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The End of Mark: Mark 16:1-8
04/04/99
The end of Mark….
(Mark 16:1) When the Sabbath was over,
If you remember, chapter fifteen ended with Jesus’ body being laid in a tomb provided by Joseph of Arimathea As Joseph and his servants rolled the stone against the tomb, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses and Salome mother of John and James watched from a distance. That was late on the Friday afternoon as darkness and the Jewish Sabbath approached.
The Sabbath – from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday – imposed restrictions upon what could be done with respect to anointing Jesus’ body. And this Sabbath in Jerusalem was also the first day of the feast of Unleavened bread, and so as Jerusalem was filled with worshippers, the public ceremonies laid out in the law for the first day of the feast were kicking in just as Jesus was being buried.
The city was busy, and Jesus’ death largely now a receding footnote. Except for his followers, who were scattered demoralized, defeated, confused, and brokenhearted. As the night fell, and as the women talked and comforted one another, they made plans for a more honorable anointing of Jesus’ body than had been possible in the haste to get his body buried before the Sabbath.
As soon as the Sabbath was over, late on the Saturday, while there was opportunity, these three made preparations so that first thing next morning they could go to the tomb.
Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body.
What loyal and loving followers are these three women. They had been at the cross as Jesus died watching from a distance (15:40), and they had seen where he had been buried (15:47). It is about 6:00pm on the Saturday, and they go to purchase the spices which they will use to anoint Jesus’ body the next morning.
Spices were used not for mummification, but as an act of love to and honor of the deceased, and to offset the indignity of the odor of decomposition. These perfumes or aromatic oils would be poured over the head of the deceased person’s body.
(Mark 16:2) Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb
It is quite obvious that these women expect to find Jesus’ body, despite all Jesus had said about rising from the dead. Their love for and admiration of and loyalty to Jesus had not apparently diminished with his death. But, and make no mistake about this, in their minds he was dead, and they had no expectation except that he would stay dead.
You know what? It is perfectly normal for people to believe that a dead person will stay dead. That’s what dead people do. Apart from the historic space/time reality of Jesus’ resurrection, there’s no reason to believe anything else.
Now let me comment on the matters of days. Sunday morning was, in one way of reckoning, the third day Jesus had been dead. – He had died at the end of what we would call Friday afternoon, which was the end of the Jewish day. So that was one day. He lay entombed all the next day -- Friday sunset to Saturday sunset). He was raised at some time early on the Sunday morning – the third day.
(Mark 16:3) and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?"
On the way to the tomb the women are talking amongst themselves, and asking themselves the very reasonable and practical question as to how they might manage to get into the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body. They had seen Joseph and his servants roll the stone against the tomb, and were concerned about finding someone to roll it up and away from the tomb. Who might be around to do this for them?
(Mark 16:4) But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away.
The flow of the text suggests that they rounded a corner, or in some other way suddenly saw the tomb, and saw that the stone had already been rolled away. Hmmmmm, what’s with that? I imagine that upon seeing this they would have looked at each other and quickened their pace.
Why had the angel removed the stone? Not to let Jesus out, but to let the women in!
(Mark 16:5) As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
And so the women enter the open tomb. We’re not sure if Mark means that they entered the main room of the tomb, or that they had actually entered the room off the main room where Jesus’ body had been laid on the rock shelf. I think the latter.
They enter, expecting to find Jesus’ body on a shelf, wrapped in linen cloth. But are they in for a surprise!
The other day I was working in the office and had to get up to go to the bathroom. I came out of the bathroom, walked into my office, thinking about what I need to do, and their was Scot sitting chipper in my desk chair. I about had cardiac arrest!
Well imagine going into a tomb and seeing Scot – or anyone else – just sitting there waiting – an sitting where you expect to see a dead body wrapped in cloth!
As it says, a man with a white robe was sitting there on the right side. I imagine the angel sitting either on the very shelf where Jesus had laid, or on an adjacent shelf.
