Sermons for Real Life

Full Sermon

X Marks the Spot - Mark 16:9–20

Main Point

Trust the Map. Follow Jesus.

Please rise.

The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have verses 9–20.

9 When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. 10 She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. 11 When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.

12 Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. 13 These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.

14 Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

15 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

19 After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. 20 Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Prayer for Humility

Lord, give us humble minds and open hearts. Save us from a faith that is frightened by honest questions, and save us from questions that are merely excuses for unbelief. Teach us to treasure your Word, to recognize the voice of our Shepherd, Jesus Christ, and to follow wherever you lead. Most of all, help me to get out of your way this morning. May any careless or foolish words that will invariably tumble from these failing lips be rearranged midair by your Holy Spirit, so that each one listening hears what YOU want us to hear, not what I have to say. Lord of miracles, please do the miraculous and help their meandering windbag of a preacher be short and to the point. In the name of Jesus I pray, Amen.

You may be seated.

Main Point

Trust the Map. Follow Jesus.

Sermon Manuscript

I love maps.

You probably already know that about me. Give me a good map and I can lose an unreasonable amount of time studying coastlines, roads, mountains, borders, and all the little marks showing where people have been and where we might go next.

But the most exciting map in the world is not a highway map. It is a treasure map.

You know the kind. The paper is yellowed. The edges are torn. Part of the coastline looks as though somebody drew it after hearing about the island from a sailor who heard about it from another sailor. There may be sea monsters in the margins. Distances are questionable. North is more of a suggestion than a commitment.

But then, in certain places, the instructions become very specific: “Begin at the crooked palm tree. Walk twenty-one paces toward the skull-shaped hill. Turn east at the black rock. Dig beneath the X.”

The coastline may not satisfy a modern cartographer, but the map is true if the treasure is really there. It is accurate, which means made with great care, if it reliably gets you there. And when you reach the crucial steps, you had better pay attention.

I believe the Bible is true. The treasure to which it points is real.

I believe the Bible is accurate. It has been written, preserved, copied, studied, and transmitted with remarkable care.

But the Bible is not always precise in the modern technical sense. It uses poetry, symbolism, hyperbole, rounded numbers, selective memories, thematic arrangements, and words whose meanings do not fit perfectly into a single English equivalent. Sometimes the Gospel writers preserve different details or arrange events differently to emphasize different truths.

That is not a defect unique to the Bible. That is how human language works.

If I say, “There were a thousand people in the hot dog line at Costco on Friday,” you do not demand the security footage and count every customer. If I say, “I waited forever at the DMV,” nobody checks whether I have discovered immortality. If Tammie says, “Steve has told that story about that rotten RV trip a hundred times,” the exact number is not the point—and she is probably rounding down.

We understand ordinary language every day. But sometimes, when we open the Bible, we suddenly demand that every sentence behave like a laboratory report, a courtroom transcript, a GPS coordinate, and an atomic clock all at once.

That brings us to the unusual passage we read today.

Most modern Bibles place a note before Mark 16:9: “The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have verses 9–20.”

That note makes some Christians nervous. It makes others suspicious. But I want to ask you to see it differently.

That note is not a reason to distrust your Bible. That note is evidence that the people who prepare your Bible respect you enough to tell you where the questions are.

They did not hide the torn edge of the map.

The earliest complete Greek manuscripts of Mark end at verse 8, with the women fleeing the empty tomb, trembling and afraid. Other manuscripts contain a shorter conclusion. Many later manuscripts contain the longer ending we read today. And that longer ending is itself very ancient; Christians knew it by at least the second century.

So this is not a case of somebody changing the Bible last Tuesday. It is an ancient question visible in the manuscript evidence. Because scholars can compare thousands of manuscripts, ancient translations, and quotations from early Christian writers, they can show us precisely where that question lies.

The Bible has a torn edge—and the custodians of the map have carefully marked it for us.

Now let us be equally clear about what has NOT been lost.

Jesus was crucified. Jesus was buried. On the third day, the tomb was empty. Jesus appeared alive to his followers. The frightened disciples became witnesses. The gospel went out into the world.

Those truths do not depend upon these twelve verses. They appear throughout Matthew, Luke, John, Acts, and Paul’s letters. No central Christian belief disappears if Mark originally stopped at verse 8.

