EASTER SUNDAY 2024: Who Will Roll Away the Stone?

The Neighborhood Church

He is risen! And the surprise and amazement of 3 women leaps off the page. They didn't expect to find an empty tomb. Instead, they expected the heavy stone to remain in place. Who can move the immovable? Who can lift this darkness? Who can raise the dead to new life? These questions loom over Mark's cliffhanger ending. But no matter... because we, like these 3 faithful women, can live the ending by running toward a new beginning. He is risen indeed. NOTES: // SCRIPTURE FOCUS -- Mark 16.1-8 // The big question looming over Easter Sunday morning is this... "Who will roll away the stone?" Which is almost a way of asking "Who can move the immovable? Who can lift this darkness? Who can raise the dead?" // Mark's cliffhanger ending invites us to answer... The answer to the question is "God." And all the terror of our present struggle cannot, nor will not, overcome God's life. // "Jesus entered into death by death in order to fill death with himself. So that, now, to enter death is to encounter Christ." (BRIAN ZAHND -- See Ephesians 4.10) // Mark's cliffhanger ending invites us to live the rest of the story... We go out to live the ending (which is actually a new beginning). We are not beyond redemption and death is not the end.