Have you ever been watching a movie and you get to the end, and then it just ends, there is not any conclusion, or there are loose strings left hanging out, and you’re like, wait, what? It can’t end like that. I need more, tell me what happens. That’s how some people have felt about the ending of the Gospel of Mark, because the gospel ends just as we heard it here. There is no resurrection appearance, there are no further stories as there are in Matthew, Luke and John. Our earliest and best manuscripts of Mark have the story ending with the line “and they ran away and told no one because they were scared.” That is the reason I have called Mark the gospel without a beginning, because it doesn’t give us a birth narrative of any form, and the gospel without an end, because it doesn’t end the way we think it should. Now, that led other later editors to add post-resurrection stories to Mark, as if it was incomplete, and it certainly seemed that way after the other gospels had been written. And so, if you are reading the Bible, at the end of verse 8 you will first come to a selection which is sub headed “the shorter ending of Mark” which is then followed immediately passages sub headed “The Longer ending of Mark.”
Those passages should also be found in brackets, with an accompanying footnote, which indicates that they are not considered original to the text, but that the translators are not removing them, simply letting us know of scriptural integrity issues. And in fact, we know from the writings of the church fathers back to the second century, that this was an issue, and some of our manuscripts even indicate that these passages originality are doubtful. But, the reason that they were added was because, in my opinion, they didn’t understand, the very nature of Mark’s gospel and so they thought it was lacking something. But when we understand what Mark is doing, and understand the story he tells, his ending is as brilliant as the rest of his gospel. But before we jump into that, we again need to take a step back to the other gospel passage we heard for today, which is the story of the transfiguration which is the traditional reading for this Sunday, which is the last Sunday before Lent. But more importantly for our purposes, it matches perfectly with the story I have been telling about Mark’s call to discipleship which concludes so well with Mark’s ending.
Jesus takes Peter, James and John up a mountain, and that should send off some bells in our heads because big things tend to happen on mountaintops in the Bible. Just before this Peter has made his proclamation of faith that Jesus is the messiah, although as we already saw Peter, and the others, didn’t understand what that truly meant, and so the 6 days after phrase is 6 days after that event. And when they get to the top, Jesus is transfigured, and his clothing become dazzling white, which is something that not even tide could do, which I guess it was about the only thing they did leave out of their super bowl commercials. Then Jesus is talking with Moses and Elijah, because if Peter’s prediction wasn’t enough, God just wants to make it a little clearer, including saying to the disciples “This is my Son, the Beloved;listen to him!” and so we have to remember that in Mark’s version of the baptism, no one hears God call Jesus the beloved son, as happens in the other gospels. Additionally, just as we talked about when we looked at Jesus injunction to pick up our cross and follow, that if we are going to follow, that means we have to be behind Jesus. The statement to lead, follow or get out of the way does not apply to discipleship, because the only proper response is simply to follow. And so, when God says to them, “listen to Jesus,” what does that also mean? Don’t listen to anyone else, instead following Jesus means listening to what he tells us to do, and surprise, surprise, actually doing it.
But, what is the driving emotion, at least for Peter, in the story of the transfiguration? Fear. We are told that he doesn’t know what to say, because he is terrified. Then Jesus tells them not to say anything about what has happened, until after he has been raised from the dead, and so what do they do? They keep the matter to themselves. Now, the best view of this is that they are in fact listening to Jesus, and therefore they don’t say anything, just as told. Except that doesn’t match most of the other stories that we have of the disciples. Fear is one of the driving forces for the disciples and helps them not to be able to see. They are fearful during the storm at sea, even though they’ve seen Jesus do some amazing things. They fear for their lives and flee Jesus on his last night, including Peter who first denies that he will deny Jesus, but then, of course, does exactly that. As we’ve been talking about over the past few weeks, the disciples continually do the very things they shouldn’t be doing. They are the example of what not to do, to be a disciple, to be a follower. And that then all comes to it’s logical conclusion with the story of Easter morning, and who is not there? None of the disciples.
Now it would appear that the women might be good disciples, a positive example, and up to this point they have been. Although they play a much-reduced role in Mark then they do in the other synoptic gospels, especially in Luke, they are there at the crucifixion. The disciples aren’t there, but they are watching from afar. There has been some criticism made that they don’t get involved at all, and they don’t get close to the action, but if 90% of success is just showing up, then they are on the right path. And then they are also the ones to show up on Sunday morning. Except right away we know that something is wrong with the story, because we are told that they have gathered spices so that they might anoint the body. That is prepare it for burial since there hadn’t been time on Friday. Except, what is one of the things that Jesus has been saying in his passion predictions? That he would be raised from the dead on the third day. But, what do they expect to find when they go? It’s not an empty tomb. They expect to find a body, which means they either didn’t understand, just like the other disciples, or they didn’t believe what Jesus had told them.
They are in fact blind, just like the disciples, and we know this because they begin asking amongst themselves who will roll the stone away. And then the passage says, “when they looked up” they saw the stone had been rolled away. That phrase has been used before in Mark, in the healing of a blind man that we talked about two weeks ago. There is a two-step process to that healing, and the first time he tries to heal him, we are told “the man looked up” but instead of seeing everything clearly, he sees shapes, but they are not clear, so Jesus does a second healing on him, and then he sees clearly. This was not that Jesus wasn’t able to do the healing properly, but instead that there are some people who see, like the disciples, but don’t see clearly. That happens here with the women, because they then encounter a young man, presumably an angel, although we aren’t told that, and he says a phrase with which most of us are familiar: “Do not be alarmed” or do not be afraid. While prevalent in Matthew and Luke, it does not appear in Mark, except when Jesus says it during the little apocalypse, and then this angel says it to the women. But it doesn’t do any good, because we are told that they run away afraid and, like the disciples, they tell no one.