The edge of the map may be disputed. The location of the treasure is not.

Trust the Map. Follow Jesus.

There are two easy mistakes we can make.

The first is to see one torn edge and throw away the entire map. Some approach the Bible as though any unanswered question proves that all of it is fantasy. They analyze its language, catalogue its sources, and dissect it as literature, but never seriously consider that it may be pointing beyond itself to something—or Someone—real.

The second mistake is to pretend the torn edge is not there. Some Christians become so frightened of questions that they invent complicated explanations for every minor difference.

Did Jesus cleanse the temple at the beginning of his ministry, as John presents it, or near the end, as Matthew, Mark, and Luke present it? Perhaps, we are told, he did it twice.

Did the rooster crow once or twice during Peter’s denial? Perhaps there was a whole sequence of crowing, and each writer counted a different part.

Could those explanations be possible? Perhaps. But “possible” is not the same as “probable,” and protecting Scripture does not require us to pretend we know what we do not know.

I do not honor the Bible by forcing it to answer questions it never intended to answer. I honor the Bible by receiving it as God chose to give it: through prophets and poets, witnesses and historians, apostles and editors, human memories and human languages—all carrying the story of God’s saving work.

God could have dropped a gold-plated book from heaven, written in a supernatural language that never needed translation. He did not.

The Word became flesh. And God’s written Word also came to us through the realities of human history.

That should not diminish our confidence. It should deepen our wonder that it has come through more remarkably intact than nearly all ancient writings. Through fragile scrolls, hand-copied pages, persecuted communities, changing languages, collapsing empires, and ordinary human beings, God has preserved the testimony that leads us to Jesus.

So how should we live when the map has a difficult marking or a torn edge? We do not panic. We do not pretend. And we do not stop moving.

Here are three lessons the longer ending of Mark gives us about the discerning the will of God from the Word of God. We read it honestly. We seek Jesus humbly. And we follow him boldly.

First, We Read It Honestly Luke begins his Gospel with remarkable transparency: “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us… Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you.” —Luke 1:1, 3, NIV Luke tells us that there was a process. There were witnesses. There were existing accounts. There was investigation. There was selection and arrangement.

Inspiration did not erase that process. God worked through it.

Honesty about Scripture is not hostility toward Scripture. Questions are not betrayal. Careful study is one way we love God with all our minds.

If someone tells you, “Mark 16 has a disputed ending,” you do not need to become defensive. You can say, “Yes, and my Bible told me that before you did.”

We can admit what we know. We can admit what we do not know. We can distinguish between a central truth and a minor uncertainty. We can listen to faithful scholarship without handing secular scholarship the final word about whether the treasure is real.

Faith is not pretending there are no questions. Faith is trusting God enough to face them.

Honesty honors Scripture.

Second, We Seek Jesus Humbly Jesus told the religious experts of his day: “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” —John 5:39–40, NIV These people knew the map. They could identify every symbol, debate every path, and quote long sections from memory.

But when the treasure stood in front of them, they rejected him.

The Bible is precious. It is a treasure in its own right. We should read it, study it, memorize it, teach it to our children, and carry its words in our hearts.

But the Bible does not ask us merely to admire the map. It points us to Jesus.

Glancing at your map doesn’t get you to your destination. The map merely points the way. You’ve got to move where it says move!

The goal is not to win every argument about Scripture while becoming less like the Savior revealed in Scripture. The goal is not to possess perfect doctrine about forgiveness while refusing to forgive. The goal is not to memorize the Great Commission while never sharing the good news. The goal is not to underline every command to love our neighbor while avoiding the neighbor who needs us.

The devil does not care whether you dismiss the Bible as irrational or display it on a pedestal — as long as you never follow it. That’s all he cares about.

On the road to Emmaus, Jesus began with Moses and the Prophets and explained what the Scriptures said concerning himself. And they began to see that all the roads on the map converged on Christ.

That is still how we read. We ask: What does this reveal about God? How does this lead me toward Jesus? How does the life, death, and resurrection of Christ illuminate this passage? What response is the Holy Spirit asking of me?

The map leads to Jesus.

Third, We Follow Him Boldly The repeated problem in Mark 16:9–14 is not textual precision. It is unbelief.

