Mark 16:1-8
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our LORD Jesus Christ.
Appropriately on this first day of April, the ending of Mark’s gospel reads like an April Fools’ Day joke.
The women who came from Galilee to Jerusalem with Jesus,
looked on from a distance at his crucifixion,
and watched as his body was laid in a tomb,
returned to the tomb very early in the morning,
taking burial spices with them. And there
“Surprise! He is not here.”
Instead of finding their Lord exactly where they expected, they found an empty tomb
And though they must have heard the young man’s blessed assurance, “Do not be afraid”, their surprise was mixed with the wonder and amazement of mystery, and then with terror and fear.
Entering the empty tomb is uncomfortable, at best.
In fact, it is so uncomfortable that scholars think early Christians added onto the Gospel writer’s account to create an ending that was more satisfactory.
Don’t we all want an Easter story that is wrapped with a pastel bow, filled with jubilation and has a happy ending?
Instead, Mark tells us the women fled and said nothing to anyone.
As uncomfortable as it is, the women’s response to the empty tomb creates a mirror in which we see ourselves. In our own experiences of following Jesus, most of us can name surprising and joyful highs and moments of wonder and awe, but also those times of disorientation, and places where we have felt only terror or fear.
The Good News is the empty tomb is not the end of the story. The young man tells the women that Jesus has gone before them to Galilee, where his ministry and their life of following Jesus began.
To see Jesus again we must look ahead.
This morning, we celebrate the miraculous news of the Resurrection with joyful songs and shouts of Alleluia, but this afternoon and tomorrow, or the next day, we’ll return to our own Galilees— the places where we come from,
or where we work and live, and in our everyday routines.
May we remember that
Jesus goes before us into our neighborhoods and city streets;
Jesus goes before us into our schools and college campuses;
Jesus goes before us into our offices and board rooms;
Jesus goes before us into hospitals and doctor’s offices;
and Jesus goes before us into the prisons and treatment centers.
This Easter the Gospel asks us to be willing to tell the story of the Good News of Jesus Christ even when the ending remains unwritten. It asks us to share the Resurrection hope that is in us (1 Peter 3:15), confident that God is working in our midst to accomplish his purposes all around us and ready to follow Him.
Thanks be to God.
