So the three women found the stone rolled away from the tomb, met an angel who told them Jesus had risen, and that they were to tell his friends to go to Galilee where they would meet him. The women ran off in panic and said nothing to anyone – because they were afraid.
Isn't that a strange way to end a “Gospel”? After all, a “gospel” is not just a biography: it is “good News” written so that people may believe. There are four possibilities...
1. Mark didn't know, or wasn't bothered, about what happened next. That is highly unlikely. Mark gives us a bit of a spoiler in v. 7: “But go, tell his disciples and Peter, “He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” There's obviously something else to follow. Mark had spent time with Peter (we think Peter told the story to Mark and Mark wrote it down) and with Paul. Peter knew the story and paul was clear hom important that story was (1 C0r 15.1) So Mark's Gospel needs what the other Gospels have – the actual meeting with Jesus promised in verse 7.
2. Mark wrote more but what he wrote has been lost, perhaps torn off the end of the scroll. I don't believe that answer either: the first thing you would do if you knew the last page of the book had been damaged, would be to re-write it from memory.
3. Mark wrote the next section that we call verses 9-20. There is in the AV and in small print in many other Bibles, a “Longer ending” to the Gospel. It is a good ending in its way – but it's not Mark's original ending. One old manuscript names an author, an elder called Antipas. I believe it was written by someone – to sum up what the different Gospels say about the resurrection – and then used to fill the obvious gap. Because there is an obvious gap.
4. Mark was prevented from finishing the work fully: wither by sudden death, murder, arrest and imprisonment. Maybe he was getting the story from Peter, stopped for a break, and Peter was arrested. That requires a wee bit of imagination.
There are problems with every possibility suggested. Whatever the reason, I believe Mark wanted to write more but was prevented for some reason. And I believe that the ending we have in our footnotes, although not from Mark, is “Scripture”.
Mark, then, as it stands, tells a story that ends – yes, ends – with confusion, fear, and uncertainty, and with an uneasy silence about the whole resurrection message.... He knows it has happened. He has heard that from Peter. He knows it is important – he has learned that from Paul. But he also knows about doubt and fear.... he has been there. So it's OK to take a break, stop for the night, have a meal, with the words “For they were afraid” freshly written on the page. It's OK to pause there and recognise the reality of “Confusion, Fear, Uncertainty”. These are as much part of an honest telling of the Resurrection story, as are victory, joy, and hope.
Mark knew it. He may well have been the young man who ran away naked, leaving his cloak in the hands of the soldier who made a grab at him, in the Garden of Gethsemane. He certainly ran away again, later, when the going got tough in Pamphylia (Acts 13. 13).
Peter knew it. Mark records that the angel said to the women “Go and tell my disciples – and Peter...” Peter had failed so badly by denying Jesus, that he only felt fit to be a fisherman, not a disciple. He knew about uncertainty, fear, and confusion.
The Gospel writers all admit the first witnesses to the resurrection didn't believe their eyes and the first people to hear the report didn't believe what they were hearing! John tells us about Mary crying in the garden, and then he tells us about Thomas. Matthew tells us the women were “Afraid yet filled with joy”, and that even after meeting with Jesus “”Some doubted”. Luke tells us the women’s “words seemed to them like nonsense and gives us the story of the two on the road to Emmaus.
We are like that too. “Confusion, Fear, Uncertainty” all too often reflects where the Church is at – resurrection or not. We are afraid: afraid of being too supernatural; afraid for our reputation; afraid of the future; afraid of change; afraid of our culture. We are confused: we hear voices questioning what we believe. Are we sure we believe it? How do we answer? What does this resurrection imply in our lives? We want certainty, but “faith is the evidence of things unseen....” And all so often, our uncertainty, our fear, our confusion, mean we don't feel able to talk about what is really important. We are silent about the resurrection, about the supernatural, about the power of Jesus to change lives today. We fail. We let Jesus down. Or am I the only one?
I believe we need to face the uncertainty, to face the mess inside. It's OK, with Mark, to pause, to put the pen down and reflect, at this point of failure and uncertainty. Someone very wisely said during Holy Week “You have to mourn to celebrate!” I don't believe in “re-enacting” the death and resurrection – but I do believe it is hugely helpful to be able to pause, reflect on the two sides to the Passion-tide coin – the death of Christ for our sins and his resurrection – and to “Experience Easter” on the back of having solemnly remembered – called to mind – the suffering of Christ for us.
And you have to mourn your own sin and failure, to celebrate fully the victory and power of Jesus.
But you have to move on from there. Just as it is a mystery why Mark left his Gospel unfinished, is really is a mystery why we get stuck in our confusion, fear and uncertainty. There are lots of possible answers to do with hurt, lack of knowledge, deliberate disobedience, enemy attack and the fallen state of the world. How can we get out of that place?
Mark gives the spoiler in verse 7. The disciples were meant to meet up with Jesus in Galilee. Antipas's (if that was who wrote verses 9-20) summary of the resurrection appearances points us to the other Gospels, and they are united in this: it was in meeting with Jesus, in encountering Jesus, that confidence, hope, joy and victory replaced uncertainty, fear, and confusion. It was in meeting with Jesus – and in the coming of his Spirit – that John and Peter and Mark and Paul. were transformed. It was in meeting Jesus that the disciples became a movement, a community, something life-changing.
And it is in meeting Jesus, in an encounter with Jesus and a touch from his holy Spirit (which is an encounter with Jesus!) that we are set free from uncertainty, fear, and confusion today. We need to seek that encounter at the Lord’s table, in the word, in prayer including silent waiting on God, and in praise and worship.
Someone recently said “Resurrection is the Christian term for defiance”. Resurrection was the way Jesus defied death. Imagine death as a great big hand: all of that hand held Jesus – physically, emotionally, spiritually Jesus as in the grip of death. But Jesus showed he is bigger, stronger than death itself. “Death could not keep his prey. He tore the bars away!” In his resurrection Jesus defied all the powers, political and religious – that had opposed him.
Because of the resurrection, we can be victorious over our sins, over our habits, over our fears. Because of the resurrection, we can defy the powers that say “the church is finished!” We can defy the sneering intellectualism that says “there is no god, man is the master of all things, glory to man in the highest.” ut that comes not just from knowign about the resurrection. It come as we meet Jesus. We need to encounter him today.
We need to do what Mark clearly intended to do. We need to return to the narrative, where we are in confusion, fear, uncertainty, pick up the pen, and write up the truth of our encounter with Jesus.
© Gilmour Lilly April 2016
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