Thomas J Parlette
“Back to the Beginning”
Mark 16: 1-8
4/4/21, Easter
A good ending is hard to come by.
Movie makers know this.
T.V. Producers know this.
Novelists know it too.
Even the high tech makers of videogames – the best of which are driven by compelling storylines and not just shooting enemy soldiers, throwing a touchdown pass playing as Aaron Rodgers, or diving too fast through crowded city streets – know that a good ending is easier said than done.
A good ending answers all our lingering questions.
A good ending ties up loose ends.
A good ending brings everything full circle, and the world seems to make sense again.
A good ending lets us sit back, take a deep breath and say, “Ahhhh – that was a good story. I can rest easy, for now, it is finished.”
Which is precisely the problem with the Gospel of Mark. Mark doesn’t seem to have a good ending at all. We go to the tomb with the women early on the third day. The stone is rolled away. An angelic visitor is there inside the tomb saying, “Don’t 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 where 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 the women went out – and fled. They ran away. They were terrified. And they didn’t say anything to anyone. Because they were afraid.
And that’s how Mark ends the story. Most bibles have a shorter and loner ending included – but those were probably tacked on many years later by well-meaning scribes who just couldn’t live with the ending Mark came up with.
The other Gospel writers seem to do a better job with their endings. I think Matthew has a very effective ending. Matthew gives us real closure. He has the risen Christ appearing to his disciples and as he is ascending into the clouds, Jesus gives them the Great Commission – “Go and make disciples of all nations…” Good ending. Hollywood would be proud.
Luke sort of gives us an ending. He tells the wonderful story of Jesus appearing to his disciples on the road to Emmaus, but then he just keeps going with his story and writes a whole other book, the Acts of the Apostles. The one thing you can say about Luke though – he made sure to tell the whole story, he didn’t leave any loose ends.
The Gospel of John, not surprisingly, is different from the others. It seems like John just can’t bear the thought of ending his story. He keeps adding on story after story. He tells about the disciples going back to fishing, and about the picnic on the beach and Jesus command to feed my sheep. In John, the story keeps going and going and going.
But Mark, most scholars agree, ended his story abruptly at verse 8 – “The women said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.”
Very bleak. Very incomplete. I’m sure his first audience probably sat there asking, “Is that it? Is that all there is?” When you read the Gospel of Mark it’s very hard to sit back and say, “Ahhh, it is finished.”
And maybe that’s exactly what Mark wants. The editorial cartoonist Thomas Nast once gave a public exhibition of his skill as an artist. He took a canvas 6 feet long and 2 feet wide and he placed it horizontally on an easel up on a stage so his audience could see him work. He began sketching out a landscape. A lovely green meadow appeared with rolling hills, herds of sheep, fields of grain, and a farmhouse and an orchard appeared with a bright blue sky and fleecy white clouds overhead. Gorgeous.
Finally, it appeared no finishing touch was needed, and the artist stood aside, with brush still in hand to accept the hearty applause of his audience.
When the applause subsided, Nast stepped back up to the canvas, dipped his brush into some darker colors, and began applying them recklessly, almost violently, to his beautiful picture. Out went the cheery blue sky and the fluffy white clouds. “Did you ever see a picture like this?” he asked as he blotted out the meadows, fields, sheep and orchard. Up, down, across he went until the landscape was totally obliterated. It looked like a big, dark mess.
Then with a twinkle in his eye, Nash stepped aside again, and laying down his brush, he said, “It is finished.” But no applause came this time. The audience was confused – they didn’t know what to make of this. Then Nast asked his stage crew to place a gilded, golden frame around his apparently ruined work of art, and turn it up so it stood in a vertical position.
And the mystery was revealed. There before their eyes, the audience could now see a picture of a beautiful waterfall, with the water plunging over a cliff of dark rock into a pool below, surrounded by trees and bushes. And of course, the audience burst into applause.
The people in the audience thought the picture was finished. They saw what they thought was a good ending. But the artist had something else in mind. When Nast turned his picture on its head, a completely new image emerged.
