Mark 16:1-8[1]
On this day, we
celebrate one of the most amazing of all the wondrous acts the Bible recounts
to us: that God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day. It is the bedrock
upon which our faith is grounded. It constitutes the “first act” of God’s ongoing
work of transforming everything and everyone until all things are made new. The
Scriptures speak of what happened on that first Easter Sunday as perhaps the
most significant demonstration of God’s power. And they assure us that God is
working in all of our lives with that same power. And for that we celebrate
this day perhaps above all other days in the Christian year.
But I think that the
Resurrection also provokes some hesitation on our part. It’s hard enough to
wrap your head around God bringing Jesus back to life. But when we start
talking about changing everything and everyone, we might get more than a little
uncomfortable. We like the routines of our life because they make us feel safe.
For God to intervene in the matter of Death suggests that God can intervene in
anywhere he chooses. But we may not want God to start “meddling” with our
lives; we may be quite satisfied with them as they are. If you really let the
message of Easter, that by raising Jesus from the dead God demonstrate his
power and his intention to change everything, it might not be such good news
after all. If everything is changing, that means we may have to change our
whole approach to life. And change is not usually a welcome guest.
I think some of this
may lie behind our Gospel reading for today. It’s somewhat strange in that the
only witnesses to the empty tomb respond not with joy, as in the other Gospels,
but with fear! In Mark’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and
Salome had been the only ones of Jesus’ whole group of followers, including especially
the men who would later become the “Twelve Apostles,” who had the courage to
actually witness Jesus’ death on the cross. And in our lesson for today they
are the only ones who have the courage to go to the tomb to properly prepare
his body for burial.
But when they get
there, they are greeted by several sights that seem to throw them. First, the
stone that sealed the tomb was removed. That in and of itself would have caused
alarm. They may have wondered whether someone had tried to break in to
desecrate Jesus’ body. When they entered the tomb, they saw two things they
didn’t expect. Jesus’ body wasn’t there. The tomb was empty. Again, that would
have confused and likely upset them. But they also saw “a young man,”
apparently an angel, sitting on one end of the place where Jesus’ body had
been. It’s no wonder the Gospel says “they were alarmed!” I think at that point
my head would have been spinning so fast I wouldn’t know what to think!
When the “young man”
spoke to them, he began by reassuring them that there was no need to be alarmed
or afraid. He announced to them the good news of Easter: “you are looking for
Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified one. He has been raised; he is not here” (Mk.
16:6). Although Jesus had told his disciples several times that he would be
raised to life after his death, they could scarcely grasp the idea that he
would die. They had absolutely no conceptual framework to even understand that
he might be raised from the dead! The “young man” then “commissioned” the women
to go and tell Peter and the others the good news and that Jesus would meet
them in Galilee.
What follows seems
almost out of place in a “Gospel” about Jesus. Mark says that “they went out
and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said
nothing to any one, for they were afraid” (Mk. 16:8). That’s not what we would
expect to happen, in comparison with the other Gospels. They’re “supposed” to
go out joyfully and share the good news with the others. Of course, the
traditional ending of Mark’s gospel “remedies” that problem, but most NT
scholars, myself included, believe that Mark’s Gospel originally ended with
this strange verse.
When you look at things
from that perspective, it almost casts the role of the women in a
not-so-favorable light. They were the only ones to witness the empty tomb, and
rather than obeying the commission they received to go and tell the others,
they (initially at least) kept it to themselves out of fear. I think ending his
Gospel this way this may have been intentional on Mark’s part. When you end the
story of Jesus with the only witnesses to his resurrection remaining silent due
to fear, there’s something inside you that cries out for a different ending to
Jesus’ story. It compels us all to tell the story and not be silent! Of course,
we all know that the women did tell the story, Jesus did appear to his
disciples, and those who were absent from the crucifixion were transformed into
bold evangelists!
One of the interesting
features of the Bible is that whenever anyone has a true encounter with God,
they almost always respond with fear. When God breaks through to our lives,
it’s not an average run-of-the-mill day! It pushes us beyond what we think of
as the safe and secure space in which we like to conduct our affairs. I think
that’s what happened with the women at the tomb. They were the only ones to
have the courage to follow Jesus to the cross, to see where he was buried, and
to return to the tomb. They were the ones who were commissioned to tell the
good news to the others. Their response of fear and amazement was the “normal”
way in which people responded to what God was doing in and through Jesus in
Mark’s Gospel. And I think that’s still true today. When we come to the place
where we have to choose to really let God into our lives, our first instinct may
be to shrink back with fear. But the one who over and over again says in
Scripture, “Do not be afraid,” is the same one who will take the lifeless
routines our fears box us into and bring us new life in surprising and
wonderful ways.
[1] ©
2021 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 4/4/2021 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
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