Now one of the running themes throughout Mark is telling people about Jesus and what he does and who he is. The demons all know who Jesus is and shout it out to people, and Jesus tries to silence them, which often leads them to cry out louder. The first healing is of a man with unclean spirit, whom Jesus tries to quiet, but they cry out and Jesus’ fame begins to spread. Then the healing of a leper, whom Jesus tells to keep quiet about what happens, and the response? The man “went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the word.” And there is the blind man Bartimaeus who cries out to Jesus for help, and when the crowd tries to silence him, what happens? He cries out even louder. And so it goes, even though they are supposed to be quiet about what has happened, they can’t because their lives have been changed. They’ve been transformed, healed, made whole, so how could we even expect that they would be able to remain quiet. Additionally, lots of people are seeing this, so surely even if they remained quiet, such as when Jesus raises Jairus’ daughter and Jesus tells them to be quiet, and we’re not told that they said anything, but wouldn’t people notice? Wouldn’t people say “hey, I thought you were dead”? and do we think they could get along with just hearing a response of something like “well, I could tell you what happened, but then I’d have to kill you”? Not likely. They told what had happened because they had no other choice, there was no way they could keep it inside.
But there is one exception to this rule of silence around healings, and that is with the Gerasene demoniac, who is said to be possessed by a legion of unclean spirits. Jesus casts the demons out into a herd of pigs who then rushed into the sea and drowned. Now the fact that there is a herd of pigs around says that they are among the gentiles, or non-Jews, and after being healed the man follows Jesus and wants to climb in the boat with them to keep following. In this he is just like Bartimaeus, as the example of discipleship that as soon as he can see, he follows Jesus. But with this man, Jesus instead tells him “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.” And what does the man do? “He went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him.” When Jesus tells people to be quiet, they can’t, except the disciples, and when he tells people to tell others, they do, except the disciples and the women, who flee from the tomb in fear and don’t tell anyone.
When we discussed Jesus’ injunction to follow, the way he says is it that anyone who want to follow me, or whoever wants to follow me, and I said we should read that as Jesus saying, “insert your name here.” I think part of the brilliance of Mark’s original ending is that it does exactly the same thing. It says to us, how are you going to respond? Are you going to tell anyone what has happened or not? If Mark had included appearances of Jesus on Easter, then our call to discipleship comes at a remove, because it’s easy to believe that the women and later the disciples would tell people that Christ had been risen when they had actually been face to face with him. But here that is not the case, and unless some of you have a story you haven’t told me, it’s not the case for us either. All the women at the tomb in this account have that Jesus has been raised from the dead is the testimony of the man in the tomb, and all we have is the testimony of those who have passed the news on to us. So, what are we going to do with that? Are we going to keep it to ourselves or are we going to tell others? Are we going to run away in fear or are we going to out and proclaim all that Jesus has done for us?
Mark didn’t need to include stories about what the women eventually did or what the disciples did because everyone in his community already knew what they had done. That in the end they didn’t remain silent, because if they had Mark would not know the stories to write down. The community would not be in existence. There would be no conversation about picking up our cross or proclaiming the good news, because there would be no news to proclaim. While the disciples serve as foils to what proper discipleship looks like in Mark’s gospel, and perhaps they really were that obtuse in real life, but we know they didn’t stay that way. That while they may have failed in Jesus final week and final moments, they rallied in the end and became the disciples we know, and we know that because we stand here on their testimony and the work they did. That while initially they were the soil full or either weeds or rocks, that would wither and die either when the going got tough or when the concerns of the world choked out their faith. They would not be able to truly pick up their cross and follow. But in the end, become the good soil and bring forth the bountiful harvest. Tradition holds that the disciples go throughout Europe as far as modern day Great Britain and into Asia as far as India and throughout Africa to proclaim the good news and that all of them, except John, are tortured and killed for their faith. That in the end they truly understand the cost of discipleship and are willing to undertake that journey knowing that Jesus is going before them, that he is preparing the way, because the good news is worth it. You may remember from our first week on Mark that the Greek word for good news is euangelion, which is also where we get the word evangelist.
Mark’s Easter account is the third, and final, call to discipleship that we find in his gospel. There is the initial call to the disciples beginning in chapter 1 when Jesus says, “follow me.” Then there is the call to discipleship when Jesus says, “whoever wants to follow me, must pick up their cross and follow.” And then there is the injunction here to go and tell, and it even begins with a call to restoration, because Jesus says, “go and tell the disciples and Peter.” Peter has nearly always been listed at the first of names, but here he comes last, and some manuscripts say, “go and tell the disciples even peter” to go to Galilee, because of Peter’s denial and betrayal. But the good news for Peter, the good news for us, is that we are so much more than the worst thing we have ever done in our lives. That while we certainly remember Peter’s betrayal, it is not the summation of his faith, because he will become a leader in the church, he too will be crucified, he will go forth and proclaim the good news. All of the disciples failed, because in some ways that is the nature of discipleship, and we will fail too, but it’s what we do with our failures that matter, because God continues to call us back into relationship and discipleship. Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are offered mercy and restoration and healing and wholeness and forgiveness. We are called back into relationship with God no matter what we have done, and then we are told to go forth and to proclaim the good news. So, answer the call, pick up your cross and go forth to proclaim the good news. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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