[0:00] We shall return to the Gospel according to Mark chapter 15, reading from verse 22. Mark 15 and verse 22.
[0:16] And they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means the place of a skull. And they offered him wine mingled with myrrh, but he did not take it.
[0:27] And they crucified him, divided his garments among them, casting lots for them to decide what it should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified him.
[0:42] Now look last night at the story of the Lord's agony in Gethsemane. And that agony has been called the shadow of Calvary.
[0:53] It was, as we saw, a horrendous experience for the Lord. And yet it wasn't the bottom of the abyss.
[1:05] It was only the shadow of Calvary itself falling before. And I want tonight to draw your attention to the actual narrative of the cross itself.
[1:19] And I want to try to cover as much as I can of the actual details of the story. Let's remind ourselves, first of all, of the incidents themselves.
[1:33] I do suppose that we know them well. And yet they will always bear a retelling. We notice to begin with that the Lord is forced to carry his own cross.
[1:48] It compels Simon, we are told, to carry his cross. But only because, the other Gospels tell us, the Lord himself became too exhausted to continue this journey.
[2:00] Remember that before the crucifixion there has been all the agony of the betrayal and the arrest, the scourging and the mocking and so on.
[2:15] By the time the Lord came to that long journey towards Golgotha, his physical strength was gone. And as part of the execution ritual, the condemned man must carry the cross beam of the cross himself.
[2:33] The Lord did so, so far as he was able. But his strength is quickly exhausted because of his weak condition and somebody else is pressed into this particular service.
[2:48] I want just to make one observation upon this detail, and it's this. But when the Lord says to us to pick up our cross and follow him, he wasn't at all talking metaphorically of our own pains and our own sufferings.
[3:08] He was saying to the church of his own day that to follow him was like signing your own death warrant. He might as well here and now take up your cross.
[3:23] And I think that we must avoid all temptation to water down the implications of the Lord's language. We are crucified to the world.
[3:36] We must take that in total and unqualified seriousness. We are turning our back upon so much, upon the world's whole scale of values, upon all its priorities.
[3:50] And that language must take you and me back tonight and back always to this terrible sight here of God's own Son carrying his own cross to the place of immolation and to the place of death.
[4:09] It is a measure of the totalness of the commitment that God asks us in Jesus Christ. The second point I want to know is this.
[4:23] They brought him to the place called Golgotha. Now, it's worth noting just for this reason that we very seldom speak of Golgotha.
[4:36] We speak of Calvary. And there are so many hymns that use the word Calvary because the word is, if I may use such language here, it is a euphonious word.
[4:49] It's a word of great beauty in itself, Calvarius. And it sounds lovely in poetry. And it's been, I think, all too easy for the church to sentimentalise the whole transaction around this green hill far away.
[5:10] Now, in the New Testament, we aren't told that it was a hill. We aren't told it was green. And it's very seldom called Calvary of what is called Calvary by Luke.
[5:22] The word Golgotha is a much hush-hushier word because of its gutturals. And it's a reminder to us, I think, in that fact itself that Calvary really wasn't a lovely place.
[5:38] Its associations weren't lovely. It was a terrible place of doom and of ugliness. And what was transacted on Calvary at Golgotha for you and me wasn't lovely.
[5:54] It wasn't a lovely sight to behold. John, for example, the beloved disciple, takes the Lord's mother away from the cross before the end.
[6:07] Because of the agony it must have involved for her. And I do think it is of enormous importance for us not to sentimentalize the cross, never to lose sight of its barbarousness, of its ugliness, of the sheer horrendousness of all it represents.
[6:31] We mustn't obscure the harsh realities behind the deceptive, the accidental beauty of our own human language. But it's also worth insisting on this, that he was crucified at a place.
[6:50] In other words, we aren't talking about ideas or concepts or figures of speech, but something which happened one day in the life of one man at a certain place at a certain time, crucified under Pontius Pilate.
[7:10] The costumed faith is not based on ideas, it's based upon events. Christ took our place.
[7:21] Christ suffered on a real cross, on a real hill, with real nails, real blood, a real spear, real thorns. Back again to this whole problem of the body.
[7:34] of the three-dimensionalness of the Christian faith. For those who are in contact with the moroconda riches of current theology will be aware that one of its great attacks is upon the historicity of what I may call the facticity of the New Testament Gospels.
[7:58] And that's why it's so important for us never to lose sight of the fact that these are real events that happened to a real man in a real body.
