Mark 16:1-7
The Gospel of the Vigil of Easter
which we've just read seems a little anticlimactic, or a better word
is that it's a downer. Where is Mary Magdalene meeting the risen
Christ in the garden? Where are the disciples on the road to Emmaus?
Where are the overjoyed apostles who exclaim to Thomas, “We have
seen the Lord!”. Instead, we have three frightened women who are
as it says, “utterly amazed”. And I wish they had included the
next verse, which reads, “Trembling and bewildered, the women went
out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they
were afraid.” And it's the place where Mark stopped writing. Some
time in the early second century, someone who wasn't happy with that
ending added a longer ending in which they describe Jesus appearing
to his disciples, scolding them for their lack of faith, and making
other appearances. But why would Mark have wanted to end his gospel
with those words, instead of going on and describing several joyful
appearances of Jesus to his friends?
The Gospel of Mark is the oldest of
the four gospels – twenty to thirty years older than Matthew and
Luke, maybe fifty years older than John. By the time the other
writers were putting their gospels together, the Christian church was
pretty well established; there were pockets of Christians, even whole
towns of Christians, throughout the Roman empire. Sometimes we think
of Christians being persecuted, and they were, but persecutions were
not carried out relentlessly and usually the authorities were content
with killing the leaders and the prominent citizens who embraced
Christianity. But during Mark's time, there weren't nearly as many
Christians, and the separation from the Jewish religion had not been
complete. And there were many temptations to abandon Christianity
because you could get better jobs and have a higher social status if
you weren't part of this odd little sect that claimed to have been
founded by someone who had been crucified and then rose from the
dead.
If you look at Mark's gospel, there
are two currents running through it. The first is that Jesus kind of
goes about his ministry healing people and working miracles, not
doing a lot of teaching; and whenever he does a great work, he tells
the witnesses not to tell anyone. But they do anyway, and eventually
Jesus has become so notorious that he can't go into a town without
being mobbed. In other words, as he goes about doing good,
demonstrating what the kingdom of God will be like, he becomes the
outcast; he trades places with the lepers, the blind people, the
crippled people that he has healed so they can go back into society.
Even at the very end of his life, if you remember at the Garden of
Gesthemene, there was a young man, a follower of Jesus, who was
almost caught by the guards, and he slipped out of his linen garment
– the Greek word is the same as you would use for a burial shroud –
and runs away naked. Later, in the tomb where Jesus had been buried,
his burial shroud is folded up, and the same young man – maybe –is
clothed in a white robe, signifying baptism. He is sitting there in
the otherwise empty tomb. In a way, Jesus has traded places with the
young man, who had he been captured would probably have also been put
to death. And maybe Mark means for the young man to be a symbol of
the Christian, who escapes death because Jesus takes his place.
The other theme in Mark is how blind
people are. The apostles, especially Peter, never quite figure Jesus
out. James and John miss the point entirely and ask to be seated at
his right and left hand when he comes to his kingdom. Even when he
works miracles, the people get upset with him. Do you remember the
time he drove demons out of a man into a herd of pigs? Instead of
rejoicing over the freeing of the poor possessed man, the people of
the town beg him to leave them. Or when he heals someone on the
Sabbath, and the authorities decide he is healing with the help of
the devil. And there are times when he can't work miracles because
the people have no faith. The only people who get Jesus in the
gospel of Mark are the foreigners – the people who weren't even
Jewish. And it is in Mark where Peter is first called “Satan”.
And that brings us back to the gospel
passage we have just read. The women had gotten up early that
morning, probably heartbroken, with the intention of embalming Jesus'
body. They couldn't have done it the day after his death because it
was the Sabbath. So they make their way to the tomb, perhaps hoping
they might enlist some men into rolling the stone back. Now Matthew
has the same theme – they wonder about the stone, when suddenly an
angel pops up and rolls it back. Not so in Mark. There's no
indication that they young man is an angel, and nothing in the text
that says he rolled the stone back. He is just there, a witness to
the resurrection, who tells the women, “Do not be amazed!”
Notice, angels always say, “Do not be afraid!” so this isn't an
angel. The young man goes on to tell them that Jesus is not here, he
has been raised. Go and tell his disciples he will meet them in
Galilee.”
Now remember, in Mark Jesus tells
people to tell no one what they have witnessed. Here the young man
tells the women to go tell the apostles – but in the next verse it
says they fled in terror and told no one. And clearly, they don't
understand.
I think Mark is telling his readers,
and that includes you and I, that for Christians, we are told about
the Resurrection – that's how all of us come to know about it,
someone tells us that it happened. The first Christians – a
handful of people, relatively speaking – who were eyewitnesses, all
died about 2000 years ago. And that's sort of how God works; he
never makes us believe, he always gives us an out. And that is
Mark's point. What do you do with this news? What do you do when
you are told that God became man, suffered, died, and rose again? Do
you run in terror and tell no one? Do you accept that Jesus rose
from the dead but just put that information away in a corner of your
mind where it can't do any harm? Perhaps you don't believe at all.
Many people, even Christians, have developed ways of explaining away
this central event in the history of the world. Or do you, like the
first witnesses, like the saints of every generation, go through your
life showing everyone that Jesus is risen, because here you are,
speaking his words, doing his deeds, bringing peace and love to the
world, carrying out those tasks he himself did and called on his
disciples to do?
Jesus is truly risen, we believe this.
But on this Easter vigil, how does that make a difference in your
life and my life?
