2024 03 31 Sermon
A Strange Way
to End a Gospel
A Strange Way to End a Gospel
Easter Sunday
Mark 16:1-8; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
It’s a strange way to end a gospel reading for Easter Sunday, isn’t it? “So they went out”—they being Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome—“and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
Isn’t Easter supposed to be a joyful celebration? Where faith overcomes fear? Aren’t we supposed to hear about, not only the empty tomb, and the good news spoken by a young man (an angel?) that “Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, has been raised; he is not here”; but also aren’t we supposed to hear of how the risen Jesus meets the women? And how the women go from the tomb to tell about it? On other Easter Sundays, when we hear from the gospels of Matthew, Luke, or John, they all share some description of those things.
What’s going on with the way St. Mark ends his gospel? Shouldn’t he have written more? Didn’t he? This is actually a long-standing debate among biblical scholars—and by long-standing I don’t mean decades but, oh, about 17 centuries! If you look up Mark chapter 16 in your bibles, you’ll find verses 1 through 8 which we heard today. Then you’ll usually find a short ending after that that’s a couple of sentences long, and also another longer ending of 11 more verses. And then you’ll often find a notation that the earliest copies of Mark’s gospel that are still in existence (like from around the year 300 or 400 AD) all end at verse 8, and the other endings are a later addition.
Some scholars say it’s quite possible that Mark did not intend to finish his gospel with the women “saying nothing for they were afraid;” and that Mark did write more, but it’s been lost. After all, the women would have had to say something eventually, at the very least so that Mark would know what to write in his gospel! Ancient writers wrote on scrolls (this was before books and binding had been invented), and scrolls really needed to be handled with care. Most scholars think Mark wrote his gospel in Rome around the years 66 – 70 AD, when Christians were facing great persecution by Nero and the Roman Empire. The end of the scroll on which Mark originally wrote Chapter 16 could easily have been lost or damaged while fleeing from persecution by the Roman Empire. Or it could have been exposed to rain, fire, theft, wear and tear, or any of the other countless ways that we might lose or damage our own books.
Other scholars say, no, Mark actually did intend to finish at verse 8; and ending with the women saying nothing because they were afraid is actually a brilliant way to end a gospel that Mark introduces all the way back in Chapter 1 verse 1 by writing: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.” Saying nothing due to fear is very consistent with how the disciples have failed time and time again during Jesus’ earthly ministry, and so that makes verse 8 of chapter 16 the end of the beginning. When the women finally overcome their fears through faith, and tell the other disciples to go to Galilee where Jesus has promised to meet them, and then all of them start telling everyone they can about the crucified Jesus being risen—well, that is not the beginning of the good news, that’s the next part of the good news! And that part is still being written in our lives and in the world—wherever God is bringing new life and hope, faith and forgiveness, joy and salvation. That next part of the gospel—the part that comes after saying nothing because we are afraid—that’s what Christians in each new generation need to tell as we encounter the presence of the risen Christ in our lives.
Well, these are both plausible possibilities, but wherever biblical scholars might land as they sort the evidence—and whatever your opinion may be—there still remains a common claim that Mark is making in his gospel. Taken all together—the empty tomb; the message of the young man to the women that “Jesus has been raised, he is not here”; and God’s fulfillment through Jesus of his promises to defeat sin and death forever—all of this is good news. It’s very good, the best of all, it’s “of first importance” as St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:3. But it remains good “news” only as long as someone tells it and someone else hears it. That is how news is shared—in the telling and the hearing. And through this news, the risen Christ has the power to change our lives!
It changed St. Paul’s life. He was not one of the original 12 disciples. He’d actually never met Jesus. And he started out his career as a smart, energetic young man so opposed to this new phenomenon of Christianity that he spent a few years going to great lengths to silence and arrest “any who belonged to the Way” of Jesus (Acts 9:2). That is, until the risen Christ appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus and struck him blind for a few days. This hardship turned out to be the greatest thing that ever happened to him, because he experienced God’s grace and mercy through it. Paul became a man filled with joy and peace instead of fear and rage. “By the grace of God I am what I am” he writes, “and God’s grace toward me has not been in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:10). It goes to show that no one—not even Paul the oppressor and persecutor—is beyond redemption. No one is beyond redemption. Forgiveness and new life is possible and available, for everyone and anyone, through the grace and power of God. Jesus never gives up on us.
Just as Jesus never gave up on Paul, he also never gave up on Peter—even after Peter denied three times even knowing who Jesus was. Jesus never gave up on the other disciples when they failed to understand again and again his teaching about going to the cross, and his promise that he would be raised up again [Mark 14:28]. Jesus never gave up on the women, even after they fled the tomb in fear and said nothing to anyone. Jesus simply refuses to give up on anyone, because being a disciple depends entirely on Christ’s mercy, not our own merits.
And Jesus will not give up on you. By the grace of God, you are who you are, and God’s grace towards you has not been in vain. Christ’s mercy will not let you go. Whatever has come before is simply the end of the beginning; what comes next is still waiting to be written. No matter how deeply you are afraid, or how badly you’ve messed up, or how little you understand or know what to do—the risen Jesus is waiting for you, too, like he promised he would be waiting for the disciples. He’s waiting to meet you in your fear and pain, in your sin and failure, in your misunderstanding and incomprehension, in your hopelessness and despair, in your terror and astonishment—and he’s waiting to appear with unexpected mercy and grace. He is just not going to give up on you, no matter what you say or do, or what you fail to say or fail to do.
He may appear suddenly, or slowly; it may come quick or it may take a while—after all, Mark doesn’t tell us how long it took until the women finally told the good news. As it was for them, it can really be hard for us, too, sometimes, to put into words our experiences of God. But Jesus will not give up on you, and when you finally do encounter him, in whichever way he appears, he has good news for us to tell—and for all the world to hear—because the tomb is empty and Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!