Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we may believe and in believing we may obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
It was early in the day…
the third terrible morning…
following a third sleepless night…
after the awful events of this week, now called Holy.
They had seen their teacher, their Lord, their friend Jesus taken…
from the comfort of his company to the cruelty of the cross.
Eyes swollen, hearts broken, dreams dead and buried,
the three women gird-up their grief-stricken spirits…
and make their way to the tomb—
to the grave of the One in whom they had dared to place their hope.
It is their final act of love; there is, literally, nothing else to be done. They only wonder who might help them move the stone blocking the crypt, the only barrier barring them from bathing and blessing the bruised, beaten body of their rabbi.
But suddenly, their plans and the stone are quickly forgotten—lost in a whirlwind of mind-numbing news. As they stoop to enter the tomb, they are surprised to see sitting there—a young man dressed in white—who scares them half to death. His greeting of peace doesn’t help—at all!
Do not be afraid, he says…,
as if they could somehow control the bass-drum beating of their hearts.
Jesus has been raised,
the messenger continues…which causes them to be all the more confused.
Then, after turning their world upside down and inside out,
he gives them an assignment…
as if their shock-shaken spirits could make sense of anything.
Go and tell the others that Jesus will meet you in Galilee…
and there his message to the women ends.
Well, their fight-or-flight instinct kicks into high gear
and away they run, says the author…
for terror and amazement had seized them;
and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid (Mark 16:8).
There you have the end of the Gospel—Mark’s breathless story about Jesus in all of its startling, astonishing, shocking shortness…and glory?!?!
… they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid…
You may very well ask, WHAT KIND OF AN ENDING IS THAT?
And you would join the legions of students and scholars, preachers and teachers who have been seeking an answer to that question for ages.
Was Mark interrupted in his work?
Did something happen to him before he could finish?
Or
Is this how he meant for it to end—a cliff-hanger of cosmic proportions?
If you look in your Bibles some time, either here or at home, you’ll note that early on, the church tried to fix this problem. Two different times, more traditional endings were added to Mark’s story; but as you’ll quickly see, the language, the tone, the voice of those conclusions are all different.
I certainly don’t know the answer, but I kind of like to think that Mark intended the story to end with those unsettling words: and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
In order to explain why I like this ending, I have to tell you about a man I once got to know…as we planned the funeral of his wife. They weren’t active in the church, didn’t have children, were bit bad by the travel-bug, were well-read and well-spoken…and they never saw Catherine’s death coming. It wasn’t in their plans—as most accidents are not.
Sitting at his kitchen table, I asked Leonard to tell me about his wife.
After a long pause, he said, It’s an unfinished story…
He couldn’t talk…for pain and grief had seized him…
Eventually, though, Leonard was able to share some of the details of her life. And after even more time had passed, he was able to pick up some of the pieces of his life—the one he was sure had come to an end when the heart of his beloved Catherine had stopped beating.
It’s an unfinished story…which is true in a very real sense for me, for you, for every person everywhere. Life is an unfinished story.
But here’s the good news this early Easter morning: we know the Author!
And we know that this Author of life continues to write—obviously, the women’s silence didn’t last long…You and I are living proof of how God helped them overcome their fear.
You and I are living proof of how God helps us overcome our fears. And you and I are living proof of how God continues to write heaven’s story of life, love, grace, and faith—for we are all part of this greatest story ever told—the unfinished story of Jesus and his love. Amen.
Pastor Scott Fuller