[8:10] They're not concepts or ideas. They actually happened in our own human history. And then again we note this. The words in verse 22, 23, they offered him wine mingled with myrrh, but he did not take it.
[8:28] Now we know that afterwards, towards the end of his suffering, the Lord does accept a sponge dripped, dipped in vinegar in bitter wine. But the concoction offered to him in verse 23 was a very special concoction.
[8:47] It was an anesthetic given as a matter of course to all condemned men by the women of Jerusalem. It was an act of kindness on their part.
[8:58] it was a voluntary charity which expected to perform this small ministry of mercy to those doomed to suffer so horribly.
[9:11] But the Lord rejects it. Now it may not be entirely fair to speculate why, but I think one reason was precisely the fact that it was an anesthetic.
[9:25] we are told in Hebrews 2 that the Lord actually tasted death. He didn't go through it as one whose senses were numbed, or whose consciousness was lowered.
[9:41] But he went through it with all his senses at a heightened point and level of efficiency. one of the great problems in our own society, if problem is the right word, is that very, very few people actually taste death because most people today die heavily sedated and anesthetized.
[10:08] It was an interesting point in the final days of the late Lord Lloyd-Jones for example that he insisted on minimal medication because he wanted in the faith of Christ to face the last enemy consciously and deliberately.
[10:29] Now the Lord of course is here suffering miseriously and he's going to suffer without mitigation and he's also not only suffering but he's acting and if he's going to act it's important that his senses and his mind should not be dulled and therefore he declines this particular anesthetic.
[10:56] Now it's worth bearing in mind that at the end of his agony again the Lord cries with a loud voice into thy hands I commit my spirit and then he cries it is finished that great shout of triumph at no point is there a loss of consciousness or even a loss of rationality he must taste that cup to the very extreme and to the very last and therefore he declines the anesthetic and then we have the incident of verse 24 they divide the Lord's garments among them now it's a small detail but bear in mind what it presupposes it presupposes the ultimate shame on a physical level that the Lord was crucified utterly and totally naked and in that state he hangs upon the cross with all the sensitiveness of which as God's emaculated innocent son he was capable and that was part of the shame and humiliation that he was called upon to experience and it is also I think worth reminding yourselves of the callousness of the soldiers the malice indifference not only to the
[12:30] Lord's sufferings but also to the making of history itself these men are throwing dice at the foot of the cross on which the Lord of glory was being crucified they watched him being crucified as they played with their dice and as they gambled one of the prizes was the Lord's seamless garment it shows this if not the uselessness of knowing Christ after the flesh we imagine of only we had seen with all that vividness the crucifixion if only we had seen the pain of it all if we had felt and tasted the drama then we too would have been so impressed we would have turned to God but it made no impression at all upon these soldiers and suppose
[13:34] I will describe to you tonight in great and unsparing detail all that the Lord suffered what would it do unless God's spirit opens own hearts to see beneath the surface into what Paul calls the word of the cross sitting down they watched him there and so we have all these little details he carries his cross he comes to a place called Golgatha he declines the anaesthetic he is stripped naked and then the last great detail and they crucified him now it is interesting and suggestive that the gospel tell us so little as to what this process actually involved and many expositors have felt on the basis of that that they ought not to enter at all into any of the details of this particular ordeal but you must bear in mind that in the time of the gospels this wasn't an uncommon occurrence it was a public spectacle which attracted large crowds and its actual details were well known and
[15:01] I don't think it does us any harm to remind ourselves of something of what the Lord actually was called upon to suffer the Lord as we saw had to carry his own cross now we know that he only carried the actual cross member the cross beam the horizontal beam because the vertical posts were usually left standing in the ground he carried the cross beam and when he came to Golgotha and was stripped he was laid down and his hands were fastened to the cross beam by nails driven through the palms that cross beam was then attached to the vertical post of the cross itself with nails or with thongs and then the feet of the victim were pierced by one nail driven through the ankle bones and he was fastened to the vertical post by that barbaric method we know too that on that vertical post there was a small seat upon which the victim could get a measure of support to prevent the hands and feet being utterly torn and lacerated but also could prolong the agony of the victim now it is excruciatingly painful it was the most horrific form of torture known to the ancient world it was confined by the
[16:43] Roman power to slaves and to foreigners it wasn't a Jewish method of execution at all it involved not only the actual pain of the nails but the immolation hung suspended for many many hours upon that cross naked taunted tormented the fluctuations of intense heat and intense cold dehydration the flow of blood to the extremities to the feet and so on all those agonies and we know that the Lord hung upon that cross for a long long time before he at last dies and he dies as you'll see prematurely sometimes men hung literally for days upon the cross the Lord didn't suffer that he hung upon it only for a matter of some nine hours well those are some of the actual historical details let's go on to reflect for a moment now put some of the symbolic details that are built into this great but simple narrative there are some facts in the narrative which are
