April 12, 2009 Des Moines
Easter Sunday
scripture: Mark 16:1-8
“Surely There is More”
How
many times have we heard it over the landscape of this story? “Don’t be afraid.”
·
Way
back in the book of Genesis, when Abraham was feeling desperate about God’s promise,
God patiently consoled him, “Don’t be afraid.”
·
When
the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness after escaping Egypt and were
concluding that God could be scarier than the Pharaoh was mean, Moses
reassured them saying, “Don’t be afraid.”
·
And
when later they heard the scouting reports about the Promised Land they were
poised to enter, and were panicking about its defenses, Joshua settled them
with the words, “Don’t be afraid.”
·
When
the people were feeling lost and paralyzed in exile, the prophet Isaiah
reassured them with a word from the Lord:
do not fear, for I am with you,
do not be afraid, for I am your
God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my victorious right hand. (41:10)
All the
time, over and over again, “don’t be afraid.”
·
At
Christmas time we read about Joseph making arrangements to break off an
engagement that had suddenly gone shamefully bad, ultimately diverted into
acquiescence with these simple words, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child
conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:20).
·
And
Mary, when she, herself, is confronted by God’s announcing angel, is simply
told, “don’t be afraid.”
·
The
shepherds, keeping watch over their flocks by night, are told the same when the
night sky comes alive with angelic song.
“Do not be afraid.”
·
And
now here, standing looking into an empty tomb.
“Do not be afraid.”
“Do not
be afraid.” “Do not be afraid.” “Do not be afraid.” The apostle Paul once wrote to his young
friend Timothy that “God did not give us a spirit of fear,” but listening in on
all this incessant calming we can be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that
the “spirit of fear” is precisely what we’ve been given. We seem to spend our lives in the grip of
it. Fear of embarrassment, fear of
danger, fear of pain, fear of failure, fear of the unknown, fear of the
stranger – or the strange, fear of the possibilities, fear of the
opportunities; dread at the thought of having to completely shuffle our
comprehension of the way the world is.
“Don’t be afraid,” the young man
tells these well-intentioned women who venture into the graveyard as soon as it
was appropriate. “Don’t be afraid,” he
tells them when they discover him there rather than the body of
their beloved they had been expecting.
“Don’t be afraid.”
But of course they are. And according to Mark, they stay that
way. Upon hearing the messenger’s
instructions to go and tell the others that Jesus has been raised and is going
on ahead of them to Galilee, to meet them there, the only response the women make
is to simply run away; trapped within their terror; silenced, virtually
strangled by their fears. These women,
who had seemed like the last opportunity for someone to finally get it right,
end up disappointing like all the others. “They fled from the tomb, for terror
and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone for they were
afraid.”
That’s the way Mark chooses to tell
the entirety of this story – from beginning to end -- tragically, ominously, as
one missed opportunity, one blank stare after another. In Mark’s gospel, only the demons and the
outsiders recognize Jesus for who he is.
The insiders – family, followers – those in the best position to know
continually miss the point, and never quite “get it.” And now here, at the very summit of the
story, there is this palpable silence.
We who listened in as the voice called out from the heavens at Jesus’
baptism and again on the Mount of Transfiguration – the voice of blessing and
possession and deepest affirmation – can’t help but cock our heads cloud-ward
as the dreadful final breaths of Holy Week are drawn in and expelled –
listening, hoping, waiting, expecting; expecting at least his disciples to
finally rise to the occasion.
But painfully there is nothing. Everyone runs away; no one raises a voice in
deference or gratitude or faithful declaration.
Not even God. There is no voice;
no “this is my beloved son in whom I am well-pleased. Here, for Mark, it is all aching and
deafening silence. And even here, on the
morning of the first day of the week after it had all come crashing down –
silence. “The one event that makes sense
of the cross, God’s act vindicating the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth, has
as its net effect a frightened silence.” [1]
“They fled from the tomb in terror, and said
nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
Really? That’s
it? That’s all there is? You’ve got to be kidding! Is that any way to end a “gospel” – a story
of “good news”? “They said nothing to anyone
for they were afraid?” Of course
not. Especially today – Easter
morning. We want to hear about
glory. We didn’t dress ourselves up in
our Easter best just to get this incredible “downer” of an ending. We came to luxuriate in the lilies, bask in the
brass and celebrate the triumph. How are
we supposed to sing the Hallelujah Chorus in a few minutes after an
anti-climax like this?
And the fact is, people have reacted
this way forever. That's why, if you
look in your Bible at the footnotes at the bottom of the page, you find two
other endings that from time to time have managed to get themselves appended
beyond this rather dark implication. As
early as the 2nd century, dissatisfied disciples have been drafting
excuses for Mark – how surely he didn’t really intend to end his story
here; how surely he had drafted a dramatic denouement as awe-filling and
glorious as did Matthew and Luke.
Perhaps, some have speculated, his original manuscript got
chewed up in the postal machines. I know
that happens every now and then to me. I
get this plastic bag in my mailbox containing a torn fragment of what once was
a letter from a dear friend, with an apologetic note from the Post Office explaining
about automation and how “these things happen”.
Perhaps that is what happened to Mark.
Having fretted and edited and erased holes in his precious paper from so
many revisions, and finally turning out a real whiz-bang of a finish, Mark
carefully seals his manuscript in a protective envelope – bubble wrap and all –
and mails it off to his publisher, only to have the most treasured part of his
work gnawed off by the sorting machine, leaving us with this dark and lousy, disappointment
of an ending. Maybe Mark’s “real” ending
simply got severed and lost.
That kind of speculation has
resulted in those two alternately proffered endings – one, just a couple of
verses, that adds, “And all that had been
commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterward Jesus himself sent out through
them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal
salvation,” and a much longer one that includes a whole variety of
resurrection appearances, the now familiar “great commission” and an account of
Jesus’ ascension into heaven. And while
I appreciate all the lipstick and the blush, these alternate endings seem a
little too “made up” to be authentic. The only thing missing from them is something
along the order of, “and they lived happily ever after.” They are a little too neat; a little too
clean; a little too, well, too much what we expect.
The best manuscripts – the ones that
lead translators to stop short of endorsing either of these sunnier
alternatives – drive us back to where we started: with the early-rising women fleeing the empty
tomb in terror – and, more to the point, in silence; telling nothing to anyone. It’s as though Mark, who has shaken his head
over every discipling disappointment, now turns to catch the eye of his last
possible witness. Everyone else in the
story has failed; everyone else has been straight-jacketed by fear and either
fled or dissolved into anonymity. But
there is one chance left; there is one other who has seen it all; one other who
has heard it all and knows unambiguously the truth; one remaining who can
testify that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God, the very image and
embodiment of the reconciling, life-saving love of God. There is this one remaining, and as Mark
watches the women run away in silence and miserable terror, he turns and looks
at...
...you. “Don’t be afraid,” he encourages. “Go and tell what you’ve seen, and what
you’ve heard.” Ah! It is a terrible ending indeed! For we are the ones now put to work: we must ultimately decide how the story
ends. Well, sort of. Jesus, the angel announces, has already moved
on – gone on ahead of us to continue the transformation that he had set in
motion; into the “Galilees” of our daily living.
The only question remaining is whether or not we will meet
him there, or if, like those first Easter visitors, we, too, fall victim to our
fears and say nothing to anyone.
“Don’t be afraid.
He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they
laid him. He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as
he told you.” There, in the going and trusting, and the
following, and the telling, you will see him.
In the Galilees of your daily living.
“Don’t be afraid. Go and tell.”
I suppose that means we are still
waiting to see how the story turns out.