Well, good morning. Good turn in your copy of God's Word. Back to Mark 16. As you see in your bulletin, we will be looking at verses 8 through 20. And as you see that, you may think, wow, that's a lot. And you're right. But you'll see why, Lord willing, in a few moments. But before we dive into this text, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father God, we have no hope but You. There is nothing we can bring before You in our own merits, our own attempts at self-righteousness, that can wipe away or wash away the proper guilt laid before us. Again, the reality is, our biggest problem is not just our sin. Our biggest problem in the universe is that God is holy. And we have sinned against a thrice holy God. Who are we that we should be welcomed into Your presence? Lord, we thank You so much for the sufficiency of Jesus Christ We thank You again that in Him, everything necessary for our salvation has been accomplished. And Lord, we know of this glorious salvation because of Your precious, inerrant, and sufficient Word revealed to our souls by Your Spirit. And Lord, I feel the weight today of helping our body feel and know that they can trust the glorious text that sits in their lap right now. But I also know there are realities within what we will see today that we have to examine, have to navigate. So Lord, I confess in my own finitude, my inability to herald anything that can help us see, help us understand. Lord, I pray that in this time, You would be faithful to answer my continued request. God, would You please get me out of the way? Would You show Yourself? And may we leave here, even as we navigate the realities of a topic that saints have lovingly discussed and pondered and somewhat potentially argued about for generations. But I pray today we would leave here with such a rock-solid assurance in the glory of Christ revealed in the precious Word. And so Lord, I confess with my fellow saints here sitting before me, Lord, that You would get us all out of the way, whatever may be pining for our hearts this or weeks to come, they would be set aside. And right now, in Your mercy, You would unite our hearts to fear Your name. Even as we will see this morning, may it be a reverent awe, a proper fear of You. And it's in the name of Christ we pray. Amen. Well, beloved of Springs of Life, it's again a great joy to be gathered with You to worship our Lord through the examination of His Word. And today we are so very close to wrapping up our study in the Gospel of Mark. Lord willing, including today's message, we have just two more sermons in this series. And as you hear that, some of you may be rightly thinking, how can that be, Shane? Because we still have verse 8 in the section that we have been looking at. And then we have verses 9 through 20 to work through. How can we do all of that and conclude in just two weeks? Well, because these verses that we're looking at this pose a unique challenge for us and myself in particular. And that is, as the title of this sermon indicates, we must actually examine and try to explain where the Gospel of Mark actually ends. To see what I mean, we have to remember what we've seen in present weeks so far. In verses 1 through 7, we saw that this group of faithful women arrive at the tomb of our Lord early that first resurrection Sunday, preparing and planning to anoint the Lord's body with a proper burial. They expressed an understandable concern regarding how they were going to remove the very large stone from the entrance since it was far too heavy for them to push aside. Upon getting to the grave, they are shocked to find the barrier had been rolled away. But as we also saw, that was not the most shocking revelation they would experience that morning. When they entered the grave, when they went into the tomb, we are told that these women see and are understandably alarmed at the presence of what appears to be a young man in dazzling apparel. He then proclaims in a graveyard no some of the greatest news to ever be heard by human ears. He says that this Jesus of Nazareth, that they sought, though he was indeed crucified, he has risen and he is not here. This messenger then told these women to go and inform the disciples, but especially and particularly tell Peter that the Lord would go before them to Galilee. And every single event that had occurred, be it his arrest, be it his mock and sham trial, be it his various beatings and mockings and being spit upon and floggings and crucifixion, and here his resurrection, it all happened just as he told them. But then we read this in verse 8. Look at Mark 16 verse 8. Mark tells us that upon hearing of this marvelous news, these women went out and fled the tomb. But take note of the manner in which they did so. The reason for this, we are told, is for trembling and astonishment had seized them. Now that is interesting language. This seems to be a mixture of awe and fear. So much so that the final line of this verse, and as I will assert in a few moments throughout this message, I believe the final line of the entire gospel states that they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid. Now we obviously know based on other gospel accounts that that phrase that Mark says of they said nothing to anyone does not mean they never spoke of the events of this morning. It seems to indicate that until they made it to the disciples, they did not mention what had happened to anyone else. Why? Because, quote, they were afraid. But beloved, I do not believe or think that that should necessarily, that phrase of indicating their fear should necessarily be taken as an expression of a lack of courage. But much like the previous mixture of trembling and astonishment, this state of being afraid meant something a little more. Or as one commentator from the Reformation Study Bible