I would imagine that at first the women are spooked, frightened in the normal human sense by someone being in the tomb. But then, almost instantaneously, thoughts would start pouring forth. Where is Jesus? Who is this guy? What has he done with Jesus’ body? What’s going on here?
Well, as it turns out, this figure before them is a divine messenger – he has a message for the women about Jesus.
(Mark 16:6) "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified.
Jesus’ absence from the tomb has disturbed them. They are alarmed, disoriented, frightened, confused. The young man’s response to the women suggests that their alarm – at least at first -- is over the issue of what has happened to Jesus’ body. They had been looking for him, but he wasn’t there, and this man was here. So where’s the body? There is no evidence that they had even thought about resurrection as an explanation.
But the angel is there to deliver a message, and he does.
Jesus, the very Jesus from Nazareth, the very same one who was crucified, well…
It is important that the angelic messenger identifies Jesus so precisely. It is the real human Jesus who is from Nazareth in Galilee – this Jesus of a particular time and place – who was in fact crucified, who did in fact really die – something astounding has happened to this Jesus!
The historic orthodox Christian church – Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant – has always been very careful to affirm the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
The angel continues…
He has risen! He is not here.
This very same Jesus is gone. He is not here in the tomb. He has risen.
There is no chastisement of the women for their unbelief. Indeed their unbelief is quickly forgiven. But just as he said would happen, Jesus has risen, he is not in the tomb.
The angel condescends to their real human need to see the evidence that Jesus is gone.
See the place where they laid him.
The man – the angel – shows the women the shelf where Jesus’ body had been laid. He is not there. He is gone. Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, who died, and who was laid here in this tomb on this spot – he is not here – he has risen from the dead!
Let me mention here that the fact that it was women who first witnessed the empty tomb. This fact was problematic and embarrassing for the early church. Women were not eligible as witnesses in Jewish law.
The primitive church would not have invented this detail, and it is here included for the simple reason that Mark believes it to be true.
The angel goes on…
(Mark 16:7) 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.'"
Truth, revelation, always demands an appropriate response. The truth about the resurrection requires an extra measure of necessary response. Christianity is not about a group of people who gather around the teachings of guru “A” as opposed to guru “B.”
Christianity is about the God of heaven and earth breaking into the world in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, and doing something inherently important for the world itself, and for every person -- rising from the dead as victorious Lord and King of life and promising a similar resurrection to life for those who be loyal to and believe in Him.
The fact and truth of the resurrection requires that we do things say things and live in a way that we would not do if the resurrection were not true.
Truth, revelation, always demands an appropriate response, and in this case the response is to go tell the disciples the news!
Though Peter and the others had fled, run, abandoned and even denied the Lord, the angel still refers to them as “his disciples”
Now back during the Lord’s supper, when Jesus had predicted Peter’s denial, he had declared that after their failure he would be with them again – in Galilee.
"You will all fall away," Jesus told them, "for it is written:
"'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.'
But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee." (Mark 14:27-28)
Now the angel is asking the women to bring reminder of the word of Jesus to Peter.
We know from John’s account that Mary Magdalene did indeed go to Peter – “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, but we don’t know where they have put him”
(Mark 16:8) Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
All through the book of Mark, people have experienced manifestations of the Lord’s presence or power or intervention that left them stone struck, disoriented, alarmed, afraid, trembling.
Remember at the transfiguration Peter and James and John, when confronted with glory of the transfigured Christ, started saying silly things about building a tent for Elijah and Moses, and then Mark added, “He did not know what to say they were so frightened.”
When Jesus had stood up in the boat and rebuked the waves, and quiet had settled over the water, the disciples were terrified, “who is this that the wind and waves obey him?”
When the townspeople came to Jesus and saw the would demoniac calm sitting at his feet, they were afraid.