[18:06] I think highly meaningful in terms of our own very evocative symbolism for example Golgotha is outside the city remember Jerusalem was a holy place it was holy to God because that's where God's temple was it was far too holy for a cross and it seems to be most suggestive that one day it was too holy for the son of God himself he had become an accursed thing and therefore he is crucified outside the city wall now we ourselves enjoined in Hebrews to go out to him outside the gate bearing his reproach
[19:10] Jerusalem was too holy for Jesus he becomes the man outside the outcast and the reject and that's why it is always a part of our own Christian holiness to be separate from the world because he is crucified outside and we go forth to him outside the gate bearing his reproach our separateness our outsideness we know too from verse 33 that there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour we don't know exactly what it was that caused the darkness sometimes the nearest climatic conditions can cause a very intense darkness even in the middle of the day and this may have been one such phenomenon but
[20:11] Mark thought it important enough to record it and it is a symbol I think of the gathering darkness in the saviour soul it is also I think a symbol of the Lord's relationship with creation itself because the world was made by him and it's at one level as if creation itself were sympathizing with its maker at another level it is as if the eclipse of him who is the light of the world brought derangement even into the physical creation itself remember he is the one who was upholding all things he is the light of the world and now he is dying he is being crucified and in the violence that he suffered it is as if creation itself is also suffering violence and there is a symbolism also you recall of the red veil in the temple you have it way down there in verse 38 the curtain or the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom now that happens at the very moment when the
[21:47] Lord according to Mark breathed his last at that point when his work is completed the veil is ruptured the veil was the great symbolic barrier between God and man in the Old Testament no Jew could pass through that veil into the near presence of God only the high priest once a year carrying the blood of the God of atonement now we see that with the death of Christ there is a way opened so that we may come with boldness to the very throne of God and we may do so not through some intermediary but we may do so each one of us on his own account personally the barrier is ruptured we can go through this red veil and speak face to face with
[22:53] God himself so there is a symbolism of the outsideness there is a symbolism of the darkness the symbolism of the red veil and there is a symbolism at last of the cross itself cursed is every one that hangs upon a tree and the apostle Paul and the Jews with them they saw that cross as itself an expression of God's attitude this man who was crucified he was anathema he was accursed he was an unholy thing and that must be on to my next concern and that is to ask what was that Christ really suffered we've seen some of the incidents we've seen some of the symbolism but what was the core what was the essence of what he actually suffered that suffering we know came from a threefold source it came first of all from men and that's a fairly complicated and very varied line of approach the
[24:20] Pharisees the scribes the Sadducees all the Jewish establishment all its great theologians its politicians its leaders all these conspired to effect the crucifixion of the Savior there was Judas Iscario to betray him there were the eleven who pursued him and fled and maybe above all there was Peter who denied him all of these had played significant roles in the drama so far and so too had Herod and Pilate and the soldiers and the mob and then as he hangs upon the cross we find the hatred and the invective and the inhuman barbarism we find it continuing as the
[25:20] Lord hangs there we find it especially in the threefold chorus of mocking as it's been called the final verse 29 those who passed by they mocked him and they wagged their heads and said you would build a temple in three days and now come down to the cross so the cross is beside the highway and everyone is passing by is mocking this naked man as he hung suffering this exquisite torture and the chief priests too we see verse 31 isn't it marvelous because they were the educated people and the cultured people and you know you'd have felt well no self-respecting middle class person would have gone to see a public execution and yet they're drawn there by their curiosity and by their hatred of the saviour not only so but they so far lose their dignity that they too participate in the chorus of mocking it must have been some spectacle the
[26:46] Jewish cabinet and all the college professors and they were there mocking this man as he hung upon the cross of Golgotha and Mark tells us too in verse 32 that those who were crucified with him they reviled him now that's interesting because we know that eventually one of those crucified with him one of them repented and asked the Lord for forgiveness but as he hung there between those two terrorists they too joined in the mocking now we should never forget that fifty days after this event the Christ of the cross poured forth his spirit in abundant blessing upon the city of
