.

Beyond historical validation, the resurrection offers profound hope for our daily struggles. When we face situations that leave us terrified and confused, just as the first witnesses were, we can trust that God's purposes will ultimately become clear. The resurrection isn't just something that happened—it's something that happens, transforming our darkest moments with the assurance that death, despair, and impossibility have been conquered once and for all.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Jesus's Burial and Resurrection
• 2:02 Joseph of Arimathea: Secret Disciple Steps Up
• 9:48 The Confirmed Death of Jesus
• 12:41 The Women at the Empty Tomb
• 17:52 Harmonizing the Gospel Resurrection Accounts
• 24:45 The Empty Tomb as Proof of Resurrection
• 30:10 Faith Through Fear and Confusion

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:20

Hello and welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible. My name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve, if you've been following along with us last time Jesusing Through the Bible. My name's Glenn, I'm here with Steve, if you've been following along with us. Last time, jesus died on the cross and this was the most monumental event in human history, along with what we're going to see today, which is the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. We'll have the burial and then the resurrection. We'll have the burial and then the resurrection, which, along with the cross, is the hinge point of history. It's the most profound events that have happened in all of mankind. I trust you'll be with us. It's a most rich passage. Let's go ahead and get started. Open your Bibles to Mark 15, starting in verse 42. Steve, can you read from there down to verse 47?

Speaker 2: 1:07

When evening had already come, because it was the preparation day, that is, the day before the Sabbath, joseph of Arimathea came a prominent member of the council who himself was waiting for the kingdom of God, and he gathered up courage and went in before Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate wondered if he was dead by this time and, summoning the centurion, he questioned him as to whether he was already dead and, ascertaining this from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph. Joseph bought a linen cloth, took him down, wrapped him in the linen cloth and laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out in the rock, and he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Joseph, were looking on to see where he was laid.

Speaker 1: 2:02

We're introduced to this man, joseph of Arimathea. It says here that he was laid. We're introduced to this man, joseph of Arimathea. It says here that he was waiting for the kingdom. Now, steve, what can we infer from that about this man, joseph? What was his spiritual condition, do you think?

Speaker 2: 2:16

I think that he was a secret follower of Jesus. I say secret because he's also a member of the council. That's the Sanhedrin. In other texts it affirms that. So he's at least a Pharisee or a Sadducee probably a Pharisee because the Sadducees didn't believe in resurrection and of course Joseph doesn't know this at the time, but I think he is a follower of Jesus. We also have another follower from the council. That's a follower of Jesus Nicodemus. So we have at least two of them. One of the other gospels says that Joseph here was not one of the one who voted against Jesus for his death penalty from the Sanhedrin. So I think that he is a follower of Jesus. He has the faith that he is the king. He's anticipating the kingdom. Well, what was going to come with the Messiah and the king was going to be a kingdom. So I believe that this is an indication that he was a faithful believer and follower of Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1: 3:16

He was indeed a disciple of Christ. The Gospels tell us this. It says here that he was waiting for the kingdom, which tells me that he was a believer in the scriptures, that he believed the Bible enough. He believed God's promises enough to know, hey, there's a kingdom coming and he's looking for this. There were Jewish people that were going through religious rituals but didn't really believe what God had said. This man, joseph, he was waiting for the kingdom. That means he believed what God had told him. Again, you alluded, steve, to several of the other Gospels, that if we take all of what the Gospels tell us, then we have a more full picture of this man. John 19.38 tells us that Joseph was a secret disciple, but it also says he was afraid of the Jewish leaders. That's why he was secret. Luke 23.51 tells us Joseph did not consent with the actions and the voting of the other Sanhedrin to execute Jesus.

Speaker 1: 4:21

I take it that Joseph was like many Christians today. I see myself especially early in my faith walk. I was very much like this man, joseph, and I see other Christians that are like this man. He had faith in Christ, but he was afraid to come out in public and speak up at work. His job was on the Sanhedrin and if he were to express his faith in Christ at his job, it's going to cost him. He would have paid a price in his reputation with the other non-believers and it would have cost him in his career. Steve, can we learn something? In our day, many of us find ourselves living around and having family members and people that we interact with, either at our jobs or just in our lives. If we express faith in Christ, it's going to cost us something to our reputation, maybe even our finances. People pay a price when they're a follower of Jesus Christ. How can we take an example from this?

