MARK: THE NEVER-ENDING GOSPEL
Be honest: How would you feel if you walked into our cemetery and found several graves opened and bodies missing? You would be shocked. You might be afraid, for various reasons. Would you think, “It’s the resurrection”? Probably not.
Fear is the natural reaction to the unexpected and the unexplained.
A woman named Gerry was a chaplain at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pennsylvania some years ago. She tells the story of how late one night while on duty she got the call to come to the bedside of a woman who had a severe heart attack. By the time Gerry got there the woman was pronounced dead.
A doctor and a nurse were there so Gerry turned to leave, but then felt the nudging of the Spirit to stay and pray. As she prayed for the woman’s family she felt the Spirit praying through her. Suddenly, the dead woman bolted straight up and cried, “What’s going on here?” It is hard to say who was more frightened: the woman, the staff, or Gerry.[i]
We get a sense of the fear the women at the tomb of Jesus felt when they found it empty. There was no body, only a young man telling them that Jesus had risen from the dead.
Mark’s gospel leaves us hanging. It has a very odd conclusion if you finish at verse 8. Jesus does not make a resurrection appearance in this gospel; he only leaves a messenger to announce his rising from the dead. What a peculiar ending. It leaves us to ask, why is there no ending to the Gospel of Mark?
As we answer that question through the narrative of Mark, let us make a few assumptions:
- That Mark was the first gospel written 40 years after the resurrection.
- That Mark was the only gospel the first readers/hearers had to encourage them in their faith for a few years.
Now let’s read it that way this morning…
1. What do you do with a broken heart?
Go to the Tomb.
When we experience loss or disappointment we all grieve in different ways. Some of us get angry. Some will cry ceaselessly. Others will try to keep busy or find tasks to do.
The women who came to the tomb must have been inconsolable. Sabbath rules kept them from attending to Jesus for 36 hours. Sabbath began when evening fell on Friday evening around 6 or 7 pm. Joseph of Arimathea had precious few hours to bury Jesus before he would be in violation of the law.
For 36 hours the women were in agony, stifled in their grief, waiting like runners at the starting line to go to Jesus’ body. It was their job to care for Jesus.
Mark tells us these women saw Jesus crucified (15:40) and watched in horror as their beloved master died a gruesome death. They had followed Jesus all the way from Galilee and cared for his needs, (15:41). This is the same expression used of the angels who attended him after his testing in the wilderness (1:13). These women were like angels to Jesus.
Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Salome, and many other women were drawn to the teaching of Jesus. Though Isaiah tells us he was not much too look at, his soul, his spirit, and his heart were attractive to them. He had the words of life.
More than that, he was their king. Jesus was their hope for national salvation. Now he was dead.
What do you do with a broken heart? You grieve; you go to the grave and mourn lost dreams. Has your faith in God not disappointed you? Have your expectations of what God can do ever failed you? In your grief did you ever wonder why you followed Jesus? What do you do?
Come to the tomb. Bring your despair to the right place. “Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, ‘Who will roll the stone away from the entrance to the tomb?’” (16:2-3).
They had not thought this through. But one thing is clear: they expected the tomb to be sealed. And they despaired before the tomb. They wanted to continue serving their master even after his death, but hope was gone, even the hope of seeing his body one more time.
Come to the tomb with your despair. Come to the grave of your hopes. There is something you need to see.
2. How does Jesus respond to our failures?
He restores us to keep following.
What did the women see?
“But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed,” (16:4-5).
There is a great failure of discipleship recorded in the Gospel of Mark. Part of the failure was a failure to listen to what Jesus was saying since Peter’s great confession that Jesus was the Christ (8:29). Once Peter caught on that Jesus was the Messiah Jesus began to teach that the Son of Man, as Jesus called himself, was going to Jerusalem to be handed over and killed. The fact that Mark records this three times suggests that Jesus was constantly teaching this.
Along with the prediction of his death, Jesus also taught that he would rise from the dead. It is very clear: “…and after three days rise again,” (8:31); “…and after three days he will rise,” (9:31); “Three days later he will rise,” (10:34). Somehow the Twelve, all the disciples, even the faithful women, missed this detail.
The night Jesus was arrested revealed the disciples’ true understanding of Christ’s mission. They didn’t get it at all. Everyone deserted Jesus when the authorities came. They all ran.
Mark illustrates this with the unknown young man who was present in the Garden. “A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind,” (14:51-52). What Mark is saying here is representative of all the disciples. They left their discipleship in the dust and ran away naked, stripped of their faithfulness.
We return to the tomb scene and what do we find? We see “a young man dressed in a white robe,” sitting and waiting for the women. This is not the same young man. This is an angel. But the way Mark describes this is unmistakable: Jesus is ready to restore anyone who failed him. You can be dressed in discipleship again.
How do the women respond? They were alarmed, amazed, terrified. Grace is terrifying. Grace gives us the opportunity to fail and fail and fail again. Jesus took the sting out of failure; he took the sting out of death. Grace allows us to explore our faith without fear, to go down the wrong road and come back again, to grow in our understanding of Jesus, to have wrong theology and be corrected, and to get caught up in lifeless rituals and be brought back to Jesus. Grace allows all of that. Terrifying isn’t it?