[27:50] Jerusalem it was a small city and in that city in one day three thousand souls were born into the kingdom of God and among them there must have been many who were at the cross taking part in a chorus of mocking it was Easter time Passover time the city was thronged with Jews and pilgrimages one day they went to Golgotha because it was the most interesting tourist site of the day at Pentecost the temple was the place to be the same people we know too from the early chapters of Acts that many priests believed in Jesus and what I am trying to suggest to you is that when the
[28:54] Lord prayed Father forgive them for they know not what they do that prayer found an abundant answer at Pentecost it is a great thing that the blessing fell upon the Jew first because it was those very Jews who had clambled for his blood and invoked his crucifixion and upon these very people Christ pours forth his redemptive blessing after his resurrection and those lips which had screamed with hatred crucify crucify crucify and joined in that chant it was those same lips which at Pentecost spoke forth in many tongues the wonderful works of God what an universal Pentecost was going to effect and then secondly the suffering came through the devil and through his servants first through men there was also and always that terrible satanic element
[30:11] I'm not going far into that but it was his power of darkness and all around him Jesus could see the eminences of satanic action those priests those mobs those passersby those soldiers even maybe in the darkness itself there was a satanic power that could be felt and all the power of the temptation and all its possibility come down from the cross and how insidious how alluring that was in the moment of this agony but I hasten on to the most important thing which is this the involvement of God the Father in the sufferings of the Son there were men of course acting and the demons were acting but above all
[31:20] God was acting and at last that's what was going to hurt he was being crucified by God's determined counsel and foreknowledge and furthermore he was being delivered up by the Father let us never never forget that he who did not spare his old son but delivered him up for us all and it wasn't any kind of remote control that the Father's direct agency at Calvary that is the last thing that is the ultimate mystery for me it pleased the Lord to bruise him he has put him to grief he made him who knew no sin to be sin instead of us it was at last the
[32:22] Father's activity that the Son of God was face to face with at Golgotha and of course that dimension of the experience is what is expressed for us so sublimely and so unfathomably in what we call the cry of dereliction my God my God why hast thou forsaken me I don't want to go too far into this because it really is the most holy ground and part of my reluctance to have discussion or questions afterwards is that it will really at one level dissipate the effect of what I say on this it will lead us I'm sure inevitably also into unprofitable hair splitting academic questioning which
[33:31] I think is inappropriate at this point and if there is any resentment of the fact of no discussion it really has been I think a lifelong practice of mine and experience of mine too at conferences that on themes of this kind it is not helpful to move directly from preaching to questions we must I think at last be silent before the cross for a moment and reflect and then maybe come up with some reverential questions no doubt but if I may move on to explore a little of what I think is conveyed to us words they are a reminder to us first of all of the withdrawal from the Lord's consciousness and the Lord's mind of everything that was fitted to comfort him every comfort is withdrawn bear in mind every earthly comfort had already been withdrawn there was no worldly resource left there was no physical strength there was no freedom there was no wealth no influence there was no friend there was no comfort of any kind nothing to cool him nothing to all there is absolutely no earthly comfort the only possible comfort left was the comfort of heaven the comfort of
[35:20] God himself and when at last that is withdrawn from him there is nothing left there is no comfort at all now it is worth I think reminding ourselves that the cry deliction occurs at the night hour it comes towards the very end of the Lord's agony but I don't think it lasted very long because both before it and afterwards we know that the Lord breathes a different spirit and speaks a very different language we know for example that before the cry he has such assurance as to be able to say to the thief today thou shall be with me in paradise we know too that before the cry he says father forgive them for they know not what they do and we know that after the cry before he dies he says father into thy hands
[36:39] I commend my spirit so that on both sides of the dereliction there is Abba now I said last night the humiliation isn't a point it's a line and even the cross itself is a process as the lord goes further and further down into the darkness and further and further down into the deep and the bottom the ground of the abyss the very end of the journey is that point at which he cries why hast thou forsaken me that point every comfort which he had up to the cross is withdrawn and even the comfort that he had on the cross itself up to that point and he did have some comfort on the cross but that comfort is now withdrawn and now there is nothing
[37:41] God the last resource the only resource the only comfort God has been withdrawn and what does it mean it means the loss of the sense of his own sonship he doesn't say Abba he says Eloi my God now bear in mind that he is still saying my God the grasp of faith is still here the Lord never became a doubter never became an unbeliever my God but it isn't Abba one of the great words of John Calvin and the need of Martin Luther too was these great men pondered the person and work of Christ a pondering that was the very heart of the reformation vision