Mary Magdalene reports that Jesus is alive, but the disciples do not believe her. Two others report seeing him, but the others do not believe them either. Finally Jesus confronts their stubborn refusal to believe those who saw him after he had risen.

Then he says: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” —Mark 16:15, NIV And the passage concludes: “Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them.” —Mark 16:20, NIV Whatever conclusion we reach about the composition of Mark’s final verses, their great summons agrees with the clear witness of the entire New Testament: Jesus is alive, and frightened disciples are called to get moving.

James says: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” —James 1:22, NIV The map becomes meaningful when we take the next step.

Where is the map telling you to go while you are still standing over it, studying the symbols?

Perhaps it says, “Forgive that person.”

Perhaps it says, “Confess what you have concealed.”

Perhaps it says, “Stop returning to the habit that is destroying you.”

Perhaps it says, “Serve someone who cannot repay you.”

Perhaps it says, “Trust God with what you cannot control.”

Perhaps it says, “Tell someone that Jesus is alive.”

Perhaps it simply says, “Come home.”

Some of us keep arguing about whether every coastline is drawn to exacting scale because we are avoiding the twenty-one paces the map clearly tells us to take.

You do not need to understand every symbol before taking the next faithful step.

You do not need an answer to every question before trusting Jesus.

You do not need to know the entire route before you obey what God has already made clear.

Real faith follows the map.

A Necessary Word About Signs

Mark’s longer ending includes speaking in tongues, driving out demons, picking up snakes, surviving poison, and laying hands upon sick people.

Christians interpret these lines differently, but we should say a few things plainly.

Jesus does not command believers to handle snakes or drink poison. We do not test God by manufacturing danger and demanding that he rescue us. No one should build a dangerous religious practice upon a promise found only in a disputed passage.

We interpret difficult and disputed lines through the clear, repeated teaching of Scripture as a whole. God can perform miracles. God can protect his servants. God can heal the sick. We pray boldly and trust him completely. But faith is not presumption, and trusting God is not the same as testing God.

The signs are not the treasure. Jesus is.

Communion

Today the map brings us to this table.

At this table, we do not gather around an argument. We gather around Jesus.

The bread tells us that his body was given for us.

The cup tells us that his blood was poured out for us.

The cross marks the spot where mercy met judgment, where sin was forgiven, where death was defeated, and where the kingdom of God broke into this wounded world.

And the empty tomb tells us the treasure is real.

Mark’s earliest ending may leave the women trembling before an empty tomb. The longer ending may show the disciples carrying the message into the world. But both bring us to the same holy place: Jesus Christ was crucified, Jesus Christ is risen, and Jesus Christ is Lord.

Perhaps your own map feels torn today.

There are years you cannot explain. There are prayers that appear unanswered. There are roads you never intended to travel. There are parts of your story that do not seem to connect.

But your salvation does not depend upon possessing a perfect map of your future. It depends upon the faithfulness of the One who has already gone before you.

Jesus knows the road through suffering. Jesus knows the way through death. Jesus knows the path out of the grave.

So when you cannot read the whole map, look for the cross. X marks the spot.

When the coastline is obscured, listen for the voice of Jesus.

When you do not know how the story ends, take the next faithful step.

The map has brought us here—not merely to information, but to Communion; not merely to words about Christ, but to the presence of Christ among his people.

I treasure this map. I study it, memorize it, preach it, and order my life by it—not because every coastline answers every modern question, but because again and again, with remarkable faithfulness, it brings me to Jesus.

Trust the Map. Follow Jesus.

Communion Words

The body of Christ, given for you.

The blood of Christ, poured out for you.

Eat, drink, remember—and follow.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus, thank you for meeting us in your Word and at your table. Give us courage to face honest questions without fear, humility to admit what we do not know, and faith to act upon what you have made clear. Forgive us for studying the map while resisting your direction. Lead us toward reconciliation, holiness, mercy, witness, and love.

When our own paths seem torn or unfinished, keep our eyes upon the cross. When we are frightened, remind us that the tomb is empty. When we hesitate, send us out with your good news. Work with us as you worked with those first disciples, confirming your grace through lives transformed by your presence.

And bring us at last into the fullness of your kingdom, when faith becomes sight, every broken road is redeemed, and people from every nation gather at the table of the Lamb.

Until that day, help us trust the map and follow Jesus. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit we pray. Amen.