put it, the word translated afraid also means reverential fear. And the same state of mind is produced in the disciples at the sight of Christ at his transfiguration. It seems, beloved, that based on these three specific Greek words translated for trembling, astonishment, and fear or afraid, you get an understanding of the strong language the author is using to convey what some call the terrifying bewilderment that had gripped these women's hearts and minds as they were beginning to understand the marvelous fact that Jesus had, in fact, come back to life, resurrected from the dead. And upon hearing of these women's condition, what is the very next thing you read? Well, it honestly depends on what translation you hold in your hand. If you are looking at, say, a King James Version or a New King James Version, you will find a title of a new section that goes straight into verse 9 all the way to verse 20. However, if you are holding, say, an ESV, an NASB, or an LSB, or pretty much any other modern English translation, you will see under verse 8 a set of brackets with a statement that says something like this. Some of the manuscripts do not include 16, 9 to 20, which is then usually followed by some sort of footnote indicating that some manuscripts end this gospel at verse 8, while others include verses 9 through 20. And a lot of this has to do with answering the question of how we came to have the scriptures, especially the New Testament, we hold in our hands. In my study this week, I came across a message of another local pastor, Dr. Andy Davis from First Baptist Durham, who I believe gives a helpful framework for much of this discussion when he says the He says, now when you have an English Bible in your hand, you have received the benefits of two different categories of scholars that have done their work before you ever got the Bible. And those sciences, those scholars, immerse themselves in these two sciences to deliver to you your English Bibles. The first are the scientists who do text or textual criticism, and the other are Bible translators. So when the textual critic experts have finished their work, they give their work to translators, and then the translators, when they have finished their work, give the English Bible to us. And so preachers like me get up and we receive the benefit of those scholarly works. This, I think, is a beautiful picture of the body of people who devote their lives to different callings and then serve the entire church. Now the text critics, their job is to give us a reliable Greek New Testament that then they can hand over to the translators. And the translators do their work in bringing it across from the Greek into good readable English. Now we in the English language are lavishly blessed with translations. When I was a missionary, not me, him, when he was a missionary in Japan, they had only two translations. One of them was harder to read for the Japanese people than the King James Version is for many of us in English. And the other was a Roman Catholic translation. That's it. That's what the Japanese have. That's all they have to read. We, in the English language, we get a new scholarly translation about every five years on average. They just keep coming out. And so we are rich in our translations. So what is textual criticism? Well there are two basic issues that arise when it comes to The first is we don't have the original manuscripts of the 27 books of the New Testament. We don't have the actual book of Romans. We don't have the actual epistle to the Corinthians, first or second Corinthians. We don't have the actual book of Revelation. We don't have the actual Gospel of Mark. Secondly, the copies that we do have in the of God don't always perfectly agree with one another. And so we have to study these copies and compare them and develop a kind of science called textual criticism where you can get behind the actual and develop a kind of science, excuse me, where you can get behind the actual physical copies you have to a Greek text for all the 27 books of the New Testament. That's the issue. That's what textual criticism is all about. Now, some of you heard what I just said. Maybe some of you, for the first time, heard anything about this. And if you're honest, you're a little jolted. You may be thinking, wait, wait, don't we believe the word is inerrant, inspired, and infallible? To which I say we absolutely do. However, when we confess this, we are the original manuscripts. The Protestant Church has never argued for the inspiration of copies. But again, you may be rightly thinking, wait a minute, Shane, you just said that all we have is copies. And that is true. And since this is the case, how can we have confidence that the scriptures we hold in our hands is the word of God? Well, beloved, at this point in this message, I want to affirm and instill in you that you can have absolute confidence that the scriptural copy you hold is the word of God preserved for you. But let me give you an illustration that I've heard to help lay the groundwork for this confidence. In Washington, D.C., there's a building that contains an office called the National Institute of Standards and Technology. In this facility, they keep the standards for various measurements, including, let's pick one, say the measurement of a yard. Now let's say that this building burned to the ground tomorrow. Would our understanding of the yard as a measurement be lost? Well, the answer is no. Why? Because we would be able to use the myriad of copies of the original yard stick that we have to reconstruct the official yard within the tiniest fractions of an inch of accuracy. And in a sense, that is what the science of textual criticism is focused upon. Reconstructing the original documents with the plethora of copies we have at our disposal. To give