[38:42] Luther spoke of Christ as being incognito Calvin spoke of him as being veiled cryptic and we know that all through his life there was a veil people couldn't recognize him for the divine eternal saviour he was but the terrible thing that's happening on Golgotha is that the veil at last obscures his identity even from himself there is a moment when not only do men not recognize him the disciples don't recognize him but when he himself hardly knows himself that he is God's son son the veil is so complete there is a loss of a sense of his own sonship there is a loss of a sense of the father's love not a loss of the love because
[39:58] God never ceased loving him we assure him there is a loss of the assurance of victory you remember a way back in John 17 which must have seemed to Christ by this time as wars and eternities away that upper room it was in fact only a few brief hours away and in that upper room of the victory we were already won and he prayed I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do I finished it there was such assurance such strength and hope and confidence but not now there's no father now no love no assurance of victory there is a why why what's happening why is it happening there is this point that when the
[41:09] Lord himself is losing grasp of the logic losing grasp of relationships losing grasp of the issues the darkness the only questions what I want to safeguard totally the absolute meekness of the experience that's experienced only by Christ himself I do think it is precious at the times in our life when we say why why me why this why is this what is this that these are times that God understands God understands the Christ the Lord at last is facing
[42:11] God only in interrogation why but it isn't only that all comfort this was strong it wasn't simply negative but it's what he called in Yosemite this cup which is given to him in the place of the comfort but it's something puyling it isn't simply about you what it what fills the sails soul well I think that the broad answer to that must be this a sense of evil Elizabeth spoke this morning of the atmosphere that one breathes in India at heart and sometimes in this land of her own in certain contexts one can be very conscious of the imminence of hell and the reality of its power and the presence and I'm certain that in Calvary the Lord felt that far beyond any power of ours to feel to be sensitive to the presence of hell and its influences hell was everywhere here down there are warm hell the gates of hell is wisdom and malice that's cunning its herocity its apparent victory it was all here and the
[44:05] Lord felt it and he felt the sin that he was and he felt the shame of his sin the sin that he bore and he felt the wrath of God and the rejection of God and he didn't feel it as an innocent man there was a man liable to it guilty because of others' sin and God turning his back upon the sin that he was a sense a sense of evil a sense of sin a sense that God was angry now we can only understand that in terms of our own human relationships there is nothing so painful as the anger and misunderstanding of somebody that we love with whom we are out of favor by whom we are rejected despite the Lord's love for his father and it is in that collision of love and rejection that the agony lies bear in mind how utterly unprepared
[45:53] Christ was for it he had never been without God he had never had any training for it there had never been a moment when God had not been there and never had he needed God more than he did now and he cried and as we sang God didn't hear and God didn't answer and God didn't help there was nothing there was worse than nothing there was rejection there was anger there was anger now there is nothing in our experience to compare with that I think that we may follow virtually virtually everything in Christ's emotional life except the dereliction and I say that because whatever we go through and there is no human experience fenced off from Christians it's a remarkable fact there is one sin that's fenced off for us but there is no form of suffering that is fenced off we are liable to every form of suffering but in every one of them there is the problem
[47:43] I will never leave you nor forsake you never and that is absolute and it is unconditional it is not possible for any situation to develop in which God will not be with his own people and that's because in all our suffering we are protected by the sacrifice and by the advocacy of Christ but there is no one to protect him he is the shield and for the shield there is no shield he suffers utterly and totally alone the reason why you and I can never know such desolation such
[48:48] Lord is precisely that he suffered it in our place he went to the far country and he adjured all that our sin deserved and then lastly and briefly let's not forget the burial on which the Markgan account lay so much emphasis from verse 42 downwards now it is really worth reminding ourselves of it as a rule crucified men weren't buried the bodies were left for the birds and the animals to tear and to devour but it was possible if things were propitious for friends of the condemned man to go to the authorities and plead permission to remove the body and we find a remarkable fact that
[50:04] Joseph of Arimathea a member of the Jewish cabinet of the Sanhedrin that he attends to this matter now we're told in verse 43 in my version and it's I think correct at this point that Joseph took courage and he went to Pilate the Lord had two allies in the Sanhedrin one Nicodemus and one Joseph they were what were called what are still called secret disciples it is incidentally a striking tribute to the narrative of the Gospels to their history and their truthfulness that these men who play so prominent a role at this point in the