When Jesus came forth at night on the water as a special manifestation of the glory of God, the disciples were terrified.
When a human being confronts the reality of God, when they confront God’s intervention in the everyday process of their history, they don’t know how to react or what to do.
Mark in his gospel is telling his readers, and us, that the one God of heaven and earth has broken into history in the person of Jesus. Where Jesus is, God is. Jesus is the presence of God, is indeed God present, with us, God with us. And God is not some quaint manageable handy invention. We can’t control God. We can’t define God. He defines Himself. He breaks into history as He chooses. And we he does, as he has done in Jesus, people tremble. All through Mark, when God reveals the dignity and glory of his reality, fear and awe is the response.
The bodily resurrection of Jesus is just such an intervention into the affairs of men. God has come close, He has acted, He has changed the rules. What will we do!
Jesus who died as a failure and a curse abandoned and betrayed who was supposed to be here in the tomb is gone. He has been raised. He is alive – not as some vague presence, but really, with a body that eats and drinks and can be touched and felt.
Jesus whom we loved as a prophet and a teacher and master, is more than we thought. He is the Lord.
And so the women flee from the tomb, minds whirling, hearts racing, souls shaking, spirits overwhelmed by the unexpected turn of events, hearts and minds trying to get oriented and process and make decisions about something which changes everything.
And that’s the end of Mark’s gospel, at least as we have it. As one person puts it, as Mark’s gospel ends the women do not dance and go skipping down the yellow brick road to Galilee. No they are seized by terror. It shakes them and rattles them and paralyzes them. And we’re sort of left hanging as when a song ends one or two notes shy of what we expect. The early church struggled with the abruptness of Mark’s story. Many folks tried to add nice endings – to end with a big family reunion up in Galilee.
But no. And there is something incredibly and profoundly instructive about the way Msrk ends here in verse 8
The resurrection of Jesus is the most definitive direct evidence of something “other” that has ever come to human experience.
You know, how we like to domesticate and familiarize Easter – little bunnies and little ducklings and pretty flowers and cute little kids in dresses and bow ties and nice thoughts about the immortal soul passing quietly into the great loving unknown, and departed loved ones not being really gone and everything having a happy ending blah blah blah. You almost expect Della Rees to show up at any moment.
The Hollywood Easter would end something like this: Mary has come to weep over her lost loved one and friend whom she misses terribly. But when she looks around she finds that Jesus’ body is not in the tomb. Where could he be? And an angel, glowing in soft pastels, is there on the rock slab. He speaks to Mary. Mary, Jesus’ body in not here, but it’s OK. Jesus wanted me to tell you that he will always be with you. You will carry him in your heart. He will always be near. Just look up in the sky at night, and there he will be looking down upon you.”
But the gospels don’t treat Jesus that way. Jesus has indeed been raised form the dead. This is our only hope that we too can and will survive and live beyond death. Jesus is the Lord. And it is with him that I will have to deal. And the question hangs there for us, unresolved, as it does for these woman on the first Easter morning. What will I do with Jesus? What will I do with the revelation that God has broken into our world and overcome death and curse not in just some general way but through Jesus who is now exalted to His right hand as king and Lord. What will I do with the fact that Jesus who is the Lord walked in a path of self giving suffering for the sake of others, even unto death.
Will I believe, not in some vague idea of immortality or heaven, but in Jesus as the resurrected Lord of history, Lord of Heaven, Lord of my life? Will I be loyal to Him? Will I choose to live and walk as he did?
This is where Mark leaves us.
Jesus came into Galilee preaching the good of news of the kingdom of God. Now Jesus will meet again with his disciples preaching again the good news of the kingdom of God, and sending them forth to proclaim this good news.
Jesus is King. He has defeated sin and evil on the cross. He has defeated death in rising from the dead. Believe in Him, live for Him as your king, and he will raise you up now to life eternal and when you die to a new bodily life in a renewed heaven and earth.
Amen |
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