To be Continued
Notes
Transcript
From Friday evening to Saturday evening for observant Jews, sabbath rules forbid both work and contact with the unclean. The women went to the tomb to care for Jesus’ body very early in the morning at sunrise on Sunday, the first moment they would have had light while also being allowed to do that work.
They had been asking each other “who will roll away the stone” and, absorbed in their conversation, didn’t initially notice the state of the tomb. Then they looked up and everything started to change. The word “looked up” also means to “regain sight” - it is a beginning of a paradigm shift for the women.
But like often happens when we think we understand something and then are caught off guard when reality doesn’t fit our expectation, the women don’t immediately connect the dots and recognize and accept this new reality, even when they are told by the young man at the tomb that Jesus is not here because he is risen.
Mark’s resurrection story is the least fleshed out and theological of the gospels, but it is the most raw and real. The women, who (unlike the disciples) stayed around to take in not only the crucifixion and death of Jesus, but his removal and burial, finally meet their match and are caught off guard here.
In Luke’s Gospel, God’s messengers from the very beginning tell Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, and the Shepherds “do not be afraid!” Mark doesn’t even talk about Jesus’ birth. For Mark there is one and only one reality at the center of everything that matters - Jesus’ death and resurrection. He points to it throughout the Gospel, while also often telling people (and demons) not to talk about it yet.
Finally here seeing the stone rolled away and Jesus’ body missing, the women are “alarmed” (overwhelmed, distressed, amazed). And finally here, for the first time since Jesus was ministered to by angels during his time in the wilderness before starting his ministry, we see another messenger (the meaning of angel) - this time a young man - and he greets them “Do not be alarmed!”
His next words probably didn’t help them not to be alarmed though. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has been raised! He is not here.” This man recognized what they were doing and said he was not there. Not only that the passive “He has been raised” could have given them cause to wonder if the man meant that Jesus had been lifted up and taken away by someone else.
Unlike in Luke where “Do not be afraid” is followed by unequivocal reassurances like “I bring you good tidings of great joy,” here the angel’s words give cause for more confusion and worry.
Even the next phrase, “But go, tell his disciples, even Peter, that he is going ahead of you into Galilee,” could be confused for a metaphor. If his body had been removed and was being taken to Galilee, then it might “go ahead” of them. That’s not how the word was usually used, but in the midst of all this confusion, they could have thought it possible.
Then comes the final clue: “You will see him there, just as he told you.” This is a signal to the women to carefully consider what these events might mean by running through what Jesus had said to them, to use his words to understand what’s going on.
But that takes time.
Right now, they are freaked out.
When they arrived at the tomb, they were walking and engrossed in talking so much that they didn’t notice the stone rolled away immediately. When they left, the went out and fled, because trembling terror and bewildered amazement had seized them.
And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
And that is the last we have from Mark’s hand in his gospel. No feel-good Disney ending. No wrap-up and explanation. No post-script. They fled and said nothing, spoke to no one, for they were afraid.
TV producers would recognize this moment as the climax of the season, maybe the whole show. And in the days before entire shows dropped online at the same time, multi-episode plotlines would often leave off at moments of high tension like this.
Why? Because it leaves us looking for more. Because we’re annoyed at not understanding what’s going on, maybe even a little angry.
And because it invites us into the shoes of those women, having to imagine and wonder and feel and try to discover for ourselves.
Lutherans have largely neglected the practice of sharing testimony - the stories of our faith - but in traditions where that’s more common, the stories that are told of discovering the power of the gospel don’t typically start “I was going along doing fine and someone told me Jesus loves me and that made sense and gave me a warm fuzzy.”
No, to recognize the Gospel’s truth and power takes weakness and vulnerability - when we are at our lowest and have given up on the ready-made solutions we have at hand, that is when we are most open to not just reasoning through the gospel but grasping it in the deepest depths of our soul.
And that’s where we are left in Mark, seized by powers outside us (perhaps the physical embodiment of fear of the Lord?), afraid, and not ready to share.
But though that’s the ending of the Gospel of Mark, it’s not the end of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Do you recall the very first words of Mark - his implicit title?
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
He was writing in the midst of a community of believers, a community that was by its very existence evidence that the women did eventually say something, that Jesus did meet them in Galilee, a community of hope.
He was writing the beginning of the good news. The good news that would decenter our conceptions of life itself, seize us with fear, and change everything.
We too can, and should be seized with fear at times, if we are serious about our call to share the gospel and follow the urgings of the Holy Spirit. It takes going and telling people things that don’t yet make sense, and putting our reputations and lives on the line.
Faith doesn’t always feel happy and cozy and reliable. But it comes with hope, yes the hope of what God has done for us. But also the hope of what is still to come, here, today, and tomorrow and the day after. Not just in Galilee but in Christiansburg, and Riner, and Pulaski, and Roanoke.
Your Bible may say things like the original ending, longer ending, or shorter ending of the Gospel of Mark, but I want to suggest to you those are all wrong.
Mark stopped writing his gospel on a season finale cliffhanger. But that’s not because the show was done.
No, Mark stopped writing because he was documenting, season 1, the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God.
Each of us, here, today, in 2024 - we are writing the next chapter. And while we may face that with fear, and there may be times we’re not yet ready to share - just like the women and the disciples who initially kept quiet - we too must share the story. But not just the story of Christ told in the Bible. We must share the ongoing gospel narrative of how Christ’s love is reconciling the world to himself in justice, love, and mercy. Today.
So let’s go. The risen Christ is going to Galilee, and Rome, and Virginia ahead of us and the rest of the good news of Jesus Christ isn’t going to write itself.
