Mark 16:3

THE STONE AT THE DOOR

‘Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?’

Mark 16:3

The text suggests various questions.

I. Why was there ever a sepulchre on earth?—A sepulchre tells of sorrow, sickness, bereavement, death. How came it there? ‘By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.’ The sin of man, small so far as the act was concerned, but vast in the principle involved, and in the results it entailed, placed him and his posterity under the curse of the law. Every pang of sickness speaks of God’s broken law; every corpse of the power of sin; every grave of the penalty of disobedience.

II. Why was there a sepulchre for Jesus?—Because it was ordained in the counsel of the Godhead that Christ should be buried, as well as die. Had He not been laid in the sepulchre, we might have had reason to doubt the reality of His death. As the death of Christ was a true, real, and proper death, so His burial was a true, real, and proper burial. His body at death was confided to men above suspicion. His interment was witnessed by many spectators, and His tomb was such that it was eminently adapted to guard against a spurious, and to illustrate a genuine, resurrection. Thus was it necessary that Christ should be buried in order to verify His death; and because, as our substitute, He must lie down in the grave, whither we all must go. He Who was to be the ‘first-fruits’ of our resurrection, Who was both to illustrate its character and make known its power, must also Himself lie in one of earth’s graves, that He might thus sanctify the world as the resting-place of His sleeping saint.

III. Why was that stone put there?—Matthew gives the reason. Never did men more thoroughly overreach themselves than did the chief priests and Pharisees in desiring Pilate to seal the stone and guard the sepulchre. The very means by which they hoped to prevent the Resurrection were made the occasion of more gloriously effecting the purpose of God, and we should have lost some of the most striking and irrefragable proofs of the Resurrection, had not this request been made by the Jews and granted by Pilate. Thus did God cause the wrath of man to praise Him, and the plottings of the enemies of Christ to prove the strongest props to the doctrine of the Resurrection. The stone was rolled to the mouth of the sepulchre by Joseph to protect the body of Christ. It was sealed, so that it could not be removed without being detected. It was guarded by a band of Roman soldiers, disciplined in the stern severities of military law, in order to drive away or capture His disciples should they attempt to seize the body; and its presence, its sealing, and its guarding, designed as obstacles to the Resurrection, were really so many proofs of its accomplishment.

IV. Who rolled that stone away? and for what purpose?—Matthew will give us the answer. Here again we see the wonder-working power of God in the transactions connected with this scene. Had our Lord rolled away the stone, it might have been said that He was not dead, but only in a state of asphyxia, or trance, and that, reviving, He did, in exercise of desperate strength, remove the rock at the tomb’s mouth, and by collusion with the soldiers escape from the sepulchre, and so give birth to the story of the Resurrection. But in consequence of the earthquake and the angelic appearance, the Roman guard did shake with fear, and ‘became as dead men’; and while they thus seemed petrified with alarm, Jesus calmly rises from His rocky bed, folds His grave-clothes, and lays them in order in the tomb, and then walks forth ‘the Resurrection and the Life,’ the Conqueror of death, and the Victor of the grave.

Illustration

‘Compare the inscriptions on heathen and Christian tombs. Look at the tombs which still exist in that cradle-land of religion, art, and science—Egypt; and we find sculptured and painted over and upon them representations of jugglers and dancing women, and grotesque animals, and unsightly gods, and domestic or festive scenes; everything which speaks of this world, nothing of the next. Look at the graveyards of Mohammedan countries, with their painted and gilded tablets and turbaned headstones, and as you decipher their Arabic inscriptions, you find them all pointing to a life of sensual bliss in the paradise of the false prophet. But most emphatically is this contrast brought out at Rome in the Galleria Lapidaria in the Vatican. Opening the door of this long gallery, you see upon your right hand the wall covered with broken tombstones and tablets taken from the burial-places of old pagan Rome; and on your left, the wall lined with slabs and inscriptions dug up from the catacombs where, under Rome itself, were concealed and buried thousands of the early Christians. On the pagan side you see the records of despair, and read words of anger against the gods. “O relentless fortune,” writes a mother over her child, “who delighteth in cruel death! why is Maximus so suddenly snatched from me?” Read another inscription: “While I lived, well! my drama is now ended; soon yours will be: farewell, and applaud me.” Read another: “I, Proscopius, who lived twenty years, lift up my hand against him who took me away innocent.” On the Christian side you find records of peace and hope, comfort and resignation: “Sabbatia has retired in the sleep of peace.” “Arethusa sleeps in God.” “Salonica, thy soul is in bliss, thou wilt rise with the saints through Christ.” “Alexander is not dead, but lives beyond the stars, and his body rests in this tomb.” “The wave of death has not dared to deprive Constans of the crown to which he was entitled by giving his life to the sword.” All the sorrows of the old world, and all the sorrows of the heathen world, are of men without hope. For them there is a great stone at the door of the sepulchre still.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

IMAGINARY DIFFICULTIES

We may note some important lessons which this incident teaches:—

I. That gloomy forebodings should never prevent us from doing our duty.—These women apprehended that they could not roll away the stone, but were not turned away from their purpose.

II. That those who talk of difficulties have frequently but little knowledge of the actual state of affairs.—What chiefly troubled the women was the stone; but there were other circumstances of a more serious nature—the seal of the Roman governor, the company of soldiers, the jealous Jews; but of the latter they said nothing.

III. That difficulties, as difficulties, are sometimes more imaginary than real.—The feared obstacles may exist, but the difficulty they cause may be of no account. The stone, in the present instance, had doubtless been placed on the door of the sepulchre, but it had also been already rolled away.

Illustrations

(1) ‘What a striking emblem we have in this simple narrative of the experience of many Christians! How often they are oppressed and cast down by anticipation of evils, and yet in the time of need find the thing they feared removed and the “stone rolled away”! A large proportion of their anxieties arise from things which never really happen. We look forward to all the possibilities of the journey towards heaven. We conjure up in our imagination all kinds of crosses and obstacles. We carry mentally to-morrow’s troubles as well as to-day’s. And often, very often, we find at the end that our doubts and alarms were groundless, and that the thing we dreaded most has never come to pass at all. Let us pray for more practical faith. Let us believe that in the path of duty we shall never be entirely forsaken. Let us go forward boldly, and we shall often find that the lion in the way is chained and the seeming hedge of thorns is only a shadow.’

(2) ‘Burden not thy soul with sadness!

Make the wiser, better choice!

Tread the path of life with gladness!

God doth bid thee to rejoice.

In to-day’s bright sunshine basking,

Leave to-morrow’s cares alone;

Spoil not present joys by asking,

“Who shall roll away the stone?” ’