Speaker 2: 5:26

man, joseph. They pay a price, especially when they're an open follower of Jesus Christ, and I don't just mean that somebody that's always talking about Jesus at work, those type of things, just that they profess their faith as they're being a Christian. And I've been guilty of the same thing that you mentioned, glenn, that I've not necessarily let people know that I was a Christian in certain situations and I look back on it and look back on it a little bit shameful of doing that. And some of the reasons are just what you pointed out. You might have a fear that it's going to affect your finances because you're passed over for promotions or other type of things.

Speaker 2: 6:06

Being a follower of Jesus Christ does sometimes come with a price, but it also comes with a blessing. I think overall, the blessings outweigh any type of penalties or prices that you might pay in a secular world. The main blessing that you get is eternal life. So showing that you're a friend of Jesus and being an open advocate for him and follower of him in the end run is going to be better for you, I think, than it is for you to be a closet Christian, so to speak, and not want anybody else to know that you're a Christian, except for whenever you go around your Christian friends on Sunday or whenever, wherever it is that you go to worship. We still have that today. I would encourage people don't let that overshadow you. Let people know that you're a Christian and you'll get many, many more blessings out of it than you will any type of a price that you're a Christian and you'll get many, many more blessings out of it than you will any type of a price that you might pay.

Speaker 1: 7:08

John 19.38 tells us that this man, joseph of Arimathea, was afraid of the other people on the council, the Sanhedrin. Therefore, he kept his faith quiet. But at this point, when Jesus dies on the cross, joseph steps up. He makes his faith known. He doesn't keep his faith private here because the Lord needed him. The Lord needed him to step up and do something. Yes, he had been guilty of keeping his faith private, but he didn't stay there. He stepped up at this point in time and made it known, not only to the Jewish people but all the way up to Pilate. He stepped up and made his faith known by this act of kindness of burying Jesus's body. So what we can learn from Joseph. We may see ourselves in him as being somewhat timid sometimes, but he didn't stay there. When it came time and it was time to do ministry, he stepped up. He made his faith known, no matter what it cost him. At this point, he was making his faith public. As you said, steve, we'll always be better off when we follow the Lord's commands. We don't want to be the person that is not doing our work at work, but we also don't want to hide our faith. Jesus told us that people who love him should not hide their light under a basket, but let it shine. In the end, joseph stepped up and let his light shine. So should we. It took courage to go to Pilate. I mean, pilate was someone that the average Jewish person just didn't rub elbows with. This was the person that had the power on a whim, if you got angry, to cause you at least imprisonment, possibly even death. So this took some courage for Joseph to stand up and be very public with his faith and ask for the body of Christ. Also, joseph spent his own money. He took his own resources here. He used his own tomb, which cost something. He gave Jesus his personal gravesite. I take that to be. This man truly was a believer. He had been hiding his faith for fear of men, but in the end he let his faith win out. That's the great example for us today.

Speaker 1: 9:29

Moving on in this passage verse 44 and 45, pilate verifies with the centurion that Jesus was dead. The centurion was an executioner. He was a professional killer. It was his job to kill people. He did it day in and day out. He knew when someone was dead and when the executioner says you're dead, then you're dead and you only bury somebody that's dead. Steve Jesus died for my sins and he died for your sins and he died for the sins of our listeners. It says in verse 46,. They wrapped him in linen, and linen was a finer cloth and was somewhat expensive, but he was buried. Why? Because he was dead.

Speaker 2: 10:14

The reason why you're emphasizing that, glenn, is because there is a sect out there that says oh no, jesus didn't die, he just swooned or he fainted or he passed out and he just appeared to be dead. Everything you quoted there is to point that out and I think it's recorded here. For that reason, the centurion that was in charge of knowing whether or not the people were dead came and put a testimony in front of Pilate to say, no, he's dead. Now, if he wasn't dead and the centurion gave that testimony to Pilate, then he was putting his life on the line, because that meant that he was disobeying a commandment that had been given to him from Pilate. This person is to be crucified, crucified meant that he was being put to death. So there's no way that the centurion was going to put his life on the line to go lie to Pilate and say, oh, no, he's dead, but secretly that he really isn't dead. That is some conspiracy that he was involved with.

