Who Will Roll Away The Stone?
Main Text: Mark 16:1-7
INTRO:
• In man’s path of happiness there lies a huge rock, which completely blocks up the road…
• Who among men can remove the barrier?
• Generation to generation…men have buried their dead…the sepulcher (grave), becoming their prison of no escape.
• The women in our story are going to clean up Jesus’ body. They are going to anoint his body with spices and oils. The rudimentary forms of embalming.
• But there was this great barrier in their way. Not only had a stone been rolled in front of the tomb’s opening, but the bible tells us in Matthew 27 that the Chief Priests and Pilate ordered that the stone be sealed to the tomb itself. Nothing could get in, and nothing could get out.
• I see in this passage that there must have been a little faith on the part of the two Mary’s. Knowing that the stone was there, knowing it had been sealed up… they must have believed, or at least hoped in the back of their minds that something had happened. That something had finally gone right. Because they were already on their way when they asked the question, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance?”
Man has been asking that same question for millennia. Who will move the stone? Who will break down the barrier between God and us?
Instinctively man knows there is a God. He understands that happenchance over billions of years is too far fetched to believe. He knows that there is some kind of super-power out there, somewhere. There has to be… but how do we get to Him? How is it that man could talk to, walk with and please God? Man knows there is a hole in his soul. Man knows that there has to be a divine being to fill that hole. But how, how can it happen when there is this great boulder of a rock in the way?
But as I said Wednesday night, God has a plan. God speaks and plans fall into place. God speaks and systems are automatically created to serve His will. God had a plan all along. His plan was to remove the barrier. To remove the wall, the stone, the rock the bars.
In looking at this, let’s first turn our eyes to the OT. In the OT we can begin to see what it is that God is doing. We can see what he is setting up.
God often works in patterns. He always establishes something in the past that is fulfilled in the future.
*Joshua 5:1-9*
1). The Reproach of Egypt is Rolled Away.
Egypt is always representative of sin.
Egypt is symbolic of a place of sin. A way of living in the fleshly nature or human nature. We in Christendom call it “the Old Man.” Being that the old man is what we were before Jesus came into our hearts and we became new creations in Christ.
We see here in this passage that the people called the place where they had been circumcised, Gilgal.
What is in the name Gilgal?
Gilgal in the Hebrew has a very specific meaning. It is called Gilgal because the meaning of the word is exactly what God did for them that day.
Gilgal = Rolled away or Completely Rolled off.
God spoke to Joshua to have the people circumcised. Circumcision was the outward way in which God’s people were recognized as His people. It was an outward expression that they were covered; they were cleansed before God because they were a part of his people. When the priest made the sacrifice, the sacrifice was for all of the people who were circumcised or part of the family of circumcision.
They had been living in Egypt. All the sin, all the degradation of Egypt, all the impurity of living in an impure land with impure people had left them in state of not being clean, or holy before God. None of the men who were born in the dessert those 40 years had been circumcised.
So God says, if you are going to be my people and if you are going to fight in my name and if I am going to be the God who delivers you and gives you the land that I have promised, you are going to have to be holy before me. Circumcision was that barrier. It was the thing that once it was removed, allowed them to be a part of the family of God.
We know today that the circumcision is not of the physical nature but of the heart. Each who has accepted Jesus as their savior is one who has been circumcised in his heart.
Romans 2:29 says, “No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit…”
In Joshua’s day, man was made right with God by a physical circumcision, but today, man is made right with God, the barrier is removed through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and the Holy Spirit at work in our lives.
Joshua’s sin and the people’s sin was removed at Gilgal, the reproach had all been rolled away.
The second OT example we find in Judges 16.
Judges 16:1-3
1 One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her.
2 The people of Gaza were told, “Samson is here!” So they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They made no move during the night, saying, “At dawn we’ll kill him.”
3 But Samson lay there only until the middle of the night. Then he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.
2.) The Barrier of Captivity is Removed.
Samson was far from perfect. Samson to me is in the OT what Peter was initially in the NT. He was a guy that woke up nearly every morning saying “which foot shall I put in my mouth today?” Samson was chosen by God to be the judge, the leader of his people. Yet he broke every law he could.
