Q4, S07 Resurrection

Quarter 4, Session 7: Resurrection

WILL YOU SHARE IN MY VICTORY OVER SUFFERING?

Passage

Mark 16:1–8

Concept

This session falls under Jesus’ eleventh question: Will you suffer with me? It’s possible to read the Gospel accounts of the resurrection and fail to grasp the significance. But this was a world changing event. When Jesus rose from the grave, he was conquering over death and offering the promise of new life, new vision, and new opportunity for himself and all of his followers.

Key Question

What implications does Jesus’ victory over death carry for the way you think and live?

The Cross Tool

Do you see our Cross tool being played out in Mark 16:1–8? With whom? How so?

Resurrection

Have you ever received a second chance for something significant in your life? Whether it’s a second chance after a major mistake in your career, or another shot at making your marriage work, or a fresh opportunity to restore a relationship with a child, it’s a powerful feeling to get another go at something that matters. Even the second chances don’t always pan out the way we hope, but second chances are vital. We need them. We literally cannot make it through life without second chances. While we need these opportunities for a new start from our spouses, friends, employers, and children, the place we most need a second chance is in our relationship with God. Mercifully, this is also the only place where we are guaranteed a fresh start.

Jesus’ resurrection is ground zero for a new start. This is the model for what it means to be given new life. By simply reading the Gospels, we could easily miss the significance of the resurrection. The resurrection is almost casually reported in the Gospels. There is not a lot said about what the resurrection means, it’s just reported as an astonishing fact. The implications are played out later as his disciples continue to follow Jesus and write about what it all meant and what it all accomplished. But in this session, we will take a look at Mark’s resurrection account and contemplate some of the implications.

1.     Read Mark 16:1–8. Right off the bat, what strikes you about this passage? What do you find interesting or challenging or confusing?

Justice

Before looking at the significance of the resurrection, we will look briefly at the significance of Jesus entering into death before breaking into life on the other side of death. We are told that Jesus’ death satisfied the justice of God. The Old Testament talks about God being compassionate, slow to anger, etc. But it also talks about God being just. This is an essential component of who God is. It’s one of his attributes.

Justice can be a tricky concept for us. We don’t tend to naturally resonate with God’s justice, at least not when we are the ones who are deserving of the negative side of justice. We want compassion in those moments. We hope there is an exception for us. But if you’re the victim of some injustice, then you long for justice to be served. Sometimes we think we want justice to be dismissed, but justice actually holds society together.

Justice could be compared to gravity in this respect. We don’t tend to think much about gravity, but when we begin to fall, we curse gravity. If we could slow down those moments, we would find ourselves hoping that gravity won’t do what it always does. But gravity is very predictable. We might think we don’t want to experience the effects of it, but without gravity, our world would literally fall apart. It holds everything together. Justice works the same way. Without justice, the world would simply fall apart. When God allows people to do what they are doing in rebelling against him, he doesn’t just stop justice. God is patient, but he does not dismantle his justice. Instead, when the time was perfect, he executed perfect justice in a way that also brought us life.

The good news of the gospel is that Jesus took our violation of justice upon himself. What happened on the cross was justice being satisfied. Jesus took our place. This is the beauty of that transaction. Justice was served, and yet through God’s unbelievable gift to us, we find life through Jesus’ death.

2.     Justice is essential to the character of God and the design of the universe. How do you see justice at work in the death of Jesus?

3.     If justice was served in the death of Jesus, then how can we be offered forgiveness for our own rebellion against God?

Eyes Opened

But the story doesn’t stop with Jesus’ death, it moves on to resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that if Jesus did not raise from the dead, then life would end at death—there would be no hope, no promise, no enjoyment beyond what we can squeeze out of our short lives here. But because there is a resurrection, our eyes are opened to a new life that is all around us.

The resurrection is about the fact that right here, right now, there are new things to be living for. Justice has been served, and we are offered a new start, a new life. To see this new life, we need new eyes. The life is there, but we have to be able to see it. One beautiful result of the resurrection is that we are given new eyes to be able to see everything differently. Each of us who know Jesus have a story of having our eyes opened. We see differently now because of what Jesus has done.

Paul uses a related metaphor when he tells us to wake up from our sleep (Eph. 5:14). He portrays human life without Jesus as sleepwalking. But with Jesus, we are awakened, and we see everything in a new light.

4.     How is it that Jesus’ resurrection allows us to see the world with new eyes? What is it about the resurrection that makes this a reality?

5.     How have you seen the world differently since being transformed by Jesus’ death and resurrection?

6.     Can you relate at all to the metaphor of being a sleepwalker who was awakened by Jesus? What was this like?

Victory

Justice was served when Jesus died in our place. Victory over the grave was not accomplished until the resurrection. It’s easy to focus on everything that is wrong with us, on everything that is broken. God always has his arms wide open to embrace us in forgiveness. But we should never say that we are powerless over sin. We can’t speak as though there is nothing we can do to resist sin or put it to death. We are more than victims. Jesus has triumphed over death. The same power that raised from the grave is available to us: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11).

If we don’t see Jesus bringing new life to us, then we are missing the power of the resurrection. Sin is a real problem. But we cannot lose sight of the fact that Jesus’ resurrection gives us new life. He brings life to what was dead. Through Jesus taking our place, we have nothing to worry about. He has forgiven our sins and offered this new resurrection life to us.

7.     Why was Jesus’ resurrection essential? What did the resurrection accomplish that the crucifixion didn’t?

8.     As you think of your daily life, what implications does Jesus’ victory over death carry for the way you think and live?

9.     Spend some time in prayer. Thank God for the power he displayed in the resurrection of Jesus. Pray that you would experience the new life that Jesus offers.

Key Question

What implications does Jesus’ victory over death carry for the way you think and live?