you an idea of the number of tools or manuscripts available for these textual critics, let me read for you some comparisons of ancient documents laid out by the late Dr. John MacArthur. He begins by saying this about the whole topic of translations. He says all translations of scripture, all of them, are based on ancient sources. Ancient sources that have been discovered in libraries throughout ancient times, treasures for those librarians. They have been discovered, they've been studied, they've been analyzed for their accuracy. They've been compared by the most dutiful and thoughtful, careful scholars throughout the centuries. So that I can say to you, unequivocally, the Bible you hold in your hand, if you have formally equivalency, if you have a formal equivalency in actual translation, I can assure you, you have an accurate and accurate Bible in your hand. The Holy Spirit, who is the author of scripture, inspiring every writer of the scripture, is also the preserver of the scripture. Supernaturally, he moved on the writers without disrupting their own words and thoughts and ideas so they wrote exactly what he wanted them to write. He moved on the preservers to make sure that the scriptures stayed pure for history. The printing press didn't show up until around 1500. Everything up to that point was copied by hand. Scribes understood the seriousness of what they were doing. There are some amazing stories about scribes. Listen to this, he says, they would copy down, when they were copying, say the Old Testament Hebrew scriptures, who would go write a single letter. They'd then leave where they were, go take a bath, come back and write another single letter. Then they left and go took a bath and did this until they had written the whole Old Testament. It was sort of a ceremonial cleansing to remind them of that every letter was important and sacred and the sacredness of what they were copying. At first, they were copying the original text written by Moses, written by David, written by Isaiah, written by Paul, written by John, James, Mark and Luke. They knew what they had in their hands and they copied it carefully because they understood it was the Holy Scriptures. Now today, we have, let's just take the New Testament, just the New Testament. We have 25,000 ancient manuscripts of the New Testament. Now you say, is that all there were? No. I couldn't even begin to tell you how many there were that disappeared over the centuries, but there are 25,000 that exist today. This is an abundance of manuscripts by which we can compare them all and come to an accurate understanding of what we need. Such an abundance shows how the Holy Spirit preserves everything. That is the importance of, say, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Old Testament manuscripts. When they were found, they were written before the time of Christ and they are matched to the translation we have today showing how the Holy Spirit preserved the Scriptures. Nothing, hear me, nothing in ancient literature can even come close to the mass manuscripts that we have in the New Testament. What they demonstrate is the uniformity and the consistency of the word. They are, as I said, 25,000 ancient manuscripts. There are 5,600 or so just Greek manuscripts and they go way back. We have a Greek manuscript from the second century. Our Lord lived in the first century. There's a manuscript called P52 and they're numbered and named according to the people who found them or the location or something along those lines. This one called P52 has parts of the Gospel of John and it dates from 100 to 150 and John was living in the 90s. Somebody copied an original, most likely, or in a copy of the original. It is very close to when it was written. There's another one called Bodmer Papyri in which you find John and Luke and it dates to 175 to 225 and then there's the very famous papyri called the Chester Betty Papyrus that has all four Gospels and the Book of Acts and it dates to around 200 AD. Here's the amazing part. There probably shouldn't be that many manuscripts from those years. Why? Because second century in particular and third century for sure was a time of immense Christian persecution and an effort to stamp out Christianity by the destruction of Christians and the Christian scriptures. But the Lord preserved these ancient texts, copies of those very close to the original. Once you get into the fourth century, around 325 or so, you get Constantine making Christianity legal and based on that the persecution ends and now manuscripts are everywhere and so by the time you pass by 325, the Council of Nicaea, we begin to see manuscripts in abundance. We have all these ancient manuscripts that we compare and when compared all say the same thing. The early church fathers, for example, from 325 because there was the Council of Nicaea in 325, they were called anti-Nicaean fathers because they were before Nicaea. The early fathers in say the 200s to 300s, catch this, they are these guys who are writing all kinds of theology and all kinds of biblical study material. If you just take these church fathers writings, they're among those about 32,000 quotes from the New Testament. There are so many quotes from just them among these fathers, we can compile the entire New Testament just from their writing. Now let me give you something to compare that with. The second most famous common ancient document or document in the manuscript world is Homer's Iliad. Next to the New Testament there are more copies of Homer's Iliad than any other ancient piece of literature. And by the way, second place is 643. And that earliest, the earliest of those is from the 13th century A.D. Homer wrote his Iliad in the 8th century B.C. We don't have anything even close to when Homer wrote what he did, but you never hear scholars