Easter Deliverance: The Critical Event

Mark 16:1-8

Presenting Engagement: two sides of Easter.
When I was growing up, the Easter Sunday service always wound up with a peeling of bells and the hymn which begins: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

The writer of the lyrics, Julia Ward Howe, was inspired by the words of Jeremiah 25:30 which reads- “He will thunder from his holy dwelling and roar mightily against His land. He will shout like those who tread the grapes, shout against all who live on earth.”

Now, those are not very Easter-like sentiments! They don’t sound much like affirmation of God’s love in Jesus.

But actually, Julia Ward Howe transformed Jeremiah’s words into an expression of the triumph of God. It’s divine glory that’s on the march! God’s truth and righteousness are transfiguring us all in the glory of Christ!

One particular verse even seems to challenge us: “He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat. Oh be swift my soul to answer him, be jubilant my feet! Our God is marching on!”

That’s straight out of Matthew 25 in the section known as The Judgment of the Gentiles. These are the verses where the righteous ones don’t remember ever feeding or giving drink to Jesus or clothing or welcoming or caring for Jesus. But he responds: “truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”[i]

I think we need that challenge of Christ to balance out the image of God’s glorious triumph and victory at Easter.

It is so easy to go from the praises and hosanna’s of Palm Sunday straight to the peeling of bells on Easter Sunday. It’s so easy to stand beside the parade route with arms held high, praising God, rejoicing in God’s mighty deed of resurrection. And it’s so easy to believe that the victory parade is all that Easter is about.

But there is no better time than Easter morning to ask ourselves how well we meet Christ’s challenge every day. There’s no better morning to discover how jubilant are our feet.

If we were strictly a praising and triumphant church we could just glance in passing at the Last Supper and the sharing of Jesus’ sacred blood in the cup of wine. We might only uses our peripheral vision to notice the sleeping disciples and the arrest of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. We could very easily allow Jesus’ agonizing death on the cross, his dry mouth sticky with sour wine, the humiliating abandonment by his closest disciples, the tear streaked cheeks of his mother- we could simply make these images and feelings into momentary shadows on an otherwise cloudless spring day.

I don’t know what religion that “all praise and all victory all the time” is but according to Mark’s gospel, it is not Christianity.

According to Mark, Christian discipleship has a cost that points directly back to the cross.

The Gospel of Mark makes it clear that you can’t get from Palm Sunday to Easter without lingering in the shadow of the cross of Jesus.

Biblical Context: what is going on in the text?
Listen now to the whole story again and think about how it makes you feel.

At nine in the morning on Friday, after spitting on him, beating his head with a stick, and forcing him to struggle through the streets of Jerusalem under the weight of the heavy cross, the centurions crucified Jesus of Nazareth. At noon the sky went black and at three Jesus cried out to God: “Why have you forsaken me?” The crowd thought he was calling Elijah and ridiculed him again. Then in this cursed, shameful moment he breathed his final, mortal breath.

A group of three women watched this moment some distance away from the cross. They had followed Jesus to Jerusalem from the Galilee region and had looked after him wherever he went. They were now clutched together in sadness and dismay. They were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome.

Friday was also the day of Preparation for the sabbath and so in the evening a prominent Hebrew citizen known as Joseph of Arimathea went to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, to ask for possession of Jesus’ body for burial. Pilate, who had been wrist deep in the trials and crucifixion of Jesus, was surpirised by the request since he didn’t even know Jesus had already died. But after some double checking with the centurions Pilate granted Joseph’s request. So Joseph had Jesus’ body removed from the cross, wrapped in linen and placed in a tomb that had been hewn out of solid rock. Then a boulder was rolled across the tomb entrance. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James stood beside Joseph during the entire burial.

Now because the sabbath was quickly approaching, Jesus had been buried quickly, without proper annointing and cleaning. But once the sabbath was finished the two Mary’s returned to the tomb to perform this custom. It was early on the first day of the week, meaning Sunday, and they brought Salome along as well. Remember that these three had stood together watching Jesus pass out of this world and two of them had witnessed the burial. The three friends had supported each other through every step of this strange journey.

Now they were concerned that the boulder would be too heavy to move and there would be no one at the tomb to help them. They tentatively approached the tomb, arm in arm. Imagine the looks on their faces when they found that the boulder had already been removed! They never expected something like this! Who in the world could have been there before them? No one would have entered the tomb over the sabbath. That would have violated the divine law itself. Had grave robbers been there? Had Roman soldiers removed the body to prevent Jesus from becoming a popular martyr?

Then imagine the faces of these three women as they walked into the open tomb and found, not Jesus’ body, but a strangely dressed young man! He was calmly sitting right over there to one side telling them that Jesus had been raised from the dead and had left the tomb! He must have seen their expressions because he said to them: “Oh, don’t be alarmed. Just go now; go back and tell Peter that Jesus is going on to Galilee before everyone else.”

