"Not the End of the Story." A Sermon on Mark 16:1-8 on Easter Sunday.

"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

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[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.

"Resurrection Abundance." A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the Third Sunday of Easter, on April 10, 2016.

"Resurrection Abundance"

John 21:1-19

We’re now two weeks past Easter Sunday.  But for a lot of folk, Easter already seems long ago and far away.   For some, great joy and hope have given way to the routine of daily life:  family responsibilities…health issues…work concerns.  In the midst of it all, what does the Resurrection mean?  What difference does it make?  Has it changed anything?

            In the last chapter of John,  we hear how, after the Resurrection, the disciples’ lives don’t seem to have changed.  They have seen the risen Jesus.  But they’ve gone back to the same old thing they used to do.  They’ve gone fishing. 

            The disciples had given up everything to follow Jesus.  But he’d been crucified and buried.  They’re grieving…frustrated…confused.  They don’t know what the Resurrection means. 

            True, they knew that Jesus had been raised from the dead.  But what did that mean?  What difference did it make? 

            So they go back to something familiar—what they’d been doing before Jesus came into their lives.  They go fishing.  They fish all night.  But they don’t catch anything. 

            Yet, as the disciples return to the way things used to be, the risen Jesus seeks them out once again.  He comes to them in their ordinary lives, and he blesses them.  He appears on the beach—but the disciples don’t recognize him at first.  He calls out to them,  “You don’t have any fish, do you?”

            No.

            “Cast your net on the right side of the boat, and you’ll find some.”

            The catch is so great that they can’t haul it in, because there are so many fish.  Then John recognizes Jesus, and says, “It’s the Lord!”

            Once he recognizes the Lord, Peter leaps into the water and swims toward Jesus.  Jesus knows how deeply Simon Peter needs to be forgiven for the three times he denied his relationship with Jesus on that awful night before Jesus was crucified.  Jesus says, three times:   “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” 

            Peter responds with an affirmation of his love, saying, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”  Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”  Three times.  “Tend my sheep.”  “Feed my sheep.”

            Instead of praising his declarations,  Jesus tells Peter that one day he will stretch out his hands    and someone will take him where he does not wish to go.   Feeding lambs and tending sheep can cost us—even cost us our lives.  It is work that will link our lives to pain and suffering.  It will lead us many places we don’t want to go.  If we love Jesus, our relationship with him will change us.

           

            On this third Sunday in Eastertide, the lectionary gives us two stories of conversion.   The stories we heard are about two great saints of the church, Peter and Paul.  In  the book of Acts, we encounter Saul, who was introduced in chapter 7 as the young man who was present when the angry mob stoned Stephen to death.  Luke tells us that Saul took care of their coats for them, that he approved of their killing Stephen, and that he was ravaging the church by entering house after house, dragging off both men and women believers, and imprisoning them.[1]

            In the story we heard today, Saul is “still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.”  He has gone to the high priest and gotten letters of authorization to the synagogues of Damascus, so he can look for followers of the Way and bring them back to Jerusalem in chains.

            Now, Saul was well-educated and devout.  He was someone who had his faith and values all figured out.  His mission in life was to stamp out the movement of those who followed the risen Jesus on the Way.  Saul was very certain that he was right—and they were wrong.

            So far in Acts, Saul is described almost entirely in terms of his certainty and his violence.   It is this violence that Jesus addresses when he speaks out of the heavenly light, saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

            By identifying himself as the one whom Saul is persecuting, Jesus identifies with the believers in their suffering, and he makes Saul’s violence a central issue of his conversion.

            The voice of the risen Christ intrudes and devastates Saul’s self-confident journey.  He opens his eyes, but he can’t see.  He has to be led around by the hand, and he doesn’t eat or drink for three days.   Saul, who knew so much about religion, about God…who could quote chapter and verse of the scriptures, is rendered helpless by the blinding light on the road to Damascus.  He needs to be led by the hand, healed, and instructed by the very ones he’d planned to round up and bind and drag back to Jerusalem to face the religious authorities.

            What happens to Saul on the road to Damascus becomes a transformative moment.  

            Now, relatively few of us are likely to have spiritual experiences that are as dramatic and vivid as the one Saul had on the road to Damascus.  And yet, I believe that every real Christian transformation has some things in common with what happened in Saul and Peter.   For one thing, Saul and Peter weren’t called by abstract, intellectual teachings or doctrines or laws.   Rather, they were called into a personal relationship with Jesus.  In responding, they recognize that Jesus, the Crucified, is now alive and addressing them in a very personal way. 

            I believe that’s true today.  The Christian faith isn’t a religion about Jesus.  It’s about following Jesus on the Way of Love.   It's about how God’s love is revealed to us through Jesus on the Way and as we live together as a faith community.

