This sermon was heard during the 11:00 service at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday April 12, 2009, Easter/Resurrection of the Lord Sunday.
Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15: 1-11
Mark 16:1-8
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Sesame Street has a skit that helps teach children differences between items in groups. We can probably all sing it together, “One of these things is not like the other.” If you put the resurrection stories from the gospels together in a room, you would be able to see that one of these things is not like the other. Mark’s gospel is decidedly different. It is far more abrupt than the other three accounts.
Matthew’s version includes the bribing of the guard by the chief priests and Jesus giving the apostles the Great Commission. The Lukan story includes the wonderful account of Jesus breaking bread with two of the Jerusalem pilgrims as they return home to Emmaus. Luke’s version then extends into the book of Acts with the story of the ascension. John’s is far more extensive with the Doubting Thomas discourse, the command to “feed my sheep,” and the account of the great catch of fish.
These are wonderful and glorious stories of the things Jesus has done after his resurrection. These stories show how our Lord continues to share life with his disciples, and by this we are promised a continuing relationship with the Lord; a relationship that continues today.
Mark’s version has no such wonderful tales of what happens next. Mark’s gospel gives us just three women who are a fine combination of terrified, amazed, and afraid. Instead of rejoicing and dancing in the streets, instead of a common meal being shared, instead of the physical presence of the Lord in his resurrected body with its earthly wounds still present; Mark’s gospel ends with three women fleeing in shocked silence from the open tomb.
Mark’s gospel jerks to a stop like a dog tied to a stake. This is not the ending we expect to the greatest story ever told. Between you and me, I love Mark’s gospel and I even love this ending, but if I am looking for a happy ending, a glorious resolution, the ending I expect on Easter morning; this one leaves me wanting.
Now you can tell me I don’t have to worry; depending on the translation, there is either one more or a dozen more verses that follow where our lectionary reading ended. These endings give us more of the “feel good” ending we have come to expect. But these additions to Mark’s gospel, the single verse “Shorter Ending to Mark” or the twelve verses known as “The Longer Ending to Mark,” were added between 100 and 150 years after the original text was compiled.[1]
In a very human way, this should give us comfort. More than 1,800 years ago, someone else was so unsatisfied with the ending to Mark’s gospel that they tacked on a whole new finale.
These additional endings are like a Hollywood movie that didn’t do well with test audiences so a new ending was written, shot, and tacked on at the end. It brought closure to a work that people didn’t think ended well the way it was first presented.
But the original ending, the one we hear today, as unsatisfying as it may be, leaves us with truth; the truth of someone who was once dead and buried is now neither; and that’s a bit of truth to wrap our heads around. Indeed, people don’t expect the dead to be up walking around and fear is not an unreasonable reaction.
Marie and I are big fans of ABC’s “stranded on a mysterious tropical island” show “LOST.” Last Wednesday’s episode dealt with the consequences of a recently dead character named John coming back to life after returning to the island; and this isn’t the first time this character’s life was revived by the mysterious healing properties of the island.
As Ben, the shows major antagonist, awakens after being injured, he sees John standing over him. The last time Ben saw John, John was dead and in a casket. Ben himself knows the island’s healing abilities. When he sees John, he cries out in shock that he knew John would return to life. Noting the quiver in Ben’s voice, John asks “Then why are you so surprised to see me?”
With an amazed look on his face Ben answers, “Because it’s one thing to believe it, John; it’s another thing to see it.”[2]
As with any good antagonist, you can never be sure if Ben is telling the truth, and this storytelling truism is on display later in the episode when another character asks Ben if he knew John would be revived if he returned to the island. Ben answers “I had no idea it would happen.” Ben says he has seen the island do miraculous things, but he continues “never once has it done anything like this. Dead is dead, you don’t get to come back from that, not even here. So the fact that John Locke is walking around this island scares the living hell out of me.”
Just to put the cherry on this whacked out sundae of a TV show, John, the character who comes back to life says “It’s weird for me too.”
Let me make this perfectly clear, I am not comparing John’s return to life with the Resurrection of our Lord. I said that John came back to life and was revived, but I do save the word resurrected for our Lord. What I am doing is comparing the character’s reaction to John returning to life and the women’s reaction to the revelation about Jesus and the empty tomb. Ben says it scares the living hell out of him. Even John, the man who was revived, was surprised he returned to the living.
Now imagine this happening at a tomb in Jerusalem and not on a Hawaiian soundstage. The three women were terrified.
We shouldn’t be surprised at the terror the three women felt that first Easter. They came to the tomb planning to finish the burial preparations. Jesus had died so near the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath — sundown on Friday — that there had not been enough time to anoint his body. So now, on Sunday morning, with the Sabbath finished, the three women head to the tomb to finish the sad task hardly begun on Good Friday. Their first concern was how to get the stone moved away from the tomb entrance. The last thing they expected was that Jesus would have left the tomb, especially under his own power.
They were heartsick with grief, but they were at least functioning. Death wasn’t welcome, but it wasn’t some new thing. They knew what they were supposed to do, and they were beginning to adjust to the fact that Jesus was gone. Resurrection, however, was something entirely out of their realm of experience. It was an entirely new thing, and it scared the wits out of them. They were not prepared for such news.[3]
And we are not unlike them.
We hear the Easter story every year; we hear the story of the Last Supper, the betrayal of Christ, the trial, crucifixion, death, and resurrection. And yes, we hear the story and we believe. This makes us Christians, we hear and by faith we believe.
Armed with this truth, knowing how Mark’s version of the story ends without ending puts the pen in our hand. This is the ultimate truth of the abrupt ending of Mark’s gospel. The truth of the resurrection is in the continuing life of Jesus Christ lived with his disciples after Mark’s recording ended. The ultimate truth is that He continues living with his disciples in the church today and He lives with us still.
As literature, Mark’s gospel has an ending, one that is not satisfying to readers who want stories to end with closure. But as Gospel this is a good thing; it is a very good thing. The good news of Jesus Christ is still being written. To coin a phrase, our reading from Mark’s gospel represents the end of the beginning.
Act one is finished. God walked upon the earth; was crucified, dead and buried; and now, now the tomb is empty. The big question is “what next?” and the big answer can only come by participating in the work God has begun, accepting the relationship our Lord and his disciples modeled, and doing what we are called to do.
The writing of Mark’s gospel has ended, but for us this ending is just the beginning. This is our vocation; we are the next writers of the story. The pen is in our hands and it is up to us as the Church of the Risen Lord and as individual members of the Church to continue writing this story. Today let us begin our version of the ending as the new beginning using the words of the ancient liturgy “He is risen. He is risen, indeed.” Alleluia. Amen.
[1] “Extended Ending” HomileticsOnline.com. http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=93040450, retrieved April 2, 2009
[2] ABC Pictures and Bad Robot Studio, “LOST” Original broadcast April 8, 2009.
[3] Ibid, HomileticsOnline.com, Bob Kaylor, Senior Writer, and Senior Minister of the Park City United Methodist Church in Park City, Utah.
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