“Don’t be alarmed,” the angel had said.

Don’t be alarmed?!

They couldn’t help being alarmed. They were so overcome with fright and awe that they huddled together. They backed out of the tomb together and the minute they were clear of the place they all turned and ran away and kept quiet about this entire encounter.

Trembling and astonishment gripped them and they were too frightened to say anything to anyone.

Explication of Text: what’s it all mean?
So, how did this narrative make you feel? Do you feel like ringing any bells? Did the ending meet your expectations or leave you hanging?

It’s common to feel that this tale is unfinished. It’s common to feel like your expectations have been twisted all around. But then, Mark’s entire gospel is all about expectations that get upset, turned inside out, twisted all around.

You would expect Jesus to be glad when he miraculously heals someone and they call him Lord, but he isn’t. He keeps swearing people to silence and seems to want his identity kept secret- it’s called the messianic secret. You would expect Jesus’ disciples to understand who he is and to stick by him in his hour of greatest need but they do not. You would expect that the angel’s news of Jesus’ resurrection would cause these women to run joyously to tell the others. But they flee in fear instead.

Well if this ending doesn’t present the image of Easter that you want or expect or enjoy, there are two additional variations in Mark’s gospel that you can choose from. The shorter ending, about a paragraph long, claims that the women did pass along the angel’s message quickly as they were commanded.

In the longer ending, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene and when she tells what she’s seen, no one believes her. Jesus later appears to two other disciples as they walk in the country and no one believes their story either. Then Jesus appears to the primary eleven disciples, scorns their disbelief, and sends them out into the world to proclaim the good news. After commissioning the disciples, Jesus ascends into heaven and the disciples disperse. Everyone ends up right where we think they ought to end up.

Even though these endings offer greater closure, neither is considered historically part of Mark’s gospel. They were perhaps added a hundred years after the Easter event precisely because no one in the early church ever liked Mark’s ending.

So why would Mark tell the most important story of the Bible in such an inconclusive way?

Maybe his real ending was simply torn from the scroll that he wrote the gospel on.

Or maybe Mark ends the gospel this way to tell us that Easter is not just about triumphant joy.

Maybe Mark is telling his Christian community not to base their faith on something as superficial as a triumphant Easter without the agony of Good Friday.

Listener Context: how does this relate to my life?
Maybe Mark is telling us that we’ve got to see this moment of fear and trembling at the empty tomb as THE critical moment- THE defining moment of faith for Christians.

After all, this is the very moment that we’ve been building up to through out Lent. This is our moment of deliverence and everything that has come before now was only a preparation for this moment.

And when a critical moment occurs in your life, in my life, it can be startling. It can be awe-some. It can cause your feet not to be jubilant. It can make you stammer and not know what to say.

But like the women who hear the words of the angel, we stand at this point of critical decision. In literary terms, they are the devices that draw us into the plot. We feel what they feel. We think as they think.

What will they do next? What will we do? How will we respond to Christ’s call to discipleship?

What does the good news of Jesus’ resurrection mean for you? For these faithful women, Jesus’ resurrection brings extreme tension and I believe it is no different for us.

In one sense we can ask ourselves if we will be disciples like Abraham who journey in covenant with God for a purpose larger than ourselves- for a blessing which passes through us but is not solely for our own sake. Like Joseph, will we show mercy to others rather than seek revenge even when they mean to harm us, and through mercy gather a community committed to the love of God and neighbor? Will we take stock of our true selves, ask for God’s forgiveness and accept the grace found only in Christ Jesus?

These are the challenges of discipleship.

In another sense, Mark’s ending of the Easter story makes us carry with us the vivid images of Jesus’ agony, despair, and doubt on the cross even as we hear the good news of his resurrection. The shadow of the cross makes our faith stronger on Easter because in our own wilderness moments of despair and doubt, we know that our savior has felt what we feel and that he is truly with us- even to the end of the age.

This is the reassurance of Christ.

Conclusion: what’s the Point?
The challenges of discipleship and the reassurance of Christ.

You see, I like the cliff hanger ending in Mark because it puts me in this uncomfortable place where the reassurance is not separate from the challenge. Christianity is not about a happy ending served up on a silver platter. It’s about a journey with reassurance in one of your pockets and challenge in the other. You have to deal with this tension to be a Christian. We have to constantly reassess our expectations of God and God’s expectations of us.

This confrontational, fragmented ending in Mark’s gospel makes that clear.

So go! Go from this critical moment of your life.

Go sing triumphant hymns and ring all the bells you can find. Believe the good news of Easter and join the parade with jubilant feet. Believe the fulfillment of God’s promise and be a joyful and challenged disciple of our risen Lord, Christ Jesus!

AMEN.

[i] Matthew 25:34-40