Beginning Again

Our oldest manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark stop with this startling and abrupt verse, “The women fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”  Some later manuscripts add a shorter ending, and even later manuscripts add verses 9 through 19.  But our oldest descriptions of the first Easter morning in Mark end with the silenced women fleeing the tomb.  No resurrection stories here, no seaside dinners with Jesus, no comforting words of the resurrected Christ—no road to Emmaus.  This is the endpoint of Mark’s original story.  Or is it?

Will you pray with me?  “Never-ending God, be with us as we witness Easter through Mark’s eyes, and help us live Easter’s new beginnings into our own lives.  Still speaking God, God of new beginnings, be with us as we peer into the empty tomb, and teach us the fullness of your unconditional love, even as we ponder this startling story.  Amen.”

This original ending of Mark challenges us to re-imagine the Easter experience.  As generations of Christ-followers in the years just after the Gospel of Mark was written experienced this ending, they also experienced the risen Christ in their own lives and communities.  They sensed the risen Christ-spirit among them, even as they struggled with their grief of losing their friend and rabbi.  And they slowly added their own endings to Mark.

Mark’s abrupt stop here could be seen as troubling, or perhaps as an invitation.  Let’s look deeper.  Beginning on Maundy Thursday, all of the male disciples had eventually abandoned Jesus.  Then, starting at the cross, the women disciples are the only ones mentioned, but even in this abrupt ending, they are now terrified on Easter morning and tell no one—they also abandon Jesus’ story.  Mark’s original story ends here, with everyone having abandoned Jesus, leaving us with many questions.

Most all of us have lost loved ones, and there is a terror and amazement as we struggle to cope with death.  The Greek words here describing the women’s experiences at the tomb are even stronger: tromos (which means deep trauma) and ecstasis (which means ecstasy). Trauma and ecstasy seized the women.  For those of you have lost loved ones, you can attest to the trauma, but the ecstasy here is a bit more difficult to grasp.  Why were the women ecstatic?  Could it be because they realized with the empty tomb that the life beyond death that Jesus predicted had come true?  Were they silent in the trauma of realizing Jesus was dead, but also ecstatic as they realized Jesus was still somehow alive beyond death, just as he said he would be? 

This jarring ending provokes so many questions.  How could the women just witness this amazing thing and then tell no one?  How could someone experience Jesus’ amazing life and deeds and then be silent about it?  Maybe Mark is inviting us to ask that question of ourselves.  How indeed can we read this story of the Good News and keep it to ourselves?  How can we question the action of these women when we ourselves fail to tell the good news to everyone in our lives?  Did Mark end the Gospel so abruptly to grab us and pull us into the story?  Is this story now about us?

These verses tell us that Jesus will meet his disciples—even Peter—in Galilee.  Why does it say all the disciples-- even Peter?  Remember that Peter had just failed miserably.  He strongly denied Jesus three times.  He ran away from Jesus at the very end.  He abandoned Jesus as a friend at the worst time, and we learn in the empty tomb that even Peter will see Jesus in Galilee.  Even Peter can begin again!  What an amazing statement of grace and forgiveness.  Imagine how terrible Peter was feeling, and Jesus forgives and invites even him to Galilee!  Even Peter’s abandonment when Jesus needed him most is forgiven!  If even Peter can join Jesus in Galilee, certainly we can, too.

Finally, the question most people ask is “How can the Gospel of Mark end this way?”  The historical documents show that several different endings were sequentially added to this abrupt ending because the ending as it is grabs us and will just not let us go.  And maybe that is what it was intended to do—grab and not let us go.  Maybe each community of Christ must write the ending of Mark for itself, making a living Gospel story.  What do we do with this story of Jesus preaching the unconditional love of God, and being crucified for it?  What do we do with the empty tomb?  How do we explain the continued presence of Christ in our lives?  How do we explain Christ who is here among us today?  How do WE fit into this story now?

What would our ending of the Gospel of Mark sound like?  What if this story about death and being renewed in life is about our lives today?  As Christ-followers, we believe that the cross of Easter shows us death from this embodied life is not the final word.  Jesus taught and lived a love that extends  life beyond the horizon of death. The truth of our eternal heart transcends the reality of our body of dust. The Body of Christ, that is us, the church, does not die, but is always transforming into new life.  And since we are the Body of Christ, we have abundant new life, always beginning again patterned after Jesus’ Easter morning resurrection.

How might this look in our modern lives?  After I lost my first spouse, I had abandoned all hope.  I know what it is like to be in trauma with no ecstasy.  I felt completely alone; empty, lost, afraid, and without hope for my future.  Perhaps you have felt adrift in life like this at some point in your life, drifting without purpose or direction.  But I learned that God had not abandoned me just because bad things happened in my life.  God was still with me.  God loved me unconditionally in good times and in bad.  God gently coaxed me along, loving me when I was the least lovable.  God brought me to a church, much like this one, that accepted me in my broken sadness, frustration, hurt and anger.  And that church lived God’s love back into my life, nourishing me back to spiritual health.  As I visited Charlie Henrich this week, he reflected the same story about this church—that you all held him up when he was so ill many years ago.  Or Bud Finch, who said this week that you loved him through his life’s troubles even when sometimes he just could not love himself.  These are all stories of the troubles of the world crucifying one of us, and yet, and yet, you loved one another as community, and lived a new ending to your Gospel of Mark, somehow, beginning again.

No matter who you are, and no matter where you are on life’s journey, Jesus welcomes you to meet him in Galilee, just as Jesus invited the disciples who had just so cruelly just abandoned him.  You could be failing in your life, just as the disciples.  You could be like the women who stayed at the cross and the tomb until the very end, but then fell apart in terrible trauma.  No matter who you are, you can follow Jesus in love, celebrating life beyond the horizon of death.  We are Easter People, and we declare together that love is stronger than death.

The many endings of Mark demonstrate that there are many ways to follow Jesus, many stories of death and beginning again.  When we follow Jesus and embrace God’s unconditional love, we imagine unconditional love extending beyond the grave, life beyond death; God’s unending love beyond all human struggle.   We are invited again, today, to meet Jesus in Galilee.  No matter who we are or where we are on life’s journey, Jesus is inviting us to begin again, right now. 

Christ rises!Christ is beginning again today.  And Christ’s beginning again in resurrection invites us to begin again in love right now.  Together, in this community of love at Spring Glen Church, we are always beginning again, we are always writing our own ending to Mark’s Gospel.  And our ending says that we are following Jesus, and in God’s unconditional love, we are always Beginning Again.  Blessed Easter to you, and Amen.