having all these debates and discussions that did Homer really say? Another familiar piece of literature to study in the history of the Gaelic wars, Caesar fought the Gaelic wars and he wrote about these wars. The history of the Gaelic wars in the first century B.C. there are 10 existing manuscripts of that. The oldest one is 1000 years after Caesar. The history of the Peloponnesian war, we have eight manuscripts of that. The earliest is 1300 years later. My favorite, Shane, not MacArthur, my favorite. I want to pause here and point to one of my, many of you have probably heard of Beowulf. Many of you had to read Beowulf. You don't have to say it's terrible, it's okay. It was written around 700 to 750 A.D. Beloved, we have one manuscript of Beowulf. One. And it comes from the year 1000, about 250 years after. Again, MacArthur continues. Do I need to go on? Nobody bothered to protect those. Nobody bothered to preserve those like they did the scriptures. A.T. Roberson says the vast array of manuscripts has enabled textual scholars to accurately reconstruct the original text within, listen to this, more than 99.9 percent of accuracy. What's so amazing about this, these are all hand copies. Hand copies. Now you say, you mean in all of that there are no errors. No, I didn't say that. They made errors. They put in a wrong word. They put in a wrong spelling. Left something out. Occasionally, they even tried to clarify something, some of these scribes. But guess what? We have so many manuscripts, we know when they were doing that. And so, beloved, therefore, beloved, with so many manuscripts, you can be assured without hesitation that the Bible you hold in your hand is the true English translation of the original autographs of the word of God. But this does bring us back to Mark 16. I believe this is one of those rare cases that we have what is called a textual variant, where a good number of manuscripts have verse 9 through 20. However, the oldest manuscripts we have do not. This is the reason for the difference between more modern translations, and like the older translations of, say, the King James and the New King James. Those translations are based on the Textus Receptus, a medieval manuscript tradition. However, since that time, we have discovered earlier texts, which is why later translations include the bracketed statement about verses 9 through 20 that I mentioned before. It's because it was not found in the earliest copies that we have discovered. Specifically, two codices. Codex is a word that simply means bound volume, rather than a scroll that many of these early ones were written on. The two important ones are Codex Sinaiticus from around 350 A.D. and Codex Vaticanus from around 325 A.D. Sinaiticus is the whole New Testament. Vaticanus is a bound copy of the entire Bible. Again, bound, handwritten copy of the entire Bible, long before the printing press. And neither of these contain this longer ending in Mark. They both end at verse 8. However, before we address why, besides the early manuscript evidence on why I don't believe the long ending of Mark is original, let's read this longer ending of Mark together. Look at verse 9 through 20 of Mark chapter 16 and take note at least of what it says. Verse 9. Now, when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive, and had seen by her, and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. After these things he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them. Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves, and they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. And he said to them, Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. Whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe. In my name they will cast out demons, they will speak in new tongues, they will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them. They will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover. And then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs. Now, to be very clear, my reason for believing that this is not original to Mark's gospel is not because I'm afraid we have to now become, we would have to become a snake handling church. Okay? I actually don't mind snakes, so that's another discussion. On that briefly, for those who do hold, to those who do hold to this being the original ending that Mark intended, they have to at least admit that these passages do not command such actions. It just describes what will happen to some of those proclaiming the gospel. Paul, for example, in Acts chapter 28, is not harmed by a viper's bite. Not to exegete these verses, but I did hear of an interesting interpretation of this passage where some believe that this language of snakes and deadly poison is metaphorical in nature, describing the dangers of false teachers and false gospels that won't harm those who preach the true gospel. In either case, one thing is for sure. The long ending of Mark has been used by atheists to attack believers. I saw a debate between Dr. James White and some crazy atheist, who I don't know his name, who literally brought up a bottle of antifreeze on the stage and challenged his opponents to drink the harmful chemical to prove they believe the Bible, and the text they went to was Mark 16 here, to which Dr. White said, quote, this is yet another reason textual criticism is important. But besides the presence of this long ending that doesn't contradict or question any key doctrines of scripture, besides it not being in the earliest manuscripts, there are actual content structure that moves me to doubt it being in Mark's original account. Recently, Wes Huff, a PhD who does work in this field, did a video entitled, The Gospel of Mark is Missing the Ending? Let me explain, in which he walked through some interesting points on this matter. I may