"Not the End of the Story"
Mark 16:1-8
The Sabbath day has passed and it is
the dawn of a new day. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and
Salome are bringing spices to anoint the body of Jesus. For the disciples, it has been a long and painful
Sabbath. The women had seen Jesus’ body placed hurriedly in the tomb late
Friday afternoon. Now the three women are headed back to the tomb, wondering among themselves, who would roll back the large stone
that covered the door.
Their relief at
finding the stone rolled back turned to fear
when they get there. Jesus’ body was gone. Instead, there’s a young
man, dressed in white.
"Don’t be alarmed;" he says, "you are looking for
Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He has been raised.
He is not here. Now, go
and tell the disciples and Peter that Jesus is going
before you to Galilee. You will see him there, just
as he told you."
The women flee from the tomb, filled with terror and amazement. They say
nothing to anyone-- for they are afraid. Mark’s gospel ends
here.
This unfinished story bothered people
in the early church enough that they wrote two different endings to tack
on. It's bothered a lot of scholars over the years-- so much that some of them developed theories about how
the last page of Mark's gospel was lost… or how it wore out and fell off.
However, the consensus of biblical scholars today is that Mark did indeed end
his gospel with verse 8. In Mark’s gospel, there are no joyfully
amazed women rushing back with news of the empty tomb…no awestruck exclamations
to the disciples that “he is risen!” There are no reassuring
appearances by the risen Christ himself. We have to read the other gospel accounts that were
written later to find these
things.
The three women are filled with grief,
and overwhelmed with amazement and terror. On this Easter Sunday in the year 2018, can
you relate to their response? What do you feel when you hear the news of the
resurrection? Are you confident and joyful? Are you ready to go and tell?
Maybe. Maybe not. I suspect that there are a lot of
people in the pews of churches-- and outside the church this Easter Sunday who
feel like they’re living in a Good Friday kind of world.
If you feel like you've been living in a Good Friday world, maybe you can relate to the women
who went to the tomb that first Easter morning. They'd hoped that Jesus
was going to be the Messiah who would liberate them from the Roman
oppressors. But things haven't turned out the way they'd hoped.
The
women didn’t expect to Jesus to be resurrected, even though Jesus had told his
disciples three times that he would suffer and die and then be raised again.
But they hadn’t understood.
The women had seen Jesus executed on the cross
with their own eyes, and they thought death had won the day. They’d come to anoint his body for burial.
As far
as they knew, nothing had changed. They were still living under the oppression
of the Roman empire. The empire had executed Jesus because they saw him as a
threat to the stability of the Palestinian region of the Roman empire, because
he dared to disturb the peace of the “Pax
Romana” by causing the ruckus at the Temple, calling out the hypocrisy of
the temple leaders, seeking to cleanse it and reclaim it from those who were
colluding with Rome.
The
empire executed Jesus because he had been proclaiming a rival empire-- the
Kingdom of God.[1]
As Roger
Wolsey points out, those who worshiped Caesar as god executed Jesus because his
followers were describing him with the titles they reserved for Caesar: “Lord,”
“Son of God,” “Lord of lords,” Prince of Peace,” and “King of kings.”
Jesus
lived a life of radical, self-giving, unconditional love, teaching subversive
and counter-cultural things that challenged the empire’s authority.[2]
He preached the kingdom of God. The
confession of the earliest Christians was “Jesus is Lord,” which means Caesar
is not.
So much
had happened that first Holy Week, and the women were overwhelmed and terrified.
The young man at the tomb says, “Don’t
be alarmed. Don’t be afraid.” That’s
easier said than done. “You came looking for a crucified Jesus, but he isn’t
here. He has been raised. Go and tell
his disciples and Peter-- even Peter,
the one who denied Jesus three times. Tell them that you all need to go back to
Galilee, and you will see him there, just as he said.”
I think maybe
Mark knew that no story about death and resurrection could have a neat and tidy
ending. One of the themes throughout Mark’s gospel is how the disciples just
don’t get the meaning of a lot of his teachings. We keep hearing Jesus ask,
“Don’t you understand?”
Three times the disciples had heard Jesus predict that he is going to have to
suffer and die and then be raised again-- but they end up dazed, confused, and
arguing about who’s the greatest. Peter confesses that Jesus is the
Messiah-- but
completely misunderstands what that means,
and actually rebukes Jesus when
he explains.
Judas betrays Jesus. Peter denies him 3 times. All of the disciples
desert him at the time of the crucifixion, except some of the women who
followed him.
Finally, even these women, who up to
this point had proved to be faithful disciples, are too afraid to go and share
the good news. And so, Mark ends here, with failure, with an invitation to
pick up where the gospel leaves off.[1]
Maybe this is Mark’s way of telling us that Jesus meets
us at the point when we are broken, when we have failed, when we’re afraid, and
turns what seems like an ending-- into a new beginning.
The story isn’t over. With the first disciples, we need to leave the
empty tomb and go back to Galilee. Like the first disciples, we
can’t understand the story the first time. We need to go to the cross
and to the empty tomb…
and then read the story again and find ourselves in the
story. We need to go back to “the beginning of the good news of
Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”[2]
This time, we need to
hear the gospel with post-resurrection eyes.
