1When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the
mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and
anoint him. 2And very early on the first day of the week,
when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3They had
been saying to one another, Who will roll away the stone for us
from the entrance to the tomb?
4When they looked up,
they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been
rolled back. 5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young
man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they
were alarmed. 6But he said to them, Do not be alarmed;
you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has
been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid
him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is
going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he
told you.
8So they went out and fled from the tomb,
for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to
anyone, for they were afraid.
So today's Easter: the highest holy day of the Christian year and the Sunday morning when throughout the country and throughout the world, the highest number of people walk through the doors of churches. A few years before I came here, I worked as an intern at a big church, a mega church really. Easter attendance at that church was somewhere in the neighborhood of eight thousand people. They had two different worship spaces and their services started every half hour… on the hours there were traditional services in the sanctuary with organ and choir. On the half hours were contemporary services in the gym with the praise band guitars and drums. Many of the services had overflow seating into the narthex. It was just a zoo of people, but I guess that's kind of what you expect on Easter at big churches. In the midst of running around trying to help visitors find their way on Easter morning I found myself wondering, what is it that draws people to come on Easter. Why are all these people here?
When I was growing up, it was all about the candy. We were told that the Easter bunny would come in the middle of the night to bring chocolate and goodies, bunnies and eggs of every sort. So on Easter morning, we woke up and dashed out bed into the dining room where our Easter baskets had been filled just as promised… and we would immediately start organizing… Reese's eggs over here, solid chocolate here, the good jelly beans in one pile and the jelly beans nobody liked in another… but there was a rule in my family…we weren't allowed to eat any of our stash until after church… So, sure enough, Easter was the easiest Sunday of the year to get me and my siblings up and ready to go. As I remember it, it was my mom's rule but for her, it wasn't about the candy at all. She knew the Easter story…She took us to church on Easter Sunday and almost every other Sunday because more than just about anything else, she wanted us to know the story too.
This year's Easter reading comes from Mark's gospel and it's probably the least favorite of the gospel stories for pastors to preach on Easter. For one thing, there's this debate about where the gospel ends… when you get home look up the very end of the gospel of Mark… you'll find that, in the footnotes, your bible probably says something like:
Some of the most ancient authorities bring the book to a close at
the end of verse 8. One authority concludes the book with the
shorter ending; others include the shorter ending and then continue
with verses 9-20. In most authorities verses 9-20 follow immediately
after verse 8, though in some of these authorities the passage is
marked as being doubtful.
That's word for word what my bible says. And if you read the
different endings, it's relatively easy to see what's going on.
Along with most scholars, I tend to think that the original ending
of the gospel was verse 8 which reads: they went out and fled from
the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said
nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
But if the gospel ends
there it presents a problem, there's this amazing climax of Jesus
being raised from the dead and then just about nothing, almost no
response whatsoever… it's not exactly what you'd expect on
Easter. If you end with verse 8 Jesus didn't appear to anyone
after he was raised. Jesus didn't personally give any words of
assurance or any commandments after the resurrection.
The women's response is different in the other Gospels. In Matthew the women came to the tomb and ran away filled with Joy. The drama at the beginning of our service this morning was based on the gospel of Matthew. In Luke, the women were already starting to figure everything out…they went away from the tomb remembering that Jesus' said that he would be raised from the dead. In John, the disciples looked into the tomb and believed. But in Mark, the response to the empty tomb was terror and amazement. They fled and said nothing.
When you think about it, of course they were afraid. As they approached the tomb, they expected to find the stone. As they walked up to anoint Jesus, who had been so important to them in his life, they were sure that they were going to face an insurmountable obstacle standing in the way of their task. In the world they knew, if a stone was placed in front of a tomb on Friday, it was still going to be there on Sunday morning. When they found the stone moved, there were plenty of possible explanations, but for sure, the plan for the morning was thrown off. Who had done it and why?
In the world they knew, death was final. If a body was laid in a
tomb on Friday it would still be there Sunday morning, but when they
looked into the tomb, in the place where they expected to find Jesus'
body, they found a messenger instead. At that point it wasn't just
the plan for the morning that was thrown off. All of a sudden their
world was being turned upside down as the messenger proclaimed to
them, You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, the one who was
crucified. He has been raised. He is not here.
This is good news. Jesus is alive but it's also unsettling. If something as certain as death is no longer predictable, what other assumptions about life do we have to reexamine?
The women may have been more right in their fear and amazement than we are in our eggs and bunnies because they grasped the implications of the resurrection. If Jesus is alive the kingdom of God has entered into the world. If Jesus is alive there is hope where before there was only darkness. If Jesus is alive everything is different.
The messenger told the women that they would see Jesus in Galilee. Galilee is where it all started. It's where the disciples were called and where their families still lived. Galilee is the context of their everyday lives. And if the risen Jesus is going to meet them there, it's intended to be a new beginning, a new start, setting out once again on the way of Jesus except that this time there would be no doubt as to whether he was the messiah, the savior. They would know the extent of his love and the extent of his commitment. They would know about his journey through suffering and death. They would know that they deserted him in his last hours and that he still welcomed them back as friends and followers. And they would also know that ultimately they have nothing to fear because death is not the last word. The power of God is stronger than death.
You see Mark's account of the resurrection isn't just the event of the empty tomb… it's also the promise of surprise encounters yet to come. Jesus isn't just a memory he's a living reality… and there's nothing that can contain him. He goes to meet the women and disciples, in the context of their everyday lives, to claim them as his own, and to empower them to continue his ministry… and perhaps more importantly for us, he comes into the context of our everyday lives to meet us and claim us as well. Yes, Mark's account of the resurrection isn't about an empty tomb as much as it' s about the promise of the living Christ.
And yet the challenge of discipleship, the challenge of following Jesus continues even after the miraculous event of the resurrection. During holy week, the disciples all deserted Jesus, but the women tended to him. They ministered to him throughout his life and stayed close by to watch even as he hung on the cross. It seems that the women had been among the most faithful of his followers. But when faced with their post-resurrection mandate of communicating the good news to the disciples, in Mark's gospel, they deserted just like the other disciples did. They ran away and told no one. At this point the story seems to come to a dead end. There is not one person in the story who is faithful to the end, and if there's a way that the good news would be spread, it remains unclear. But according to one scholar and author, this is the brilliance of Mark' s gospel. During Holy week we saw the crowd and the justice system and the disciples fail Jesus. On Easter morning, we see the women at the tomb fail. Everyone has deserted Jesus. But there is one group remaining. There's one group who can carry the message of hope into the world, who can meet Jesus in the context of their everyday lives, who can choose to live the way of love, and who can take up the path of faithful discipleship. But that group isn't made up of the people in the gospel of Mark… it's made up us, you and me, the people who hear the story.
Easter used to be all about the candy for me… but now there's a different reason to come. I think we come because on some level we realize that we are the continuation of the story. Of course we can relate to the disciples who deserted Jesus. We can relate to the women who are scared because their world's been turned upside down. But we also know that there's hope in the midst of darkness because the tomb was empty and the stone was rolled away. Maybe we come on Easter to be reminded that in this time and place not only are we called to take the path of faithful discipleship but we can because Jesus is risen…he is alive and he meets us exactly where we are. Amen
The foregoing sermon was given by Rev. Dan Holland on Easter Sunday, April 12, 2009 at the United Parish of Bowie.
© 2009 Daniel Holland
