Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015, St. Stephen’s
Is 25:6-9; Acts 10:34-43; Mark 16:1-8
I like stories to have happy endings. I don’t think I’m alone in this. I’ll often avoid going to see a movie if I know it ends tragically. When I read novels or watch TV I often choose mysteries. Not only can you have fun trying to figure out ‘who dun it’ but you’re pretty much assured that the good guys will win by the end and it will all be neatly and happily concluded. But whether we prefer a happy ending or not, we do all generally expect our stories to have a beginning, a middle and an end. Which is why people have wrestled with the ending of the gospel of Mark since the time of the early church. As an end to a story, this one is not very satisfactory: a white-robed young man gives enigmatic promises while the women scurry away in fear. There’s no upper room, no road to Emmaus, no breakfast of fish on the beach with the risen Jesus. There’s only a promise that we’ll see him, followed by fear and silence. We half expect some final bombshell to release the tension that has swelled through Mark's telling of the tale. But there’s none – it just ... stops. In fact, although you can’t tell from the English translation, in the original Greek, Mark’s gospel actually ends in the middle of a sentence. The whole story is left hanging with a kind of implied dot, dot, dot. While the oldest and best of the gospel manuscripts end this way, some members of the early church obviously felt it needed a better ending. There are two alternative endings that were written - called imaginatively enough the shorter ending and the longer ending - and one or the other of these endings are found on some old manuscripts.
Despite my preference for happy endings I actually like the ending of Mark’s gospel as it is without any added neat and tidy conclusion. A conventional happy ending comforts us by its very conclusiveness. What was started is finished. We’re left feeling satisfied and reassured about the order of things. The world is a reliable place after all- dramas begin and conflicts arise, but it’s all resolved in the final scene. Our hearts are lifted and the curtain falls.
But, tempting as it is to want a conventional happy ending, perhaps there’s good reasons why Mark ended it this way. For one thing Mark was writing for people who were already believers. He wasn’t trying to convince them Jesus was resurrected - they already knew that. And for another, most scholars agree that Mark wrote for a congregation that was suffering some form of persecution. They were living under the reign of Nero who was one of the greatest persecutors of Christians. It was under his reign that church tradition says both Peter and Paul were executed; and some of Mark's readers were probably facing this same possibility. So they don't need a history lesson about the resurrection. They need the assurance that Jesus is right there with them in the midst of their troubles. The question that’s probably on their minds is “Where is Jesus in the midst of our trials and suffering and perhaps death?” So while a happy ending is a satisfying end to a story - that isn’t the real world we live in. In a story, the characters can live happily ever after. But we know that in the real world, there are still dirty dishes, bills to pay, ornery bosses and people who need to be looked after. Jesus is indeed raised from the dead - but Nero is still emperor and the neighbours may turn us in, bringing down persecution on our heads. Mark refuses to tie the loose ends of the gospel into a tidy bow of fleeting consolations.
What Mark does do is fill his gospel with predictions that come true. Mark assures us over and over that Jesus’ word can be trusted. Jesus tells the disciples they will find a colt for the triumphant entry into Jerusalem and they do. He tells them how they will find the upper room for the Passover supper and it happens as he says. He curses the fig tree and it withers. At dinner he tells them one of them will betray him and he does. He tells them they will all desert him and they do, that Peter will deny him and he does. Jesus tells them he’s going to suffer and die, and it happens.
And he tells the disciples "after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee." And at the tomb the young man says "He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him." At the end of his gospel, Mark brings us back to our own responsibility in the world. Instead of comforting us with accounts of the risen Jesus, Mark offers us a challenge ? to go to Galilee and meet the risen Lord. But we need to remember that Galilee isn’t some special, sanctified space in some holy land. Jesus lived and worked in Galilee and that’s where his ministry was done. Galilee was his own ‘backyard’, among his own people, amid the common, everyday encounters of life. My hunch is that after the disciples ran away, they would have gone back home – home to Galilee. So, before they even get home, Jesus is already there waiting to see them! The place they will see the risen Jesus is at home ? perhaps, we might even say, in the ordinary stuff of life. The disciples may have failed Jesus, but he’s going to keep his promises to them. In that hanging, open ending Mark assures us that the story is not over. Jesus is not just resurrected and gone to be with God. Jesus is still with us. Jesus goes ahead of us and is already to be found where we are. Even if we’ve failed Jesus, Jesus will not fail us.
Mark assures us that we too are part of the resurrection story whenever we enter our own Galilee, our own everyday life, expecting to meet Christ there. Mark offers us a challenge, along with the Good News. Jesus wasn’t resurrected just so he could give the disciples some vague comfort about life after death. He brought eternal life so that we can boldly forge forward whatever the road in front of us looks like. Forge forward in hope, trusting in God.
Mark knows that the story doesn’t end with the women running away and telling no one. It can’t – or we wouldn’t be here. In fact Mark hinted at the truth in his very first verse when he writes, "The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God."
The Gospel of Mark doesn't really have an ending because the story is still unfolding and will continue to unfold until the end of time. And we’re part of the story, just as Mark’s little community was. No matter what we face. No matter how we fail. Jesus is waiting for us. The gospel continues in our life and story - if we’re willing to be part of it. Jesus' death and resurrection aren’t the end of the story - they’re the beginning. So let’s go meet him in our Galilee.