3. What is the validation of our faith?
The empty tomb.
Everything about our faith rests on the empty tomb.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians several years before Mark wrote his gospel. Paul said, “…if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins,” (1 Cor 15:17).
For our faith to be of any use to us Christ must have risen from the dead. For any of us to live in freedom from sin and in the life of the Spirit Christ must have risen from the dead. Unless Christ arose the new life we profess to have is a joke. But Christ is arisen from the dead and your faith is validated by the empty tomb. There can be no gospel without a resurrection.
The young man said to the women, “Don’t be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you,” (16:6-7).
How do you grasp that someone you loved was dead and suddenly is alive? This is unprecedented. The women could cope with the death of Jesus but what do you do with the resurrection? This is frightening. Everything they knew was turned upside down. Death was shattered. Nothing is static anymore. Life would never be the same. Jesus is alive.
All the evidence is in plain view. The stone was rolled away. The place where they laid him is vacant. Jesus is already on the move heading to Galilee just as he had planned with the disciples.
The tomb is empty.
4. What do we do with the empty tomb?
Proclaim it.
Mark’s gospel ends strangely. After hearing this amazing message of resurrection and are told to go and tell the disciples, the women are traumatized.
“Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing anyone, because they were afraid,” (16:8).
What are we supposed to do with an ending like this? What would the original readers in the first century have done?
An ending like this is crafty. One would ask, is Jesus alive or isn’t he? What happened at the end? Did the disciples meet with Jesus? Did Peter have a reunion with Jesus and reconcile?
An ending like this begs you to back to the beginning of the gospel. How did Mark open his gospel? “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” (1:1). Sixteen chapters later, Mark wants us to realize that this is not a “happily ever after” ending, that the resurrection is not the end, but rather the beginning. This is just the beginning.
“He is going before you…you will see him,” the angel said. And they did, and that is why you even have this gospel before you. The women left trembling, the disciples apparently went to Galilee, Mark wrote this gospel and you are reading it today, because Jesus rose again.
He is going before you…and you will see him. That is a promise left for us as well. He goes before us, making the path visible. We will see Jesus as we follow that path.
Like the women who were left trembling and bewildered, the empty tomb confronts us, and we are invited to come to terms with the disturbing implications of a risen Christ. For the resurrection of Jesus means that people who cling to life will lose it, while those who deny themselves for the sake of Jesus and the gospel will save it.[ii]
It is a story that is unfinished, because it was meant to be unfinished. It is meant for you and me to take it from here and decide for ourselves how the story will end. We each have the opportunity to finish the story of Jesus’ resurrection in our own lives. This is where we repent and believe in Jesus, the Son of God and follow him in obedient discipleship.
“The time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news,” (1:15). The kingdom of God is present as people follow Jesus’ words. We do not have to see the risen Jesus to know the power of the kingdom of God. We encounter, recognize and welcome it as we obey his teaching.[iii]
What do we do with the empty tomb?
Proclaim it.
Why is there no ending to the gospel of Mark? The ending is left to us as we are confronted with the empty tomb. How will you finish this story?
There is a story told of a young man who came home from a prisoner of war camp who had been reported killed in action. His family and his buddies and even his girlfriend had mourned him as dead and then more or less had gotten over their grief.
His sudden reappearance was disturbing to say the least. They had all loved him, but they had in effect written him out of their lives. His girlfriend was engaged to marry someone else. He himself did not seem like the boy who had gone off to war. He was thin and haggard and haunted. However, he was now mature, self-possessed, and astonishingly happy. He hadn’t smiled much as a kid and rarely joked. Now he was witty and exuberant all the time. A quiet kid had become an outgoing adult man.
He was not the same person and did not fit into the relationships the way he had before. On the contrary, his happiness and maturity were unsettling. He congratulated his former girlfriend on her coming marriage and shook hands cordially with her fiancée. His family went to the priest. “There’s something wrong with him,” they said. “There sure is,” the priest replied, “he has risen from the dead and now lives a new life.”[iv]
This is the reality of the never-ending gospel of Jesus Christ. The dead are given new life. Failures are forgiven. Disciples restored. And the Lord is risen! AMEN
(optional opening)
WHAT HAPPENED ON EASTER?
A Sunday School teacher asked her class on the Sunday before Easter if they knew what happened on Easter and why it was so important. One little girl spoke up saying: "Easter is when the whole family gets together, and you eat turkey and sing about the pilgrims and all that." "No, that’s not it," said the teacher.
"I know what Easter is," a second student responded. "Easter is when you get a tree and decorate it and give gifts to everybody and sing lots of songs." "Nope, that’s not it either," replied the teacher.
Finally a third student spoke up, "Easter is when Jesus was killed, and put in a tomb and left for three days." "Ah, thank goodness somebody knows" the teacher thought to herself.
But then the student went on: "Then everybody gathers at the tomb and waits to see if Jesus comes out, and if he sees his shadow he has to go back inside and we have six more weeks of winter."
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