Speaker 1: 11:22

No, he was dead, and Scripture bears that out through this testimony alone of this centurion At the end of chapter 15, verse 47, says Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Joseph, were looking on to see where he was laid. We pointed out, I believe in the last session these women followed him for much of his earthly ministry. They had followed him daily from Galilee to Jerusalem. They followed him every day in Jerusalem. They followed him through his death on the cross. Now they're watching the body get put into the tomb. They knew exactly where it was. There's no way they could have mixed up who died on the cross. There's no way they could have mixed up where the grave was. There's no way they could have mixed up whether he died. We're going to see chapter 16, verse 1. They're still there on resurrection morning. They were sure that Jesus died on the cross and all these crazy theories about somebody else dying in his place or mixing up the tombs are just that crazy theories. Let's go ahead and move on.

Speaker 1: 12:30

Chapter 15, of course was the death. We get to the glorious resurrection. In chapter 16, and starting at verse 1, it says this sun had risen. They were saying to one another who will roll away the stone for us? From the entrance of the tomb. Looking up, they saw the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large. Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right wearing a white robe, and they were amazed. And he said to them Do not be amazed, you are looking for Jesus, the Nazarene who has been crucified. He has risen. He is not here. Behold, here is the place where they laid him, but go tell his disciples and Peter, he is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him. Just as he told you, they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid. With this, on the resurrection morning, verse 1, steve, who came and what were they wanting to do?

Speaker 2: 13:47

It was Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James and Salome. They were the ones that were also watching at a distance at the crucifixion site and they were coming to the grave with spices for the burials. It depicts, glenn, that because they had these spices for burial, their expectation wasn't going to be that there was going to be a resurrection. That wasn't what was on their mind at this time.

Speaker 1: 14:13

In the narrative that Mark is pointing out, yes, exactly there was the same women that saw where he was laid. So they came now this is dawn, or just at or after dawn they brought spices which were to anoint the body. As the body decayed, they would put spices on it to cut down the stench and to honor him, to anoint the body. They could have very well, obviously, bought them after dark the night before the Jewish day started. At sundown On the Sabbath day they could have gone out and bought spices after sundown, when it was no longer the Sabbath. Now, the next morning at dawn they've brought these spices and again they were wondering who's going to move this large stone, but they found out it had already been moved. Now I think we should take one small rabbit trail here and talk about the different accounts in the Gospels of resurrection morning. The four Gospels emphasize different things and give different eyewitness accounts of exactly what was emphasized. I think if we just compare them, there's of course the skeptics and critics kind of have a field day because they don't read exactly the same word for word on all of them. But one of the questions, for example, is which women were there? None of the Gospels give us a complete list of who all the women were. Mark records three names but does not say it was only these three. One of the Gospels says and others. There was a group of people that came. There would have been initial confusion. I mean, obviously they didn't have our benefit of looking back on it over thousands of years and thinking about it all of our lives. This was new to them and they were reacting. So you can imagine the confusion and a lot of running back and forth. As verse 8 says, they kind of ran at different times. So you can imagine the kind of confusion. There was a group of them running back and forth.

Speaker 1: 16:17

Mark says it was very early and the sun had risen. Luke 24.1 says early dawn. John 20.1 says while it was still dark. And, believe it or not, there's people that get into arguments about saying well, it was dark but the sun had come up, and thinking this is some sort of a contradiction. Well, I submit they need to get up early tomorrow morning and watch the sun come up, because the sun doesn't come up like a light switch. It's not just instantaneous and suddenly it goes from dark to light, especially in a hilly country. If you've ever been in a hilly environment and gotten up before dawn you'll see the sky slowly gets lighter, the top of the hill gets the sun on it and it's still dark down in the valleys. Some of the valleys in a hilly country don't get light until almost midday. It's entirely possible that all these are very congruent, simply because dawn is not instantaneous. The sun takes a while from first visible light until being considered fully day, and it also could be that it's first light and still dark. It doesn't get again just bright sunlight instantaneously. First visible light is still quite dark. Thank you very much. It also could have been dark when they left and light when they got there. It could have had an early morning fog or a haze, could have been cloudy that day. It's just silly to get into these arguments about how dark is dark and how light is light when all the Gospels are really describing an event that took place over a period of at least a couple of hours and it went from very dark to slowly getting lighter.