            When Paul encountered the risen Christ, he was blinded by the brightness of the light of Christ    and transformed-- from a man committed to aggression and persecution of those who were different, those who challenged what he believed— to one who was lost and struggling.  In the process of his conversion, Paul learns that the agenda he set for himself was futile, and that God’s plan is the only plan that matters. 

            Peter’s encounter with the Risen Christ helped to transform him from someone who was afraid to admit he even knew Jesus—into an apostle who was empowered to jump out of his familiar boat into waters that were over his head     and walk bravely into the world with resurrection power and hope. 

            In this third resurrection appearance, we hear Peter getting a new chance,  as he experiences Jesus’ resurrection power in a quiet way over breakfast.

            Three years before, Peter was called away from life as he had known it—an ordinary life of a fisherman.  Now again, in an ordinary place and meal, the disciples receive a kind of re-commissioning.  They are reminded who they are and what they were called to be and do. 

            Easter is about living out our identity and calling as if we truly believe that Jesus has overcome sin and death.  It’s about living as if we trust in his gift of abundant, eternal life.    It means following Jesus, embodying Jesus’ love. It means being with Jesus as we gather together to hear the good news… and in the places we are led to serve.

           

            “Do you love me?”  Jesus asks us.

            Then feed my lambs.

            Jesus calls his disciples to follow him.  Yet we know all too well that the compelling call of human need often feels like it is taking us to places we don’t want to go.  Our ability and willingness to go there will be a testimony to the clarity and passion of our Christian discipleship.  Our ability and willingness to follow Jesus is a sign of how we have changed…of how we are being transformed.

           

            The first disciples huddled behind locked doors, or went back to their old familiar routines.  They struggled with fear about how Jesus calls his followers to go places where they don’t want to go.

            When I get impatient with myself for my lack of courage, or my reluctance to go some of the places Jesus might call me to go in his name, I find comfort and hope in the conviction that God isn’t finished  with me yet.  God isn’t finished with any of us yet.

            Part of the good news is that we are in a continuing, evolving relationship with our Lord and Savior, who loves us with a love so amazing, so divine—that he gave his life for us. 

            We have Christ’s promise that he will not leave us alone.  He will be with us, to help and to guide us…to provide for our needs…and to comfort and care for us.   The One who commands us to embody his love and light in the world   promises us that we will be given the power we need through the Holy Spirit.

            Again and again, when it seems impossible to counteract the grim reality of sin and brokenness in our lives and in the world, Christ reaches out in love to restore us.   Again and again, Jesus asks us, “Do you love me?”   This is no cheap grace Christ offers us.  Again and again, Jesus calls us:  “Follow me.”

           

            Do you love me?  Jesus asks.

            Feed my lambs.  Tend my sheep.  Feed my sheep.

            Just as Jesus met with his first disciples at dawn on the Sea of  Galilee, Jesus comes to us.   The dawn is breaking on new chances,  the  new life Jesus promises us.   Jesus keeps coming to us to teach us and to lead us to places where we’d never have thought to go.  

            The gospel reminds us that God can make a way where there is no way, bringing abundance where there is emptiness, and joy where there is only sorrow.   Jesus’ resurrection gives us the promise of life after death, and the assurance of God’s healing and restoration in this life.

Today, in this time and place, as long ago, Jesus does many signs in the presence of his disciples.   We have the witness of the gospel, which was written “so that we may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God…and that through believing, we may have life in his name.”

After the Easter flowers have been carried out of the sanctuary and attendance is back to normal, Jesus keeps coming back.  Jesus meets us where we work, where we despair, or where we question or doubt. Whether we’re still feeling “up” from Easter or feeling let down, Jesus keeps coming to us.

            Jesus meets us in in our friends or in strangers.  He challenges us with a task to do—caring for his people.  He gives us work that truly satisfies us, and invites us to make him more and more the center of our lives.  One way or another, Jesus comes back and calls us to himself and to his new life. 

            Do you love me?  Then feed my sheep.  Tend my lambs.

            As individuals and as a congregation, we often fall short of being the loving, compassionate, generous, welcoming people God created us to be.  We don’t always follow through.  Sometimes we even fall away for a while and go back to whatever felt familiar before we recognized the Risen Christ. 

            But Jesus doesn’t give up on us.  After each time we fail…or forget… or are overcome by our fears, Jesus comes to us again and invites us to try again, providing encouragement and nourishment, and calls us to put our love into action, caring for the world God loves.  If you love me, show it through your actions.   “Feed my sheep.”

Jesus comes to us today, this morning, starting again Easter-fresh with each of us, saying, “Follow me.”

            Thanks be to God!  Alleluia!

           

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

April 10, 2016

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[1] Acts 7:58 – 8:1