April 12, 2009
Acts 10: 22-34
Mark 16: 1-8
“He Is Not Here”
There once was a woman from Metairie
Who thought she should look for a better day.
So she got into her car,
Didn’t drive very far,
And …
That’s how Mark ends his Gospel. He stops and leaves us hanging, waiting for the real ending. We want more: we want the stories about Jesus appearing to the disciples. We want details. We want proof of the Resurrection. We want Thomas touching Jesus' wounds. We want Jesus cooking breakfast for his disciples on the seashore. We do not want Mark to stop, leaving us with nothing but an empty tomb, confusion, fear, and silence.
But Mark stops here, in silence. How should we approach this Gospel? How do we come to grips with this sparse account of what is supposed to be the most important story the world has ever heard? We can do what millions have done:
We can analyze it; analyze it to death if we want. It is easy to do. You just end the Jesus story with death the way all real stories must end.
You could say that the body was stolen, that the women who came that morning were too late. Someone had already stolen Jesus’ body. Then the women, once their fear subsided, spread the story of a young man in white, a stone rolled away, and Jesus risen.
Or, you could argue that Jesus did not die, that he was only in a coma when laid in the tomb. There are countless theories of Jesus being given potions to make it seem as if he died so he could be taken down quickly, laid in the tomb, and then revived. This story is about resuscitation, not resurrection. It is about Jesus being revived and living to a ripe old age while his disciples spread the Resurrection fantasy.
All such theories are simply variations on the theme that Resurrection is nonsense. It never happened and it never will happen. There is no proof; there is no evidence. God did not break the rules on that first Easter morning and God will not break the rules today. Dead is dead.
You can analyze Mark's account of the Resurrection to death. Or, you can approach this story with its sudden and unsatisfying ending with a little faith, a little trust. You can come to this strange story not with a cynical mind, but with a trusting heart. You can come to this account not waiting to be convinced by the facts but willing to depend and rely, willing to live as if it is true. You can do that.
Everyone here this morning, this Easter Morning, has enough faith to do just that. Enough faith to approach this Gospel with a little trust. Mark has certainly given us room to approach the story in faith. It is almost as if Mark expects us to provide a fuller ending using our faith, Mark expects us to enter into the silent scene bringing our faith to finish what God and Jesus have begun.
How much faith is enough? How much trust is required? I don’t know the exact level of trust required, but I do know it is not beyond any one of us here this morning. We do not need a perfect faith or absolute trust to approach this Gospel and share in its goodness.
Consider the women that first morning. What did they bring? The women brought very little. They expected to find death so they brought spices to anoint the body. But they were completely unprepared. They had nothing to move the stone, no one strong enough to roll the stone away. In their grief and despair, knowing they could not move the stone, they kept going. The women continued on their mission of kindness and mercy.
They did not bring much, but as they stumbled through the early morning darkness they were traveling on the very edge where their deep human love for Jesus was about to encounter God's even deeper love for Jesus and all humanity. The women brought love and that was enough.
We do not need to bring much to this story. At age 46 I went to seminary and there I encountered people who knew the Bible chapter and verse. I encountered endless, tedious arguments about this and that part of Scripture. I encountered endless analysis of who really wrote what and what, if anything at all, Jesus actually said. It was all so complex and academic. And I began to doubt just about everything, including the Resurrection. Most of all, the Resurrection.
Then one afternoon I was home, in our little rented cottage, standing at the kitchen sink doing dishes and looking up at the hill in front of me. I was staring at the grass, the rocks and the sheep when suddenly I thought, “What if it is true? What if it is all true?”
That is all I had to offer, all I had to bring to the empty tomb. “What if it is true?” That’s all I brought to this story of God’s triumph over death. "What if it is true?”
But that question refuses to let me go. It is a part of me and it seems to be enough. Because if it is true, if it is true that God defeated death, that God loves us so much that death and hatred and humiliation cannot defeat us, then our lives are different. If it is true that Jesus the Christ is up ahead, waiting for us, leading the way then that is enough to keep us walking just as the women did on that dark and lonely early morning so long ago.
Maybe that’s what keeps this church alive. Maybe we are as foolish and as human as those women who continued to the tomb with no way to move the stone, as foolish as that middle aged man doing dishes and staring at a bunch of sheep.
“What if it’s true?” Maybe that is why we care for each other, love each other, and want to be with each other. Maybe that is why we care for our neighbors, why we can celebrate God's goodness even in hard and difficult times, why we can rejoice when the world says there is no reason to rejoice. Maybe just believing that maybe it is true is enough to let us see each other as children of God, as a sister of the Eternal One, a brother of the Creator of all life, as direct beneficiaries of the Resurrection of Jesus the Christ.
Maybe it is true, and that is why we gather on a Maundy Thursday night for soup and communion and on Good Friday at Central to fry fish and pray, all the while hoping against hope to be touched, and to touch others with the Spirit of the living God.
Mark ends his Gospel in stunned silence. He wants us to step into place, to bring our faith and our trust to the empty tomb. He wants us to put our touch on the story of the Resurrection, to add our acts of love to those already piled high outside the empty tomb.
We do so every time we care, every time we feed, every time we wrap each other in the compassionate embrace of our Lord. Every single time we act in a Christ-like way expecting nothing in return we add anew to the glorious ending of the Gospel of life. And in adding to the Good News we find God, Resurrection and enough faith to continue.
……………………………………………..
There once was a woman from Metairie
Who thought she should look for a better day.
So she got into her car,
Didn’t drive very far,
And …
Go ahead, you finish the limerick. It is waiting for 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.”
(Mark 16: 8)
Go ahead; add your ending to Mark’s Gospel. It is waiting for you, waiting for you to add your story to the Good News that Jesus Christ is risen. He is not here. He is risen. He is risen indeed!
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