The Gospel of Mark, Chapter 16, verses 14-20
Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen. And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues;18 they[a] will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”19 So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. 20 And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen.
THE MEANING OF THE CROSS
The cross makes sense because Jesus our God was lifted up on it. The essence of the cross is Jesus! Jesus is the first essence, the divine essence par excellence.
Jesus had told his disciples that he was going to die and that three days later he would resurrect. The promises of God are yes and amen! And this is exactly what happened. Jesus dies on wood assembled in the form of a Roman cross. This was the most horrible death sentence at the time; the cruelest way to put somebody to death that man had invented at that time. God, dead on a human cross. More precisely, Jesus was crucified, which means that his hands and feet were pierced with nails after he had gone through public whippings and flagellations. In love, Jesus chose to go through all this. What impressed me when I watched again a few months ago the movie The Passion of the Christ was that as Jesus carried his cross on the way to be crucified, he came to a place where he was crushed to the ground, but amidst the blows, he kissed his cross and got up again, carrying it. Jesus loved carrying the cross or he wouldn’t have done it. Those he loved made him go through cruelty and shame. He was publicly stripped, slapped, whipped to the bone, insulted, pierced, accused, mocked, and left to die un a rustic cross under the weight of the pain: you know, the only thing that really impresses God is Jesus’ death on the cross. Mocked although he was the King of kings, powerless, he was the all-powerful, unable to save himself, he was the Savior of all men, and crying out in despair, he put all his confidence in God the Father, surrendering himself into his hands. Jesus tasted Hell; He went there to destroy death on its own turf. We are no longer called to be in a position of defense, but of attack like Jesus our great Victor has showed us. Jesus destroyed the sting of death, meaning sin. From that perspective what’s happening here is joyful, only it wasn’t on that day. The morning of the resurrection some women went to the grave with perfumes and spices. It is like today when we go put flowers on a grave. They were going to honor Jesus’ body and there were several obstacles on their way: The Roman guards guarding the entrance and the big stone blocking it. It was dark, and yet they had the courage to go; moved by their love for Jesus! Perhaps right now you want to honor the body of Jesus, which is the church. To put it simply, the church is your neighbor, the one you see. The mission of bringing the Gospel to the world sees many obstacles. In the face of human insufficiency, poverty, disease, risk, isolation, sin, false moral values, the attraction of money, and even difficulties in the church, people who do not have pure motives, let us do as these women, let us go out, moved by love and gratitude to Jesus. By faith, the great obstacles will fall and we will see Jesus manifest and show himself.
BELIEVE
In the first of the seven verses (v14), Jesus reproaches the eleven disciples. Why? Jesus appeared to the women and also told them through an angel that the eleven should come join him in Galilee. Interesting: Galilee was not unknown territory for the eleven. They all came from there; it was their home. It was Jesus’ region and also theirs (Jesus had chosen eleven people from his own region and a twelfth who was not from that region, Judas). Also, two other people had traveled with Jesus that very same day and went to tell the eleven. Does it not surprise you that the eleven still stayed indoors? They were disobeying what Jesus had told them to do. Maybe Jesus had planned a big surprise party with angels as stewards. Or something grandiose where he would give them the Holy Spirit right away. We really don’t know what Jesus would have done if they had obeyed right away. Maybe God is telling you to do something now using different people, including me, I hope. Believe God even if you don’t understand because it’s through believing that you’ll find true meaning! Don’t wait until you’re in the right place or in the mood before believing. That place that you know so well: God wants to meet you there, to see you obey Him as soon as possible. When God speaks, we must move right away! In the end, Jesus came to talk to them in their room. He reproached them their disbelief, their lack of faith, and gave them the solution right away: Go and preach that I was dead and now I live, and in the same way I can give life to those who believe in me. In the end it becomes, “You were disbelieving, so now go and tell others what you didn’t believe at fist. And if you obey and go, you will drive out demons, speak in tongues, pick up snakes, if you drink poison it will not hurt you, and you will heal the sick.” It was an order, not a suggestion. The wonderful thing is that this time they obeyed right away. This is the key to making the Kingdom of God grow.
GROWTH
In the seventh and last verse of this passage (v20), we learn that they
went to preach everywhere. Notice that they went everywhere. Everywhere means in every place or in many places, in all directions. Everything we do should come from the way we’ve felt the cross. Our soul must receive the impressions of Jesus’ experience on the cross in order to act on it; delicately and instinctively appreciate the beauty of Jesus’ work on the cross. The Gospel must go everywhere and there find its place and ground. They did not stay in the room. In the same way, on the day of Pentecost, they did not say to each other, “Oh, let us keep the Holy Spirit and these tongues of fire to ourselves, let us stay here and pray and praise God for ten hours.” They made a lot of noise and went outside. They went everywhere, everywhere, everywhere! You might also say everyone, together they went, preached, and the Lord worked with them, confirming their words with signs! I think the best way to grow spiritually is by speaking to others about the Good News; Jesus Himself has given us an example by training his disciples directly in the field, showing them how to do the job. I also deeply believe that the main reason why the Holy Spirit came was for the Gospel to be proclaimed, for people to believe and be saved. The first time He came, 3,000 people came to believe through a single sermon! If no one comes to believe, geniuses mean nothing and if no one comes to believe, Jesus will not come back. And more and more people will go to Hell. I cannot imagine that the greatest party will take place in Hell so Satan can be happy, saying that he has the most souls, the most people, with him. No, I think the greatest party will be in Heaven! The coolest party with the coolest people will be in Heaven with Jesus, with as many people as possible. Jesus said there is more joy in Heaven because of one sinner who comes to believe. Today we all agree that as believers we are called to praise Jesus, worship leaders are in and that is great! Did you know that an evangelist is like a worship leader in Heaven? He makes the angels dance and stirs up a party in Heaven every time he sees results. We can praise God here and also cause praise in Heaven through conversions. Isn’t that wonderful? My dear friends, God’s
riches are not counted in Euros or in Dollars, but in souls. God our Father has just one kind of wealth: the souls of men. And I want my Father to stay rich because when he is rich, I am rich. My Father’s riches are my riches! Maybe you are thinking, “Didn’t Jesus say that broad is the way that leads to destruction and narrow the way that leads to life and that only few find it?” Yes, He said that, and just after saying it, he went and stood in the middle of the broad way in a cross as if to say, “Look at me, stop, I love you, follow my gaze, I save, you can live now!”
I want to conclude this message with the death of my father: I went to Togo in the summer of 2008 to visit him and I learned that he was sick. My priority was to make sure He had become a Christian. He said he had but I wanted to make sure. So on his bed I showed him the way of salvation and I understood later that he really was saved and that he had an inner strength that really impressed me. We spent several weeks together since my stay was prolonged. He was not afraid of death and he passed on a lot of his inner strength to me during these weeks before his death. And I know that I will see him again.
I would encourage you to look at those who do believe as one of your loved ones on their deathbed. You need a sense of urgency to evangelize because the moment they stop living it is certainly and definitely Hell that awaits them.
In the city of Strasbourg, about 80 people die every week. Most of them go to Hell. If they were all Christian, our church meetings would be for nothing. They are taking the perilous jump into Hell without a parachute. Our parachute is Jesus! The meaning of Jesus is: TO SAVE MEN.
How can we speak that Name without thinking about that? We’ve received the key, the power to introduce people to Jesus, and that is the greatest act of love we can show them.
That is the practical meaning of the cross.
God bless you!
JESUS 