4/12/09

         Today’s Gospel account of the first Easter Sunday is rarely if ever used on this most magnificent of days.  Why?  Because this gospel ends not with the story of victory, but with the apparent failure of the women who were the only witnesses at the tomb to tell anyone what they had seen because they are shocked and afraid. 

         Mark’s story ends with verse 8.  Now you will notice in your pew Bibles that the gospel continues with verses 9 – 20 in parenthesis because even the most conservative scholars will tell you that those endings were added to Mark by a different writer who did not like the ending as we have it. 

         How do we know that?  Well, for one thing it does not naturally follow the story as Mark is telling it.  It reads like something that has been tacked on --- a kind of summary of the stories the other gospels tell.

         For another thing the vocabulary and the way it is written is extremely different from everything else Mark wrote.  It simply doesn’t read like Mark.

         And, finally, those verses are in none of the best manuscripts.  They don’t appear until much later and when they do, all of the church historians of the time say they don’t belong.

         So why are they even there – printed in your Bible – albeit with a footnote that says they are “tacked on”?  They are there because the way Mark ends is so unacceptable to us.  How can the story possibly end as it does? 

Yet I think Mark’s ending has something important to tell us Listen to it as I read Mark 16; 1-8. 

Mark 16: 1-8

The next evening, when the Sabbath ended, Mary Magdalene and Salome and Mary the mother of James went out and purchased embalming spices.  Early the following morning, just at sunrise, they carried them out to the tomb.

On the way they were discussing how they could ever roll aside the huge stone from the entrance.  But when they arrived they looked up and saw that the stone--a very heavy one--was already moved away and the entrance was open!

         So they entered the tomb--and there on the right sat a young man clothed in white. The women were startled, but the angel said, ``Don't be so surprised. Aren't you looking for Jesus, the Nazarene who was crucified? He isn't here! He has come back to life! Look, that's where his body was lying.

Now go and give this message to his disciples including Peter:```Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you before he died!'''

The women fled from the tomb, trembling and bewildered, too frightened to talk.

This is the Word of the Lord

Anthem

“I’m not going to tell them.  You tell them.”

“I’m not telling.  You tell.”

“Well, I’m not telling either.  Besides they won’t believe any of us.  Heck, I was there and I don’t believe it.  I think the safest thing is just not to tell any one anything about what we saw.”

That was the conversation on that first Easter morning so long ago --- or at least that’s the way I imagine it based on the scripture passage from Mark.  It sounds very Presbyterian doesn’t it?  “I won’t tell.  Don’t ask me to say what we saw, what we experienced today.  No one will believe it!”

Let’s set up the scene.  The women had gone to the tomb in grief and sorrow and what they saw there terrified them – what they saw was an empty tomb and an angel, like a young man, saying that the Christ had risen --- that He was not there – and He would meet them in Galilee.

I like the way Peterson’s Contemporary Version puts it: “When the women ran from the tomb, they were confused and shaking all over.  They were too afraid to tell anyone what had happened.” 

That has the ring of truth to it.  It is far more believable to me than if the scripture had said the women calmly accepted the words of the angel and, acting in steadfast belief and faith, without a moment of hesitation, told everyone what they had seen and heard.

They were afraid.  They had watched their Savior die.  He was dead and buried, laid in a tomb with a huge stone rolled in front of it --- and now He was alive?  It made no sense – of course they were terrified.

Besides they were just women.  In that day and time women had no rights.  They had no authority.  Their word was considered so unworthy, so unreliable, that they could not testify to things they had seen in a court of law.  Why would anyone believe them now?

And yet somehow they pulled themselves together and went back to the twelve and told the amazing good news --- Christ lives again.  How do we know they did that?  Because the story does not end.  If verse 8 were the last word in the story, none of us would be here this morning.  If the women had not told, there would be no Christian faith. 

And I love the way they told, because they told it in fear and trembling.  They told it in all their doubt.  They told it in all their fear.  They told it even though they thought no one would listen --- that no one would believe them.  And that’s how we have to tell it.

There is a joke about what you get if you cross a Presbyterian with a Jehovah Witness.  You get someone who will ring a doorbell, but is too uncomfortable to say anything if someone answers. 

We are not a pushy people.  Indeed we are not only not pushy, we don’t want to share the Good News with people who are longing to hear it, who need to hear it -- people who need the love, the grace, the power of it. 

Instead we give in to our fear that we might be intruding, the fear that they might not believe us, the fear that we might seem pushy or judgmental. 

Besides, this is comfortable.  This is doable.  This is not very threatening.  We just show up on Sunday and occasionally write a check.  Besides we know everyone here.  We even know where they sit.

We don’t want to let the cat out of the bag.  We don’t want to tell people how much God loves them – that God would come and live and die and rise again for them --- just for them.  We don’t want to tell them that there is something special here in this place --- something unique, something that will change their lives forever. 

And it will.  The gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, changes people’s lives for ever.  It gives them strength when their strength is gone.  It gives them hope when everything seems hopeless.  It gives them faith in times of deepest doubt.  It gives them courage in the face of fear. 

Why wouldn’t we want to share this great Good News? To tell everyone we know to come join us here in this place where love grows.  To come celebrate our God –a God who has won the final victory over the powers of darkness – a God who defeats even the chains of death and sorrow – a God of today and of all our tomorrows.  Why wouldn’t we want to tell others the great Good News of this day, “Christ is alive!”? 

So let us make a commitment here and now to tell the story, so the story will not die.  Let us stand and sing as our affirmation of faith hymn 108 “Christ Is Alive!”