send the link out to you this week in an email. It's only like 15 minutes long for those who might be more interested. But what he says in this I found helpful. He says, what we have with the longer ending of Mark communicates a syntax, a style, a grammar, and a content which does not fit either Mark's gospel as a whole or even leading up to the ending of Mark. The Greek in verses 9 through 20 of chapter 16 is quite different and somewhat awkwardly reintroduces Mary Magdalene, who has already appeared three times in the later section of Mark. And it seems to draw particular styles and content from Luke's gospel. This has been noted by multiple scholars over the years. The appearance of two people walking parallels the two disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24. The appearance of the 11 mimics that of Luke 24, 36 to 43. And the ascension looks like Luke 24, 50 to 51. It looks like what some scholars call a syncretizing feature, in that later scribes potentially surprised by the apparent, abrupt nature of the ending of Mark's gospel in verse 8, attempt to amalgamate content from Luke's gospel. And beloved, to be fair, one can understand that temptation. Think about it. After 16 chapters of Mark pointing to the sonship of Christ, him running to Passion Week, him slowing down to address the details of the crucifixion and the resurrection, it could land as something of a cliffhanger to have the final proclamation of Mark's account to be, and they were afraid. However, again, I appreciate the wisdom from Dr. John MacArthur in his defense of this gospel ending at verse 8 when he says the following. He says this is Mark's closing statement. 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, period. That's it. Can you understand that folks started to say, you know, that just doesn't seem like an ending. That seems like stopping, not ending. The language is dramatic. The resurrection from the empty tomb and by the angelic announcement it has dawned on them in their terrified bewilderment. They're gripped by the wondrous reality of the resurrection, and oh, by the way, so was Mark. I like that, MacArthur says. Verse 8 says they said nothing to anyone, and that was good enough for Mark. He didn't either. He just shut it down. How fitting that the end is so dramatic and so powerful that neither the women and, it appears, nor Mark could speak. And what do we need to add? You have an empty tomb. You have an angelic announcement. You have the wonder of the eyewitnesses. You know, Mark started his whole thing back in verse 1, chapter 1, with these words. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. What was Mark working for in writing his history? He wanted you to be convinced of what? That Jesus is the Son of God. Mark wanted the same thing that John wanted. These things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Did he make his point in the end? Are you convinced? Was it enough? Did these 16 chapters get it done for you? It is clear that he's the Son of God. Mark didn't even let any human voice utter that reality until near the very end. And of all the strange people, it's a gentile Roman centurion who is in the charge of his crucifixion who says, for the first time it's passed from human lips in Mark's gospel, truly this man is the Son of God. What else is there to say? The proof is in the resurrection. And so Mark is as speechless as the women because this, his point is proven. But this bothered lots of folks in early church history. Now they were used to a lot more post-resurrection history. And there's a lot more in Matthew, a whole lot more in Luke, and a lot more in John. It doesn't need, excuse me, it just didn't kind of seem to match. But you know what? Others have said, well look, you've got all this information in John and all this information in Matthew. And if you go into Luke, you've not only got everything Luke wrote post-resurrection in his gospel, but then he wrote the whole book of Acts. Isn't that enough? And you might say, look, John in his gospel omitted everything on the front end, starting his history of Jesus with his baptism. 30 years into the story. So if John has a late start, what's wrong with Mark having a brief ending? So let's talk about Mark's ending, MacArthur concludes. Why does he hint in the way he does? Well I think it's just the way he wrote. He started very abruptly. He skipped, well he skipped everything like John did, up to the baptism. He starts at the baptism. What about Elizabeth and Zacharias and the promise of John the Baptist, the Annunciation, the angels, the virgin birth, Bethlehem, where's that? It's not here. In fact, he starts with the ministry of John the Baptist in verse two and then Jesus shows up at the baptism in verse nine. He has nothing before the ministry of Jesus and he has nothing after the resurrection of Jesus. He's trying to prove a point that he's the son of God and he proves it by following him in his ministry to his resurrection. I like the kind of people who make a point and they're done. I think he's made his, but there's something else here that strikes me. The last word that Mark wrote was the word translated afraid, fear. That's kind of key. They were afraid, not in a sense that they were afraid for their lives or they were afraid of being harmed or that they were in danger. This is the word phobeo, from where we get the word phobia, which means irrational experience, fear of an irrational reality. This literally experiencing bewilderment, amazement, astonishment, and wonder. There are no human explanations. This thing ends in wonder. And I want you to follow me a little bit. Let's go back to chapter one. Now you can look or just listen to me. This is not on the screen. Just listen to our brother here. He says when you start in chapter one verse 22, you