When we go back to Galilee, we see Jesus healing and teaching and casting out
demons, but always being misunderstood, even by those closest to him.
Mark is telling us that the saving action of God in the world is always hidden
and ambiguous.
We go back to Galilee, and the
second time around every story
in the Gospel of Mark is a post-resurrection appearance. What we see is a
God who surprises us at every turn in the road, a
God whose power is expressed finally in weakness.[3]
Mark wrote an open ending to his gospel in order to invite the disciples
and everyone who reads it to jump in and take up our part in continuing it. You see,
the story of what God is doing in and through Jesus isn’t over at the empty
tomb. It’s only
just getting started.
Mark’s Gospel is all about setting us up to live resurrection lives and to continue the
story of God’s redeeming work in the world.
Mark intentionally left the story unfinished-- because it isn't just a story
about something that happened long ago. It's the story of the church, and the story isn't finished. That first
Easter, the whole urgent, world-changing story was hanging on the testimony of
witnesses who run away in fear and silence.
Yet, they must have gone out and told. They must have
gone to Galilee and seen the risen Christ. They must have proclaimed the good
news to the others-- or we wouldn’t be here today.
We live in
a world can be a frightening place.
Sometimes we can feel overwhelmed by all the pain and suffering... hatred
and evil we see.
The women came to the tomb expecting
to see a place of death and defeat.
They thought the powers of this world had had the last word.
But the God
we worship and serve hears the suffering of marginalized and oppressed people
and cares… and “acts with justice and
mercy to redeem creation.” The
Living God will have the last word, because love is stronger than evil. That’s part of the good news of Easter.
Jesus
came to live among us, full of grace and truth[3]… and “proclaimed the reign of God… preaching
good news to the poor and release to the captives… teaching by word and
deed…and blessing the children…healing the sick and binding up the
brokenhearted…eating with outcasts… forgiving sinners… and calling all to
repent and believe the gospel.”[4]
When Jesus challenged the religious authorities and the
empire with his vision of love and justice and transformation, the empire executed
him.
Just as surely as that first Good Friday was the domination
system’s “no” to Jesus, Easter is God’s “yes”
to Jesus and his vision… and God’s “no”
to systems of domination and oppression.
Our Easter
faith assures us that in Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection, God
has already overcome the power of death and evil. The old
life is gone. A new life has begun[5]—a
life of gratitude and joy... a life in
which the Holy Spirit sets us free to
accept ourselves and to love God and neighbor, and binds us together with all
believers in the one body of Christ, the church.
God's redemptive purpose for the world will prevail through
those who answer Christ's call to follow him and carry on his purpose and work.
The good
news is that we are not alone. In a broken and fearful world, the Spirit
gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to
Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in church and culture, to hear
the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with others for justice, freedom and peace.[6]
That’s how
the rest of the story continues.
Giacomo
Puccini, who wrote such great operas as Madame
Butterfly and La Boheme, was
stricken with cancer in 1922. He decided
to write one more opera entitled Turandot.
One of his
students said, "But suppose you die before you finish it?"
"Oh,
my disciples will finish it,"
Puccini replied confidently.
Puccini
died in 1924, and his disciples did finish the opera. Puccini's best friend,
Franco Alfano, worked from sketches left by the composer to complete the opera,
which many consider it to be his best work.
The premier
took place in Milan, Italy, at La Scala Opera House. Arturo Toscanini, one of Puccini's best
students, was the conductor. The
performance began and continued to the point at which Puccini's work had
abruptly ended. Toscanini paused
and said to the audience, "Thus far, the master wrote... and then
the master died." Then he picked up the baton and shouted to the audience,
"But his disciples finished his music!"[7]
As disciples of Christ, we are called, as individuals and
as Christ's church, to be about the task of finishing the music whose melody
and direction we can discern in the acts of God in history and in the life and teachings of Jesus.
God calls
us to live beyond our fears and doubts.
In the resurrection, God showed us his amazing, life-giving power. We know that the story of our life with God
has a joyful ending.
Go.
Tell. As Christians, we are called to take risks...
to make ourselves vulnerable in love... to share with strangers... and to dare to
challenge unjust power.
God,
in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, is making all things new, and we are called to be a part of this new
life. So, go. Tell.
Christ is risen! Alleluia!
Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor
Littlefield Presbyterian
Church
Dearborn, Michigan
April 1, 2018
[1]
Roger Wolsey, “Why They Killed Jesus”, in Patheos (2015) at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogerwolsey/2015/06/why-they-killed-jesus-2/
[2]
Wolsey, “Why They Killed Jesus.”
[3]
John 1
[4] “Brief Statement of Faith,” Presbyterian Church
(USA), 1990.
[5] “The old life is gone; a new life has begun” is part
of an assurance of forgiveness that we hear often during the corporate act of
confession in Presbyterian worship.
[6] “Brief Statement of Faith.”
[7] I’ve read several versions of the story of how the
opera Turandot was finished after Puccini’s death, which agree on most points.
One source says the premier performance stopped at the point where Puccini
died, and that it was followed the next day with a performance of the completed
work. In any case, the disciples carried on and completed the work.
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