Courageous Faith

Mark 15:40-47

Caspar the Dutch Watchmaker

Caspar was a Dutch watchmaker, born in 1859. His parents were strong Christians who raised him in the Dutch Reformed Church. During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, Caspar and his daughters became active in sheltering Jewish people who were trying to escape the Nazis at their home. In May 1942, a woman came to the house and asked for help. She said she was a Jew, her husband had been arrested several months before and her son had gone into hiding. As occupation authorities had visited her, she was afraid to return home. She had heard that the family had helped other Jews and asked if she could stay with them, and Casper agreed. He told her, "In this household, God's people are always welcome." When the Nazis began requiring all Jews to wear the Star of David, he voluntarily wore one as well.

On 28 February 1944, the Gestapo raided his house and arrested him; his daughters; his son Willem; and his grandson Peter, who were visiting. The Gestapo arrested other supporters, who visited the house during the day, taking a total of about 30 people to Scheveningen prison.

When he was interrogated in prison, the Gestapo told him that they would release him because of his age so that he could "die in his own bed". He replied, "If I go home today, tomorrow I will open my door to anyone who knocks for help". When asked if he knew he could die for helping Jews, he replied, "I would consider that the greatest honour that could come to my family." On 9 March, Casper died at the Hague Municipal Hospital, at the age of 84, after nine days in Scheveningen prison. Like all who died there he was buried in the dunes of Scheveningen. After the war he was reburied at the National Cemetery of Honours in Loenen.

COURAGEOUS FAITH IS SURPRISING

Caspar ten Boom wasn’t a pastor, or a well known preacher or a famous celebrity. He was just an ordinary watchmaker who was faithful to His Lord. We only know his name because of his daughter Corrie.

The point is, courageous faith is often found in surprising of places.

In Mark 15 , it is a group of women and a member of the Sanhedrin who exhibit courageous faith. Not the people who we might expect!

We don’t read of Peter or James or Andrew looking on - all of them had deserted him and fled barring John.

Mark 14:50 (ESV)

50 And they all left him and fled.

It was Jesus’s female followers who stayed until the bitter end, it was they who remained in his final moments.

And we learn of a man named Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin (who had condemned Jesus to death) who was a secret disciple of Jesus (matt 27:57) who came and laid Jesus’s body in his own tomb.

The Sanhedrin - the last place we would have expected to find a disciple of Jesus!

Courageous faith is often found in surprising places and in those in whom we might not expect to find it.

Courageous faith is revealed by testing times.

2. COURAGEOUS FAITH IS FOCUSSED

Mark records the women “looking on” at the cross in verse 40, and again he records them as “looking on” at the tomb in verse 47. It’s the same Greek verb.

This verb isn’t used to decribe a casual glance, but a focussed and observant gaze. Their attention was focussed on Jesus.

What we look upon reveals what our heart truly desires.

“The eyes are the window to your soul.” - Shakespeare

It’s like when you’re in class at school with your crush and your eyes just keep floating away from the blackboard and over to them. Story of YFC training.

Courageous faith always begins with a fixed gaze on Jesus. Your attention is on Christ before it is on the world. It is on Christ before it is on yourself. It is on Christ before it is on your circumstances.

Where is your gaze fixed? What are your eyes feasting on? What has got your attention today?

3. COURAGEOUS FAITH HAS FEET

These women had followed Jesus in Galilee and now they followed him from the cross to the tomb.

They had followed him when the crowd adored him, and they followed him when the crowd crucified him.

Courageous faith has feet that follow. Courageous faith has feet that follow Christ whererever he leads, and with whoever will follow. Courageous faith isn’t a fairweather faith - that only follows Christ when the going is good, when the crowd cheers and applauds, when there are miracles and healings and signs and wonders. Courageous faith follows Christ when the sky goes black, when the crowd turns, when there’s a price to pay and when all the fashionable people have turned their backs, courageous faith keeps on going.

Courageous faith keeps walking with Jesus even when everyone else is walking in the opposite direction. It keeps walking with Jesus even when it’s not convenient or expedient to do so.

Where are your feet taking you? Are you walking with Christ and His Church? Or are you heading in the same direction as the world? How would you know? Is your life indistinguishable from the life of your unsaved friends? Do you do all that they do, speak like they do, believe like they do? Are your priorities the same as your unsaved friends? Or have they changed since you came to know Christ?

4. COURAGEOUS FAITH HAS GUTS

Verse 43 tells us that Joseph of Arimathea ‘took courage’ and approached Pilate to ask for Jesus’s body. Another way of putting that verb is that Joseph was daring - he showed bravery in the face of danger. Joseph didn’t know what might happen, he didn’t know how Pilate might react.

Courageous faith has guts, it is a daring faith. When the test comes, it is ready to show itself.

Pilate, asked the centurion to check that Jesus was dead as crucifixion was often a horrid and slow death. The centurion confirmed that Jesus was already dead and Pilate granted Joseph Jesus’s corpse.

The greek word ptoma (corpse) is used in verse 45 instead of soma (body) to confirm to the reader that Jesus was really dead.

In this passage we have three separate witnesses confirming Jesus’s death - the centurion, Joseph of Arimathea and Jesus’s female followers - they all would have known whether or not he was dead. So the idea that Jesus had merely swooned and would revive inside the tomb is utterly scotched here.

Courageous faith often lays dormant until a time of testing comes. It is only revealed when pressure is applied. And when testing times come - we sometimes find that those who we thought had courageous faith actually don’t, and those who we least expected to have it actually do.

Courageous faith isn’t about bluster, courageous faith isn’t about being loud and extroverted. Courageous faith can be quiet, it can be still. But when the testing comes it rises to the surface.

5. COURAGEOUS FAITH HAS HANDS

Courageous faith has hands. The hands are always associated with action. They are about doing.

Courageous faith is a doing faith. The Mary’s and the other women followers we read about here ‘ministered to Jesus’. They didn’t just follow him around - they ministered to him. The root word in the Greek comes from the word from which we get the word Deacon - or servant. They served Jesus, they met his needs, made sure he had food to eat, money for the journey, a place to stay. These women were women of action - they had a doing faith.

Courageous faith isn’t just right belief it’s right action. It’s a faith that ministers to Jesus. Do we serve him with our lives? Do we gather regularly with His bride to minister to him in worship? Do we give of our resources to bless His body?

Joseph of Arimathea used his hands to honour Jesus’s body, by giving him a proper burial.

Courageous faith is a faith that honours Christ’s body - His Church. Does your faith do honour to the church?

Courageous faith is a faith that honours Christ through action. It is a faith that ministers to Christ and it is a faith that gives honour to Christ.

CONCLUSION

The passage ends with Jesus being laid in a tomb. This is a sobering reality for all of us. Each one of us here, unless Christ returns before, will one day sooner or later go to that same place.

Psalm 103:15–16 NIV

15 The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; 16 the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.

We will all someday die - that’s a fact there’s no question about that. The question is - will we make our life count for something? When we go to the grave, will we go there being able to say that we lived this life for something? That we lived for God, we gave our life for something greater than ourselves?

There’s only one way out of that tomb for any of us, and that is by giving up our lives to Christ. The only man who has ever walked out the other side of death.

Is your faith focussed? Does it have feet that follow Jesus? Does it have guts? Is it a faith that is working to honour and minister to Jesus and His body?

Pray