Mk 16:1-8
12 April 2009
Easter
“To Be Continued”
Have you ever been watching a TV show, and you’re really caught up in it, and you glance at the clock and notice that the hour is almost up? And you think to yourself, “That doesn’t seem right. There’s still too much they have to do. There are unresolved issues!” Maybe some people are right in the middle of a chase. Or perhaps, romance is in the air! The girl and the guy, who have never confessed their love for each other, are just about to do so…when suddenly we see on the screen: “to be continued.”
“To be continued.” I suppose that’s not so bad when it isn’t a surprise. Sometimes we know right up front that we’re dealing with a two-part episode—or we’re watching a show with a continuing storyline. But if we’re really expecting all the loose ends to be tied up, we can find ourselves saying, “What’s the deal?”
Similar
to that is when the show or the movie has a sudden ending. We’re in the middle of a scene, and suddenly,
the screen goes black. We might say,
“What kind of ending is that?” I think
life is like that much of the time.
People come and go in our
lives, and we wonder, “What happened to So-and-so? We have unresolved issues!” But we’re left hanging.
Today we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord
Jesus Christ. (Actually, every Sunday is a “little Easter.” That’s why it’s the Lord’s Day.) We’ve heard a description in Isaiah of a
banquet prepared by the Lord of hosts, a banquet whose theme is the death of
death itself. But it’s the gospel reading that especially interests
me. You see, Mark’s telling of the resurrection story has an ending that
might have us wondering about some of the stuff I just mentioned.
If you think otherwise, you may be looking at
verses 9 to 20 as the ending. That would make a difference; that one ties
up the loose ends! Even so, most people (though admittedly, not all)
who’ve studied Mark in depth have concluded that his writing ends at verse 8. The stuff that comes after was added by
somebody else.
Here’s a quick word of
explanation: we have none of the original Hebrew and Greek
documents that make up the Bible. All we have are manuscripts, copies of
copies of copies, and so on. And the two oldest manuscripts of
Mark that we have, from the fourth century, end the gospel at verse 8.
It’s not until the next century that manuscripts with the longer ending begin
to appear.
Maybe, for whatever reason, Mark was prevented from finishing his gospel, or
maybe the final part of the scroll was somehow lost. And, of course,
there’s the possibility that he intended to end at verse 8.
Regardless of which of these is true, many people who came along later had the
same reaction: “what kind of ending is that?”
Mark’s apparent conclusion seemed very unsatisfying
for those who’ve been called “ancient copyists who could not tolerate a Gospel
that ended with frightened women.”[1] It just didn’t fit with what they knew to be
the truth. They knew it wasn’t a case of
“to be continued.” It’s just no way to
end a book!
We’ve all heard politicians make statements that
their staff members felt needed to be embellished. “This is what the mayor…or the senator…really meant.” Well, something similar seems to be going on
with Mark. Some people felt he needed
further explanation.
Here’s my question. (You’ll find that I like to ask them!) Why should
Mark tie up his narrative with a nice, neat ribbon? It’s not like there aren’t plenty of
unanswered questions in the scriptures, anyway!
It seems to me that Mark’s version is especially suited for Holy Week.
His telling of the Easter story still carries the dread that
overshadowed Jesus and his disciples.
The growing storm clouds of that week still haven’t dissipated. There’s a real visceral feel to it.
We’re separated by so
many centuries and so many layers of tradition that it’s hard for us to hear
it, as if for the very first time. Put
yourself in the place of Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and
Salome. According to Jewish custom,
they’re preparing to anoint the dead body of Jesus. The very last
thing these women are expecting—as they
approach a tomb—is to find any signs of life!
But what happens? They’ve been wondering what to do about the
enormous boulder which was left sealing the tomb. They find that it’s been rolled away. That would be enough to make anyone suspicious. But it gets even better! Sitting inside, there’s a guy dressed in a
white robe. That just isn’t right!
He has a message for them. “Jesus, the previous occupant of this place,
is no longer here. The reason he is a
previous occupant is because he’s alive. Go tell your friends that he’ll meet you at
the appointed rendezvous.”
If we’re able to take all this in—to put
ourselves right there in the picture—then having the women tear off in a blind
panic seems entirely appropriate to me.
I think we’ve domesticated Easter, just as
we have domesticated Christmas. We’ve
tamed them. We’ve stripped them of their
wonder, their danger.
In the past, I’ve said the awesome reality
of God coming to earth as one of us
gets lost in the mad rush to do and buy all the stuff that we’re “supposed to”
at Christmastime. Some drive themselves
to the point of both exhaustion and destitution. I’ve been accused of being the Grinch, but
the Grinch finally does figure it out—sort of!
But as I said, we’ve also domesticated
Easter.
I’ll give one example, something I noticed a
few days ago at the Tops Market in Bath.
First, let me say that I bear no ill will toward the Easter bunny. I carry no grudge against that lovable
character. When I was young, there were
a number of Easter mornings when my sister and I awoke to baskets with
chocolate eggs, nestled in artificial grass.
Still, I noticed a
display at Tops that I found interesting.
“Thrill your child!” it proclaimed in large print. “Get a handwritten letter from the Easter
bunny.” (Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t
think most kids would consider
getting a letter from the Easter
bunny to be thrilling!)
I didn’t hang around long enough to find out
what was required to receive such a correspondence. I think filling out some kind of form was
necessary. I guess I found the display
interesting because it reminded me of how we do exchange what has great value for what has little value.
Still, maybe you’re wondering why I even
bring up this business about domesticating Easter. Why bring up the Easter bunny? What does all that have to do with our gospel
text?
For some people, like those ancient copyists
I mentioned earlier, seeing verse 8 as the end of Mark’s gospel is
unthinkable. For some people, it’s
mandatory that we quickly push past
the messiness and the pain of Holy Week to resurrection. It is vital that the story be tied up with a
nice, neat ribbon. And in a world like
ours, one with so much suffering, it’s really hard to argue with that!
Nonetheless, I would submit that it’s
perfectly okay to see Easter as a story with unresolved issues. Australian pastor Bruce Prewer says he’s
content “if Mark
decided to end it at verse 8, with the women confused and keeping quiet about
their weird experience at the empty tomb…[S]uch confusion and disbelief is
good. It rings true.”[2] I tend to think so, too.
We have to be careful about thinking we
“have” Jesus; we have to be cautious about believing we’ve “got” him. Reflecting on Mark’s “unresolved ending,” the
late Lutheran minister Donald Juel was fond of saying, “Christ is on the loose!” He is on the loose.
What does that mean for us? If Christ is indeed on the loose, then the
story truly is continuing. And if your guess is that the Easter bunny is
the actor in that story, you might want to guess again. The actors in that story are you and I. It’s a role that most people are only dimly
aware that they’re playing. There are
even plenty of people who’ve been in church their entire lives who are unaware
of their role in the resurrection story.
But thanks be to God, it’s a story that is
ever continuing. The script is still
being written.