All Bets Are Off Mark 16: 1-8, by Marshall Zieman, preached Easter Sunday 2018 at PCOC All the hopes and expectations of Christians are realized in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, making Easter the most celebrative day of the church year. So begins the Easter section in the guidebook Presbyterian pastors use to plan worship - our most celebrative day of the church year. And thus, all the extra flowers, festive music, and shouts of He Is Risen Indeed! The birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is referred to as The Greatest Story Ever Told. I invite you to turn with me in the Bible to Mark 16, the last chapter of the gospel of Mark, to see for yourself Mark s mysterious account of the Easter Story. If you don t know what I mean by mysterious account then you especially need to see this for yourself - turn to Mark 16. 1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb? 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you. 8 So they went out and
fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. 2 The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God! Mark s account of the Easter Story stands out from the others. How many synonyms for scared stiff did you hear in these verses? Mark says that these women were afraid, that they were seized with terror and amazement, and even though the angel tells them not to be alarmed, they were clearly alarmed! You may be feeling any number of things on this chilly Easter morning 2000 years later, but scared stiff is probably not one of them. What makes this story even more interesting is the possibility that Mark chose to end his gospel just like that - with three women fleeing from the tomb, saying nothing to anyone, because they were terrified. This is how some of the earliest manuscripts of Mark s gospel, end. Right here. You probably see some more verses after verse 8 in your Bible, with a footnote about them. Many Bibles also include verses 9-20, which is called the longer ending in Mark. Our pew Bibles also show this longer ending in the footnote. In the longer ending we hear about things that agree with the other gospels - Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene, and later to 2 disciples walking in the country, a reference to Emmaus. We also hear about The Great Commission & Jesus Ascension back to heaven. It s possible that this longer ending was in the original, but it s something we re not exactly sure about. That s why there s a big footnote about it in most Bibles. They may have been added-in because without them, the gospel ends dramatically and suddenly: With just an empty tomb. With no Jesus. With three terrified women disciples, who don t plan on saying anything to anyone. Oh dear! (It s like when the movie suddenly ends when you weren t expecting it to, and the credits roll and you re going, No, no, not yet! )
3 Well, this short, quick ending in Mark is what the lectionary schedule has for us this year, so, let s imagine that Mark s gospel did end abruptly like this, with fear and alarm, with terror and amazement all jumbled up together as the 3 women begin to grapple with the fact of an empty tomb. This is also the main question that each of us has to wrestle with on every Easter morning: What do you make of the empty tomb? We hear from all 4 gospel accounts that Jesus did surely die. Many people saw him die. There were credible witnesses. You don t fake your way through a Roman crucifixion, and then somehow come to and sneak off when nobody s looking. We learn from the other gospel records more facts than Mark lists: Pilate had ordered soldiers to seal and guard the tomb, around the clock, just in case someone wanted to steal the body. He was guarded by the best soldiers money could buy. He was dead and buried and then on Easter morning he started appearing alive again. Jesus did, in fact, over a period of 40 days appear to many people - to Mary herself, to Peter, to the ones on the road to Emmaus, to the 10 discs without Thomas, then a week later with Thomas, to the discs on the lakeshore, and to other groups of discs. Later on, the Apostle Paul will say, Jesus appeared to him on the Road to Damascus. But on that first Easter morning, in the moment, the appearance of an empty tomb was anything but comforting. Terrified, amazed, and afraid are good words to describe the gut reactions of his disciples. In the original Greek, the words used are Trauma and Ecstasy. They had watched him die and saw him put in the tomb. Now his body wasn t there, and he had said he would rise again...
4 So, the wheels are turning in these three women s heads, because if even death can t hold him, then all bets about whatever you thought about life on planet Earth are off. Whatever you think is possible, or impossible, has been altered. Now, old limitations are not so limiting. Possibilities just became multiplied. The Big Question - about who should rule your life, about who is the ultimate authority in your life, now has a different answer. The angel sitting inside the tomb told them, you ll see him back in Galilee. What in the world is in store for them now? If the one who gave all those surprising teachings has power over even his own death, then maybe we should take a gander again about all those things he was saying. About loving your neighbors and your enemies. About giving to the poor and to those in need. About losing your life for his sake, and finding it. About how we should focus on giving, and not on what we get back. He said some pretty amazing things. And besides all his amazing words, more than once, the disciples saw what he did, then turned and said to themselves, Who is this man that even the winds and the waves obey him that the demons flee from him? He healed people s diseases. He brought back to life a widow s dead son, and even raised Lazarus from the grave. Just who are we dealing with? He s no ordinary carpenter s son. His message to everyone was, Follow me. If this man, with all this power and compassion says, Follow me, who knows where he might take us? It seems like Jesus was always taking them out farther than they wanted to go. Perhaps you remember this quote from author Annie Dillard: On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of [their] conditions. Does anyone have the
5 foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return. Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), pp. 40-41. Remember when Jesus went fishing with Peter he told him, Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch. And then they caught a boatload of fish. He takes us out farther than we want to go, but that s where the blessings are. Where could he be taking you? The three women at the tomb were surely wondering this. What now? What will happen next? They had come early to the tomb that morning to anoint his body with burial spices. Their biggest concern was how to roll away the big stone which sealed the tomb. Now there s something much bigger on their minds. If the tomb can t hold him, what will their lives hold now? What will their next chapter be? You see the trauma and the ecstasy on their faces and that s where this book ends. And you gasp, it s so abrupt. Some folks have wondered, over the centuries, if the last page of Mark didn t got lost somehow. Did he forget to back up his computer? Did he leave the last page on the copier? Did the dog eat it? We have the other gospels to provide the necessary details as to all that happened later. The risen Christ would meet them in Galilee. People did tell the good news of the resurrection, and the gospel would spread.
6 But Mark ends his gospel, I think on purpose, with a cliffhanger. Jesus is risen, and we don t see him. We won t find him in a tomb, for he is no longer dead. Death has been conquered. Then, amidst an abrupt and awkward tension, you, the reader, are left to decide: What will I do with this news? Who will I tell? Am I too fearful to do anything, or will I give to this story, one more chapter of my own? The next chapter is up to you. And the credits roll, and the theme song plays, and now the wheels are turning in your head. Amen. Easter Benediction As Christ burst forth from the tomb, may new life burst forth from us and show itself in acts of love and healing to a hurting world. And may that same Christ, who lives forever and is the source of our new life, keep your hearts rejoicing and grant you peace this day and always. Amen.