Sermon for Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024: Terror and Amazement based upon Mark 16:1-8

Mark 16:1-8 The Resurrection of Jesus

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 

They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 

​As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’ So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

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     They had to have told someone, right? We know that the book we call Mark wasn’t written down live as it happened. The author wasn’t a court stenographer or me sharing my reactions to a show I like on social media. The book we call Mark is a product of memory, curation, inspiration, and faithful labor produced well after the events it describes.  One of my favorite things about comparing the four Gospels is considering the message the author hopes us to find within its sermons, parables, and miracles. As a person whose job it is, in part anyway, to tell stories and read stories and listen to stories, it is interesting for me to consider how the discovery of the resurrection is so different in Mark than in the other three Gospels. If you were telling a story with as wild an ending as resurrection from the dead, would you then turn around and have the heroes of the story be too scared to tell anyone what happened?

     Maybe I’m exaggerating a little in calling Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ mom Mary, and Salome heroes. I don’t think I’m exaggerating much though! In his introduction to Mark, Richard Horsley, when comparing the women disciples to the 12 men disciples, says that the women “serve as models of faithfulness.” Unlike we who show up on Easter morning expecting a Resurrection, these women came to the tomb assuming they would only find the dead. In her commentary on this text, Cheryl Lindsay describes what they are doing as the “unfinished work of caring for the dead body of Jesus.” It is necessary and valuable work that is also difficult and heartbreaking, and yet, they show up to tend to the One They Love. They are assuming that they are arriving to do what Lindsay calls “a final act of honor, care, and presence” in spite of the danger that could have lingered after Rome sentenced him to death. Instead, what they become is witnesses.

     Léoncienne Labonté says of these women, “The dead don’t scare them.” But, that young man in white sure does! Which is fair! I would have been alarmed, too! It doesn’t matter that, as Cheryl Lindsay notes, the Gospel of Mark shares predictions that Jesus will rise from the dead three times (8:31, 9:31, 10:33-34), the women who had been so faithful still didn’t expect the tomb to no longer contain Jesus. This angelic figure says what so many angels end up saying in Bible stories, “Do not be afraid.”  The word that is translated as “alarmed” in the translation that we heard today carries with it a sense of being amazed, but not in a totally joyful way. Instead, according to Aubrey West, “alarmed” means something more like “overwhelmed by surprise or perplexity.” She goes on to say, “Nothing they see (or do not see) makes sense.” Even though Jesus had tried to tell them, I’m not sure they could have truly prepared for the empty tomb and angelic presence they found. I’m not sure that they could have truly prepared for the words “he is going ahead of you to Galilee.”

     Mark is the only one of the four Gospels where we don’t see Jesus after the resurrection. Now, if you open the Bibles in your pews, you might see that there are some post-resurrection encounters that might be under a heading that says something like “the shorter ending of Mark” and “the longer ending of Mark.” But scholars generally agree these were added on later. The oldest versions of Mark that we have don’t include them. While John has Jesus comforting the ones who came to the tomb, and Luke has Jesus appearing as a traveler his friends don’t immediately recognize, and Matthew has Jesus being the one telling the women not to be afraid and telling the men “I am with you always,” Aubrey West points out, Mark has the simple promise that Jesus is going ahead of them. Even though we’re pretty sure that the last thing the author wrote is that the faithful women run from the tomb in terror and amazement, what could be the end actually opens up for us a new beginning.

     A story’s meaning doesn’t only come from the writer. It also comes from those who hear it. When you hear that the faithful ran away and said nothing to anyone, I hope you will remember that we are here as a reminder that they must have finally moved through their fear and told the truth of what they saw. Even though, as Cheryl Lindsay points out, Mark leaves the story of what they say to be told by others, we have heard the promise that Jesus goes before us. Audrey West offers up what I think is helpful insight: there is no place, including death, that Jesus’ followers can go where “Jesus isn’t already there.”  Mark isn’t showing a story of Jesus’ abandoning his followers, but instead repeating his first instruction to them, the instruction to follow.
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     As you think about the meaning of Mark’s resurrection story for your life at this moment, I hope you’ll take this promise to heart. Even as we carry grief and pain in our hearts, even as our actions are shaped by fear, even as we are overwhelmed and confused, Jesus is known by his promises. He has promised to go ahead of us into the worst we can imagine and show us a way through. May we hear this promise and know that we can follow, even when we have to take a break because we are afraid. The story hasn’t yet ended. It is up to us to tell the next part.