Speaker 1: 18:07

We also read the four Gospels. We compare the accounts on Resurrection Morning. They don't have the same details simply because Mary Magdalene ran to tell Peter and John we're told that in John 20, verse 2, and then stayed near the tomb. The events of resurrection morning happened over time in the morning, with a lot of running back and forth. It's not surprising that the disciples and the women could have been confused, afraid. They had several hours for all this to unfold and it's just a little silly for us to read it in one minute and say that, well, every detail doesn't match exactly to the other, simply because it was eyewitness accounts that happened over time. For example, again here it has Mary running to get Peter, but then she's in the garden when she thinks he's the gardener. Well, again, over a period of an hour and a half when they're running back and forth, could have easily been in both places. Steve, I don't know if you have any thoughts on all this.

Speaker 2: 19:13

The thought I have is that if all four Gospels would have had the very exact same account, then what would the skeptics and scoffers do with that? They would say, oh, there's no way that would be true eyewitness accounts and have the very exact same story. This is a depiction that they all got together and got their stories straight and made up this story, and that's why they're the same all the way down, in every detail. Either way that you go, the scoffers are going to scoff, the skeptics are going to laugh at it. That's what they do. There's no real pleasing them at all.

Speaker 2: 19:53

But to me, the fact that you do have the variation between the Gospels shows to me that it is eyewitness accounts. A person that has an eyewitness account. They're going to record something that stands out to them. The same thing that stands out to them is not necessarily going to be the same thing that stands out to somebody else that's writing something down. To me, this shows the veracity or the truth behind what they're saying as eyewitness accounts. And then, secondary to that, through all four of these accounts, we can put together a very clear picture of what was going on in the late evening or the new day of Sunday the first of the morning on into the morning period of Sunday, that first day of the week. That's my comment on it is that either way you go, you're still going to have scoffers that are going to scoff. I'm going with what scripture says here because I do think it makes sense when you put all four Gospels together.

Speaker 1: 20:59

The women come to the tomb on the morning and they look up. It says in verse 4, looking up, they saw the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large. Steve, here's a question Can God move extremely large things and can he move extremely large things in my life and your life?

Speaker 2: 21:23

This is a very minor event, glenn, in all the things that God has done throughout all of Scripture, and we think of all the miracles bringing them out of Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea, taking them into the Promised Land, the parting of the Jordan River and all the different things that we've seen God do. And Jesus himself and the miracles that he did walking on water, feeding 5,000, healing the sick, casting out demons, moving a stone in front of a grave is a very minor event in the various miracles and provisions that God has made for his people. So in our lives, yes, god can do minor things. He can also do great things. This is just one minor thing in the vast amount of miracles that we see throughout Scripture.

Speaker 1: 22:18

The women were wondering how are we going to move this big, heavy stone? They get there and they see God's already moved it. I think we can take a lesson on that. Do we have big heavy things in our life that we're wondering how in the world am I going to move it? God has the power to move it, even though it's extremely large, and I think if we just trust Him, he doesn't move everything when we want Him to, but he always does it right on time. So if we just have faith in Him, he can move big heavy things, things that are too heavy for me and too heavy for you. We also see here. What do they find? The tomb is empty.

Speaker 1: 22:56

There were critics of Christianity in those days, just like there's critics of Christianity in our day. In that day, it would have been very easy for the people that didn't like the Christian message to destroy it simply by pointing to the body. If they wanted to destroy Christianity in the book of Acts, they would have. They knew where he was buried. Just go over there and say he's right there. I can show you his skeleton. Where's the body?

Speaker 1: 23:24

The fact that the tomb was empty is proof of the resurrection, the reason why you never see in the book of Acts and still today never see anybody using that as a way to destroy Christianity is because the tomb was empty. It is an evidence of Christianity. The people here were giving an eyewitness account. The tomb was empty. The stone was moved. They saw an angel. They quoted the angel, verse 12,. He appeared to two of the disciples on the road. He appeared to the eleven. They quoted Jesus directly after the resurrection. All these are eyewitness accounts and the greatest of all of these eyewitness accounts is that the tomb is empty. Therefore, jesus rose from the dead. Therefore, everything he said was true. And, steve, this is a great eyewitness testimony of the greatest event in human history, which is the resurrection that gives us the hope of eternal life, that all of our faith rests upon a resurrected Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2: 24:31

The fact that the eyewitnesses recorded in all the Gospels, the first to know about it are women they go back and tell the apostles, is telling again as to the truthfulness of the Gospels that are writing the accounts. Why? Because at that time women's testimony had no validity amongst the Jewish people, the Jewish men. For any type of an official witnessing or anything, they had to have men. And at that time you certainly wouldn't have put that it was women. Were the first witnesses to find the tomb empty, you would have put in there that it was men that found it empty, because that in the culture of the day, would have been more believable. So here we have it. We have truth being told because it was women that found the empty tomb first and then went and told the men. To me it's these little things that if you go verse by verse through Scripture that you have to confront and you encounter and it just tells over and over again. These are eyewitness accounts of what happened.

