The Mourners - When Jesus was crucified, people were thrown into a valley of grief and mourning. The eleven disciples who had followed him and learned from him for three years; they were just wrecked. They were out of it, unable to get involved. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and Salome. They had followed Jesus too, and looked after him. Then there was Joseph of Arimathea, well-to-do, confident, pushed into the place where he had to take a stand; he asked Pilate for the body of Jesus and provided the means to give him a decent burial. Then three days later, after the Sabbath (which limited people's movements and stopped unnecessary "work") the women went to put spices on the grave. Mournfully, sadly, maybe a wee bit contemptuously towards the eleven, they were asking each other how they were going to get in there to do the job they came to do. Then they realised there was no problem: they encountered the angels who told them that Jesus had risen, and sent them to tell the lads.
But here's a puzzle. "But they said nothing, for they were afraid." How on earth could they keep silent about something like that? They were mourners, grief stricken. They had lost Jesus, their friend, the Person the loved and respected more than any other. Grief can put our normal thought processes into reverse, blinding us to the obvious blessings... And they were not just mourners: they were super-mourners!
Grieving the end of hope - Looking at the burial of Jesus for a moment, and about those hanging around. Who were they? There was Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Council, a prominent, confident, educated sort of guy. He had read his Bible and understood about the promises of Messiah coming. Joseph had an expectation of the kingdom based on years spent soaking in the world of God. The Kingdom of God is His authority over everything the enemy does to destroy God's wonderful creation. There was Mary, from whom (v9) Jesus had driven out seven demons. Mary had an expectation of the Kingdom, based on a personal and direct intervention by Jesus in her own life. Part of Satan's army of unclean spirits had camped out in her personality, and Jesus had driven them out. That was God's Kingdom at work in her life. She had experienced God's Kingdom. The eleven had seen him heal the sick, drive out demons; feed the crowds; they had even joined in some of these things themselves. Just imagine how gutted, how shocked and surprised they would be to have experienced this loss. From Joseph's Biblical perspective; from Mary's and the eleven's experience perspective, life had stopped making sense, when Jesus died. No wonder now an empty tomb and angels claiming that Jesus was alive, just filled the women with terror. No wonder the eleven couldn't accept the first garbled reports of something having happened to the body of Jesus, of people having seen him. The women said nothing, for they were afraid, because of the sheer enormity and outrageousness of the grief and shock of seeing Jesus, and the hope of this Kingdom, nailed on the cross. A resurrection was too much to hope for. They feared they were losing their minds. For they were afraid.
Encounter - The story doesn't stop there. I don't know why "the best manuscripts" don't have verses 9-19. But I don't believe Mark intended his Gospel to end at verse 8. All of the other Gospels including John, include records not only of the empty tomb but of Encounters with Jesus... without something after verse 8, Mark's gospel finishes dare I say it completely inadequately and with a different kind of Christianity from that of the rest of the Gospels: a second-hand faith; an evidence based, reasoned faith without the benefit of personal experience. And sadly, that is where very many of us are. We've accepted what the angels say; we've accepted what the bible says; we've accepted what other people testify about Jesus Christ. But we are not able to do anything very much about it. The reason is we have a second hand faith, instead of an encounter.
Mary met with Jesus. And having done so, she was then able to go to them and tell them "I have seen Jesus". A much better testimony than "I have seen an angel who told me the tomb was empty.... Sure that was part of her journey. Sure those she went to and told about the empty tomb might be encouraged to go to the tomb and see for themselves. But having met with Jesus, she really had something to go and tell the others...
And it was only when they met with Jesus that they were able themselves to take it in. And, yes, he gave them a bit of a telling off for their hardness of heart. It's important to believe without seeing. But it's also important that we have our live encounter with Jesus. Otherwise our "evangelism" is weakened, because we are telling people a second or third-hand message, a piece of history to be accepted from a book, a doctrine to be assented to.
The Mission - Jesus has something for the eleven to do, and for Mary, for Joseph or Arimathea, and for you and me: see verses 15-18. The Mission was
* Declaration to tell every creature, or all of creation (v 15) - this is a universal message: it's not for a select few who can fit in with our way of doing Church here in Rosyth: think of the people who are your neighbours. The Good News of Jesus is for those people too.
* Discipleship: to demand a response of belief publicly shown by being baptised. This is demanding discipleship: it separates people into those who have said "Yes" to it and those who have said "No" to it. A few weeks ago I said that if you're not ready to walk to the front of the Church you're not ready to follow Jesus. Well, that was a harsh way of putting it, one that is prejudiced in favour of the extraverts, and I apologise. But I don't apologise for saying that when we come to follow Jesus, we are not just buying into some product to make our lives better: we are surrendering these lives to their rightful owner.
* Demonstration: to demonstrate the Kingdom by signs following the preached word (v 17-18). In Mark these signs include the exercise: of Spiritual authority (driving our demons); gifts of utterance (tongues, but there are many more); and gifts of power (snake-handling and poison-drinking are practised in some rural American Churches but the real point is the healing of the sick.) And guess what, whether healing comes by a miracle or through a Christian taking medicine and food to a flooded village, it still demonstrates the Kingdom.
The hopeful - In the context of life after the ascension - when Jesus' visible, physical presence is withdrawn (v. 19) - the disciples go out with the Good News. They are doing the stuff, preaching the Good News; and ministering with faith to demonstrate the Kingdom. And "The Lord worked with them"... the Jesus who had ascended, sent his Spirit, whose power enabled them to demonstrate the Kingdom. We too are called to be doing the stuff post ascension through the ongoing encounter of the Spirit. Life with Jesus becomes life in the Spirit. Mary, Peter, James, John, Joseph of Arimathea, you and me; we are all called to move from being mourners to being missionaries.
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