read this. They were amazed at his teaching. Verse 27. They were all amazed so they debated among themselves. He had just cast out a demon. Go to chapter two verse 12. He healed the paralytic and they all were amazed and were glorifying God saying we've never seen anything like this. Go to chapter four verse 41. He calmed the storm and they became very much afraid and they said to one another, who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? Chapter five 15. They came to Jesus and observed the man who had been demon possessed sitting down clothed in his right mind and the very man who had the legion and they became frightened. Chapter 533. He healed a woman with the issue of blood and the woman fearing and trembling aware of what had happened to her came and fell down before him. Verse 42. Jesus raised a little girl from the dead and immediately in verse 42 says they were completely astounded. Chapter 651. He got in a boat and stopped the storm walked on the water and they were utterly astonished. Chapter 9. This is Peter, James and John of the Transfiguration. Verse 6. They became terrified. Go to verse 15. Immediately when the entire crowd saw him, they were amazed and began running up to greet him. Verse 32. He had just spoken of his death and resurrection. They didn't understand the statement and they were afraid. Go to chapter 10 verse 24. The disciples were amazed at his words. Go to verse 32. They were on the road going to Jerusalem and Jesus was walking ahead of them and they were amazed and those who followed were fearful. Chapter 11 verse 18. Jesus goes in and attacks the temple. Tuesday of Passion Week. Chief priest scribes heard it began seeking how to destroy him and they were afraid of him for the whole crowd was astonished at his teaching. Chapter 1217. When Jesus had escaped the confrontation with the Jewish leaders. Chapter 12. The verse 17. He wisely answered, rendered to Caesar the things that are Caesar's to God the things that are God and they were amazed at him. Chapter 15 verse 5. Jesus stands before Pilate and doesn't say anything so Pilate was amazed. Chapter 16 verse 5. Entering the tomb they saw a young man sitting at the right wearing a white robe. You read it and they were amazed, alarmed. Could I retitle this book? The amazing Jesus. What else do you expect Mark to say to finish? Then that the woman fled trembling and astonished gripping them and then he says nothing. They say nothing to anyone and they were afraid. This is absolutely consistent with how Mark ends everything. This is his pattern. This is the most amazing thing of all. He's used this all the way along to punctuate absolutely everything and he moved from one point of amazement to the next. So it ends where it ought to end. It's not incomplete. It ends where he loves to end. It ends with amazement and wonder at the resurrection. But here's the question. Are you amazed? I've been amazed since we started this thing. The story of Jesus is amazing. Isn't every lesson amazing? Isn't every word in the gospel of Mark amazing? Isn't every miracle amazing? Isn't every confrontation amazing? Isn't every insight amazing? Isn't everything about him stunning and overwhelming? And why not end it all with the glory and wonder of the resurrection that proves he is the son of God and we all walk away in amazement? I'm amazed. I hope you are. To which I too beloved must ask the same question this morning. Are you like the women mentioned here at the end of Mark's gospel? Have you been seized by trembling and astonishment because of the crucified Christ who was risen from the grave? If not, if there is zero astonishment within you because of who this Savior is and all we have seen him do over these two and a half years, if there is nothing but a cold callousness within your soul, I'm here to tell you that while Christ is no longer dead, spiritually you still are. As Paul says in Ephesians 2.1, you are dead in the trespasses and sins. Oh, I pray that today would be the day you come alive in him, but until you do, I will ask you not to participate in the celebration that we believers are about to enjoy. On the first Sunday of every month here at Springs of Life, we express our faith, hope, and dare I say astonishment at the work of Christ upon the cross in our place by partaking in the Lord's Supper. If you have yet to repent and believe upon Christ alone for your salvation, I ask that you let these elements pass you by and instead come to the crucified and risen Lord they represent. Come to the Son of God, Jesus, the Christ, all by faith alone. And for those who are in the Lord, purchased by his blood, let us not just check the box in some rote ritual this morning, but may we be filled with proper and worshipful trembling for all our Messiah has accomplished for us. May he receive all the praise and we express all the astonished joy in him because this the Son of God has rescued and redeemed wicked, unbelieving rebels by the blood of Jesus Christ. How could we not, based on that fact, also in some ways, cover our mouths and raise our hand? I pray that even as we come to the table this morning, we come with boldness, but it would stir us to leave in fear. Proper fear, proper reverent awe of who God is. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, we thank you that just like these women, if we are in you, you have brought us to amazement at Christ. Lord, we sing songs like Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound. The grace is only amazing because it comes from an amazing God. Lord, let us stand in awe of that amazing God this morning. And I pray that as we come to the table, as we in Christ come and celebrate what the crucified Lord has accomplished, we would do it in amazed remembrance of him. And it's in the name of Christ we do pray. Amen.