“Resurrection” Mark 16: 1-8

 If I asked you to tell me the highlight of the Easter story as you recall it, what are some of the big things that immediately come to mind? Women going to the tomb. The stone is rolled away. Jesus is not there - he is risen from the dead! And…

The women went to go and proclaim the good news that defines us even here and now today as Christians - that Jesus is resurrected! Amen. 

Only each of the Gospels tells the account of Jesus’s resurrection in different ways and we have a tendency to smush them altogether. It’s completely understandable. It’s what we do with stories in our everyday lives - as we work to make meaning, we combine details or change timelines. 

Why do I say all of this? Because the resurrection story as told by Mark is completely different from what we would find in Luke and Matthew. So let’s untangle some of our mixing of the different Gospel accounts this day in order to hear the Good News in perhaps a different way. 

The Sabbath is over. Not only the Sabbath, but the Passover, which turned from a time of celebration to a time of deep sorrow as the women watched their Lord hang on the cross amongst the jeers of the crowds. When his body breathed it’s last his body was taken down, but not tended to because of the rules around the Sabbath. But now, after the Sabbath, after the Passover and all the preparations that proceeded it, and life is going back to the routine of the everyday. 

Only today is not the everyday. It’s not the routine or the normal. For the women are walking silently in the early morning towards the tomb of Jesus. The grief in their hearts is echoing through their heavy steps. The only words that are recorded amongst this painful journey to go and anoint the dead body of Jesus was a question about the stone - the stone put over the entrance of the tomb to “protect” Jesus’s body from being stolen by the Romans. Who would roll that stone away from the entrance so that they could do the hard but necessary task of love that they are compelled to do. 

Only when they arrive they find that the stone is already rolled away. Jesus is not in the tomb! And there’s an angel present telling them not just that Jesus has been resurrected, but that they are to go to tell the disciples this good news. 

And….

Then the women are to shocked to say anything. 

Is that how you remember the ending of this Gospel text? Probably not. It was so disconcerting that Matthew and Luke intentionally made the ending more complete. And a piece was added to Mark later to try to add clarification. 

The truth is that we want a different ending to this text in Mark. We don’t just want the women to flee from the tomb. We want action. Triumph. The joy of this day as we know it today. But we are told that the women had alarm, terror, amazement, and fear. We want the word to go forth on that day down to us here and now today. Yet, that isn’t what we find. 

Mark doesn’t try to over-explain what the women were going through. He doesn’t try to cover up the discomfort. He doesn’t take the challenge of verse eight and sweep it under the rug. Why?

Because I think Mark understood that in particular seasons of our lives we may find ourselves right there with the women. We may not do what we were told to do because we are so confused or fearful or don’t understand. But that doesn’t mean that God is done. Nor does it mean that God doesn’t give us second chances - just see the next part of the Gospel of Mark for that truth. 

In our discomfort that this is not what we expect to happen, we come face to face with elections of our own actions or inactions but it also bring us face to face with God’s grace. God’s truth that keeps working on us even if we don’t fully understand the details or the vastness or importance of what we are celebrating today - that Christ is risen!

But the Good News is not just that God continues to work on our hearts and redeem us even when we fail to follow through in the moment. There is also these words of the angel that the women are to go and tell the disciple and Peter that Jesus is risen. Peter is deliberately included. Peter who turned away from Christ out of his own fear, alarm, and terror. Peter who God is redeeming in even this invitation and moment. The promise that Jesus will meet them again, including and especially Peter. Christ is doing transformative work in him. 

And that my friends is good news, not just for Peter, but for the women. For us. That our sins, faults, and failures will not have the final word in the light of the cross and the empty tomb. If only we will go where Christ has gone. Even if we don’t understand. Why? Because God isn’t done yet with Peter either. 

Just as we can understand Peter turning away from his promise to Jesus on the night of Passover when Jesus was arrested and tried, we can also understand the women. We try to put ourselves in this morning’s text and think of course we would go and tell everyone and anyone what just happened, but what is it that the women fear? They have just watched Jesus be killed. In the flesh. And now they are seeing something unlike anything they have experienced before. Even if they were present when Jesus brought Lazarus back to life, they saw his body come out in linens and all. This is new. This is terrifying. And the threat of the Roman Empire is still hanging over them. 

But God is not done, even because of those real fears. 

God was still moving and speaking. Because in the long term, the women did tell. The Good News did go forth. Peter did find healing and became the rock upon which the church of Jesus Christ was built. 

The question, then, is how are we living into the Gospel? How are we being part of what has yet to be written? 

Maybe for some of us, the idea of being part of carrying forth the Good News terrifies us like did the women so long ago. What did the women have to fear? Everything. Absolutely everything. They had watched Jesus died. They had returned to care for him and were met by an angel/ stranger who told them that Jesus was risen and told them to go back and tell the disciples to go to a place and a people they may not understand what has happened. 

If they were honest, they didn’t understand what was happening either. It was simply too much to process.

Sometimes, we too have fears. Fears that people won’t understand. Fears of rejection. Fears that people are going to ask us questions that we don’t have answers for. So we flee the sight of the empty tomb. 

But for others of us, maybe the idea that we are invited to be part carrying for the Good News amazes us. Maybe we are asking, “Are you sure you want to use me Lord? Do you know who I am? Do you know what I’ve done?” To which Jesus replies, yes. Now go. We may not fully understand all the ins and outs of proclaiming “Christ is Risen indeed but we are humbled that Jesus is inviting us to be part of this Kingdom work before us. 

And maybe for others what we feel is joy. Joy to go forth. Joy to keep going forth no matter what. Joy because the resurrection has changed us and now we can be part of sharing that with the world! When we proclaim that “Christ is Risen!” We are also saying that Christ saved me. Christ took what my life once was and raised it from the ashes and made it into something new. And you so desperately want that for other people.

No matter what we may be feeling, we are part of the story, Church. God is not done yet. The Gospel keeps going on. So, I ask you again, how are we being part of what has yet to be written? Because God is still at work, in and through us, in this world today. Amen.