Earlier this year I took a class on the Gospel of Mark, led by a New Testament professor and a biblical storyteller. Moving through key stories in Mark’s Gospel, the biblical storyteller would tell us the story by heart, with gestures as well as words, and then the professor would invite our reflections on the story and its telling, and share his own. As we reached the end of Mark, Pam, the storyteller, captured the essence of the original Greek with an abrupt and unfinished ending: “The women went out of the tomb and fled, because terror and ecstasy had seized them; and they didn’t say anything - not a word to anyone. They were afraid, because…” *gestures wildly at everything*
Mark’s ending feels unsettling and incomplete, particularly when it is compared to the resurrection accounts found in the other gospels. In Mark, there is no heartfelt reunion with the risen Jesus, no bold or joyful proclamations of the good news to the other disciples. Early scholars were so uncomfortable with this seemingly incomplete ending that they wrote in something more satisfying, where the disciples do encounter Jesus and do go and tell the good news everywhere.
And yet, for all the discomfort of Mark’s version, it seems to be a version that is especially appropriate for this Easter. Like the women at the empty tomb, we are afraid because... We, too, are not sure what to make of resurrection, when death and violence and disease and fear still feel so, so close. We, too, find ourselves in an uncertain space, vacillating between the great joy of successful vaccination efforts and the terrifying, sobering reality of rising case numbers and extra-transmissible variants. Even this gathering - together, but not together; chancel in view but still far removed - even this gathering feels incomplete.
The thing about Mark’s gospel is that it isn’t a theological treatise, it’s a story. It’s a story, and not even the whole story, but, as we hear in chapter 1, just the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God. This seemingly unsatisfying ending is really a middle - a fork in the road, an intermission. The women aren’t left alone, not really. They flee, but they’ve been told where Jesus will meet them - in Galilee, that familiar place where it all began; the place where Jesus taught and healed and fed and cast out. They say nothing to anyone - at first, but then, here we are talking about this story thousands of years later, so clearly they told someone.
This place in the story - this intermission - is also for us. Jesus has been raised! He’s not in the tomb. Go, and tell. He is going ahead of you, and you’ll see him just where he told you. The story is not over! There’s so much more to tell, and to live.
Yes, we know where Jesus will meet us. He goes ahead of us to the familiar places of our homes and jobs and schools; to hospitals and grocery stores, and prisons. He meets us in the word, the stories read and proclaimed and pondered in our hearts. He meets us in the waters of baptism, drenching us with mercy, calling us by name, claiming us forever. He meets us in the communion meal, nourishing us with his own body and blood and connecting us to the saints of all times and places. It’s just as he told us!
Like so much about God, resurrection is a mystery, and anyone who tries to tidy it up and turn it into something that makes sense is missing the point. Resurrection is a mystery, but like all God’s promises, its truth doesn’t depend on our ability to understand it. Jesus is risen, and goes ahead of us, even when we can’t make sense of it, even when we forget, even when we’re afraid. When forgiveness and new life and grace seem impossibly far off; when we flee and say nothing to anyone, God’s promises of resurrection and life and good news are true, and they are for you. Alleluia! Thanks be to God!
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