Mark seems to do the same thing with his Gospel. He turns it on its head and gives us something completely different than what we thought. Mark doesn’t want to leave us in the garden outside an empty tomb. He doesn’t want to drop us off behind closed doors in an upper room. In fact, Mark doesn’t want to leave us in Jerusalem at all. Instead, Mark sends us back to Galilee. He sends us back to the beginning.
Richard Jensen has pointed out that in Mark, there are two responses to Jesus and his message. People react with fear or faith. One or the other. In most instances, the ones who respond with fear are Jesus’ own disciples. Consider, for example, the stories of the disciples whenever they are in boats. The first time they get into a boat with Jesus, a storm comes up and the disciples panic and wonder how Jesus can be sleeping in the back of the boat during all this. So they wake him up and Jesus calms the storm. And Jesus asks them, “Why were you afraid.”
Later, they’re back in a boat again, this time Jesus has stayed behind to pray by himself. Again, a storm rolls in and the disciples are afraid. But then they see what they think is a ghost coming towards them on the water, and they are even more terrified. And Jesus says, “It’s me, don’t be afraid.”
And of course we’ve just come through the Lenten season and Good Friday when we hear Peter, the most favored disciple, deny Jesus three times because he was afraid of the Roman authorities. Time after time, those closest to Jesus, his own disciples, respond with the Jesus with fear.
Interestingly, the ones who respond to Jesus with faith are usually the unnamed characters in Mark’s Gospel, especially the women. First, there was the woman who had the persistent flow of blood and asked Jesus for healing. Then there was the Syro-Phoenician woman who came seeking healing for her daughter and wins Jesus over saying, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And we remember the woman who anointed Jesus from alabaster jar of pure nard. We don’t know their names, but they are the ones who respond to Jesus with faith.
So when Mark clearly names the women present at Jesus’ crucifixion, and then names them again here on Easter morning, well, the expectation is “Ahhh, finally, someone close to Jesus is going to get it right.” Our hopes for a happy, neat, satisfying ending are riding on these women responding with joy, running back and telling the other disciples that Jesus has indeed risen from the grave. Everything is going to be alright. Our Easter hope hinges on Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome.
That’s why this seems like such a bad ending. We expect so much from these women, and yet too are afraid. They flee in terror. They don’t say anything to anyone. And so we are left alone. There are no more characters left on stage. What happens now? How will people hear this story about Jesus’ resurrection if no one says anything?
And that’s precisely where Mark wants to leave us. Mary Ann Talbot points out that we need to ask not what this ending means, but rather what does it do. And what it does is leave us as stewards of the Good News. We may wonder, “Is there anyone else available to tell the story of Jesus’ resurrection?” – well of course there is, the audience itself, the hearers of the story, and today, my friends – that’s you.
Donald Juel has also written about this curious ending of Mark. He says, “Mark’s Gospel forbids closure. There is no stone in front of the tomb. Jesus is out, on the loose. The doors in Mark’s Gospel are emphatically open. The curtain of the Temple has been torn open. Jesus is out of the tomb. God is no longer safely behind the curtain.”
In Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God is out of the tomb. God is no longer in Heaven only, no longer behind the curtain. In Jesus Christ, God is no longer confined to the pages of a book, or locked in a sanctuary until we come back next week. In Mark’s story, the Spirit of God in Jesus Christ is out there, ahead of you.
So the question Mark wants to leave us with is “How will you respond?” Will we respond with fear, like the disciples, including the women at the tomb? Or will you respond with faith? The kind of faith that will drive you to tell the story. To pick up where Mark leaves off. Go back to the beginning and live the story all over again. So don’t be alarmed. Jesus has been raised. He is not here. He is out there. Go, tell the story. He is going ahead of you. Go back to the beginning and there you will see him. Go back to the beginning and tell the story of God’s love shown to you in Jesus Christ, the one crucified, the one risen. It’s now our turn to go back to the beginning and live the story again.
May God be praised.
Alleluia. Alleluia. Amen.