[51:05] Lord's life aren't even mentioned in the book of Acts in other words they weren't prominent figures in the church to whom wanted to pay tribute they did their bit and disappear and what they did is recorded but the Aaron canonized eulogized well he took courage this man took an enormous risk his political future maybe his very life itself this man was a coward and I think that's beautiful because God's grace can make heroes of cowards those that wait to the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings of the eagle God's grace will make the timid strong and turn lambs into lions I don't think you would ever have predicted that
[52:07] Joseph would have taken this particular step and incurred such a risk that he does it he goes to Pilate and in detail to Pilate wonders that's much too mild he was amazed that he was already dead because ordinarily men hung upon the cross far longer two days as I said now we know that when the soldiers came at the end of the day they came to finish them off the three of them for a religious reason it was against the Jewish law to have men hanging on crosses on the Sabbath it's a remarkable tribute to our legalism and to our own hypocrisy those men they had bent the law even the human law to crucify
[53:14] Christ but they hadn't lost their Sabbatarianism and the soldiers came and the custom was to break the legs of the victims with mallets and they died quickly afterwards but when they came to Christ he was dead and I think the reason is this Christ did not just pass away or ebb away or expire remember again the words into thy hands I commit my spirit and he gave up the spirit he gave up the ghost to use the old Anglo-Saxon word he gave up the spirit it was a deliberate self-giving on the Lord's part it is as if he surrendered his life to God rather than lost his life to push us beyond his own control now you will notice too the elaborateness the richness of the
[54:27] Lord's burial Joseph spared nothing he brought he bought a linen shroud he wrapped him in linen shroud and laid him in a tomb which had been hewed out of this solid rock a very expensive exercise Isaiah tells us he was with the rich in his death I am not going far into this because my time really has gone and your concentration too was gone I'm sure but it is so important that God inflicted upon his son everything needed for our salvation but also he didn't allow a single humiliation beyond what was indispensable not a bone was broken he saw no corruption no wild animal tore that body no bird of prey attacked it he was with the rich in his death the moment he cries it is finished our new law takes over the law of the
[55:57] Lord's imputed sinfulness is replaced by the law of the Lord's own righteousness and God the Father moves in to protect the body of his son from all further humiliation and all further abuse and he therefore with the rich in his death and he rolled a stone against the door of the truth well sometimes when you closed a coffin lid over somebody that you have known and loved there is a terrible finality about it this earthly feeling that you will never see him or her again and that in many ways is what this stone was saying in Joseph's heart in the heart of the church as we'll see tomorrow on the road to Emmaus it was for these men the end of an era you can hear the door slamming shut as that stone is placed against the entrance to the tomb it's a beautiful detail again as the women go up to the tomb on the
[57:25] Lord's Day morning that's what's bothering them that stone who will move the stone it is a marvelously no bodish question to be asking as they go up to the place where their saviour is they're so concerned about the physical problems of shifting the stone and you will notice verse 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid they saw where he was laid it is almost as as Mark anticipated a 20th century objection to the resurrection that the women went to the wrong tomb I'm sure that God did anticipate it and put the detail into the narrative for that reason these women they knew the tomb anybody anybody who's buried anybody doesn't forget a tomb not in 24 hours they watched they knew they knew the exact place to go to and
[58:41] Mary was there again of course when the Sabbath was passed the two Marys and Salome well it is an interesting point for us maybe to conclude on the whole emphasis in the gospel on the role played by the women in this whole story you find them you see at verse 40 there were also women looking on from afar and they're enumerated and named for us it looks as if this time all the men had gone John had come and taken the Lord's mother away poor Mary taken her away but the women they were there now what it said about your psychology isn't at the moment for me to say that there was a doggedness and a stickability an emotional stamina about them which the men lacked and with
[60:06] Joseph it is they but four in the last offices to the dead body of the Lord and next morning it is they who are first at the tomb the Lord's day morning so I pondered it through many a darkness over the last twenty almost thirty years and it still seems to me a point of immense moment no first century Jew writing fiction would ever have given such a prominent role to the woman the first person to see the risen saviour a woman the first witness well the Lord cried it is finished but in some ways it was only the end of the beginning and tomorrow we'll see the beginning of the beginning itself the resurrection of Christ and its significance for the church of our own day
[61:24] I shall leave it there in to do his is is wonder how is his and the you you you you