But even at that, Samson was anointed by God. His supernatural strength was the by-product of this anointing. He was the deliverer, the savior of God’s people. We find in this passage of scripture that Samson was captured. His enemy who wanted to destroy him hemmed him in. But as we read in verse 3, Samson “took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.”
The barrier, the bars, the posts, the doors, and the gates… he literally tore them off the wall, out of the ground and walked out.
Samson, yes he was a sinful man, yet God used him mightily to deliver his people time and again. I dare not say that Samson was a type of Jesus… yet I will say that he was a forerunner of what Jesus was to be. The deliverer, the savior of all people.
Just like Samson did, the prophets and the poets tell us what Jesus would do.
Psalm 107:15-16 says, Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men, for he breaks down gates of bronze and cuts through bars of iron.
The poet was also a prophet. He reminds us that the messiah would “break down gates of bronze and cuts through bars of iron…”
This same Jesus was to be the barrier breaker. He would be the one to make the way straight for all of mankind to get back to that coveted place of communion with God.
Isaiah takes it a step further. Isaiah 45:1-2 says, “This is what the LORD says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armour, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut: I will go before you and will level the mountains; I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron.”
* The greatest barrier to the white man who was desiring to settle the western part of this country was the Rocky Mountains.
Marcus Whitman, although not the first white-man to cross the Rocky Mountains, he was however, the first to cross them with a wife. They were to be missionaries to the Indians of the NW. Isn’t it a wonderful thing to know that the very first settlers of the western part of this country were missionaries to spread God’s word to the heathen?
Isaiah prophesies about this Messiah to come. He would level the mountains…
Break down the gates of bronze and cut through the bars of iron…
Micah 2:13 utters similar words, “One who breaks open the way will go up before them; they will break through the gate and go out. Their king will pass through before them, the LORD at their head.”
Who is the “One” Micah is referring to that will go up before them, break through the gate…? Who is the King that will pass through the gate before them? Who was to be the LORD at their head?
The Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth!
Jesus doesn’t just roll away the reproach of sin in our lives. He also breaks down the gates, the barriers in our lives that keep us from him. He does all the work. He made the sacrifice so we would not have to. He died so that we could live; he rose from the dead overcoming death, hell and the grave so we could also overcome death, hell and the grave.
And speaking of the grave… The final thing I want to look at this morning is that…
3.) The Stone at the Grave is Rolled Away.
* (Re-read) Mark 16:1-7*
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body.
Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
The two Mary’s may have wondered who was going to roll away the stone. Later on they may have even wondered whether it was Jesus or the Angel who did it.
Either way, it doesn’t matter. The stone wasn’t rolled away so Jesus could escape. It was moved because Jesus couldn’t get out of the tomb any other way. No, Friend, it was moved for the mere fact that it couldn’t stand in His way.
The one of ultimate freedom. The one who purchased ultimate freedom for man, could not be locked up any longer by a stone sealed with wax to a cold, dark grave.
The barrier is once again removed. And not only once again, but once and for all…
The tomb symbolizes death, but now no one needs to die. No one has to stay there; there IS a way of escape.
BUT…
There is a problem.
The STONE Himself, Jesus, has become a stumbling block for some.
1 Peter 2:8 says that Jesus is, “A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message--which is also what they were destined for.
• Many are bewildered..
• Many are amazed…
• Many are offended… (The resurrection story of Jesus just doesn’t measure up to their belief system).
But then verse 9 there in 1 Peter says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
What is this darkness he has called you out of? It’s the grave.
Where is this light that he is calling you to? To him.
The Bible says in John 8:12, that Jesus tells his disciples, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
CONCLUSION:
Which side of the stone are you on?
Are you enjoying his marvelous light on this side of the grave, or are you already a dead man walking. You’re alive, but not really. Not inside. You’re already in the grave.
The stone is the boundary between the living and the dead, between the haters of God and the seekers of God, between the friends and foes of Christ.
I conclude this morning with this final passage of scripture. It’s found in Ephesians 2:4-5.
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.”
Are you alive with Christ? Or are you still dead in your transgressions?
If you’re still in the grave, Christ came, died on the cross and rose from the dead so that by grace you too could be saved.