Speaker 1: 25:54

I met a man who had grown up in a Muslim country and somebody handed him a Bible and asked him to read the gospel accounts and he said every time I turned around it was talking about the resurrection. He started thinking through all the various possible explanations for the empty tomb and all the eyewitness accounts, all of the possible things that might defeat it. He came to the conclusion that it was more reasonable to believe that somebody rose from the dead than to believe all the crazy accounts of trying to explain away who moved the stone and the empty tomb and all the changed lives and all these things. The resurrection convinced the disciples and it changed their lives. In verse 8, in the last verse that we read here, what were the women doing and why?

Speaker 2: 26:47

Well, they went and fled from the tomb and they were trembling. They were astonished that it was empty. It says there very vividly. It gripped them. They came to a realization that Jesus was alive, that he wasn't dead. It says there they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid. This is Mark's account In the other Gospels. It's very clear that they went back and told the other apostles. They went back and told them that the grave was empty and we had the record there of John and Peter running to the grave itself to see what was going on. I think that Mark saying they said nothing to anyone was that they didn't tell anyone else outside of the apostles what was going on or what had happened, because they were afraid.

Speaker 2: 27:39

You pointed out earlier, glenn, that this is all happening. All of a sudden, they're going to the tomb with spices with the expectation to anoint a dead body. What do they find? There is no dead body. Jesus is resurrected and the angels are there to explain to them that he's not there, that he has been resurrected. This is a shock to them, and not only a shock of what happened, but a happiness. A shock of happiness that their person that they've been following, is now alive and has been resurrected. You have a flood of emotions that are going on that I think Mark is depicting here when it says that they became trembling over them and the fear of not letting anyone else know what's going on. This is all new, something that is happening, and we see the flow of it taking place through the various accounts of the different Gospels.

Speaker 1: 28:40

As we mentioned earlier, there was a group of women Only a few of them are named here, at least. Mary Magdalene went and told the disciples, because one of the other Gospels records that. But they scattered the group scatters. It says here. They were terrified and confused and I think that would be normal if you had been in this for the first time, steve. I think of this in terms of the Christian life today. We get into situations where we're afraid and we're confused and we're just doing what the Lord wants us to do and going through life and suddenly we find circumstances that we don't understand. Why is the Lord doing this? Why am I here? We have situations where we don't know what to do. We're scattered, we're terrified, we're confused. I think that if we just realize God has a purpose and I might not understand now, but if I just stay the course, stay faithful to him, then we will see that he has a purpose for all this and he will carry us through. Can we trust God, even in situations where we might be terrified and confused?

Speaker 2: 29:51

It's. The one thing that brings us through those situations is that, as we're scared and terrified through them, as we see God work in different ways and bring about some calmness and peace in us, it strengthens our faith. It's kind of a strange thing to say that in a situation where you're terrified of what's going to happen, but yet you have this calmness that is given to you by God through the Holy Spirit and through the relationship that you have. It's something that you really can't describe to other people, but it's there and it is something that I think it ultimately builds our faith.

Speaker 1: 30:31

So we end this session on a high note Jesus is raised. The people around him don't yet understand it, but nevertheless Jesus has conquered death. The tomb is empty, the stone is rolled away and Jesus has demonstrated he is who he claimed to be and we can take hope that there is eternal life in the Christian life. So the resurrection is the victory over death. He has defeated death. He paid for our sins on the cross and we can have joy in him because Jesus is raised.

Speaker 2: 31:05

The crucifixes that we see with Jesus hanging on the cross. They're incorrect, because Jesus is raised from the dead. That's how we're finishing out this session. He's not on the cross, he's alive today, sitting at the right hand of the Father. That's how we should remember Jesus, not hanging on a cross.

Speaker 1: 31:23

We'll be back next time to close out the book of Mark Next time.

Speaker 2: 31:28

Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.