Easter Sunday
20 April 2025
Vineville Baptist Church
Macon, Georgia
Gregory Pope
Following Jesus Through the Gospel of Mark
AFRAID
Mark 16:1-8
One weekday afternoon a pastor went to a nursing home to offer Communion to the residents. This was not one of those upscale places called a “retirement center.” This facility was for the poor and its residents were mostly in various stages of dementia. When the pastor arrived she was told by a volunteer, who was wheeling residents into the room, that since it was late afternoon, everyone’s medication seemed to be wearing off. She said that some would sleep through the service as usual, but for the most part, her little congregation might be a little on the wild side today. Sure enough, all through the beginning of the service, a woman sang, “Row, row, row your boat,” bouncing up and down in her wheel chair. It got so chaotic that the pastor clapped her hands to get their attention, and said, “What shall I read from the Bible today? What part would you like to hear?” And above all the noise and commotion in the room, one answer could be heard in an old woman’s voice: “Tell us a resurrection story!” And suddenly the room changed. Those who’d been moving grew still. Sleepers opened their eyes. “Yes,” said another, and then from across the room: “Yes. Tell us a resurrection story.”
Anybody here today in need a resurrection story? Has death done it’s killing work on you? Have you recently come face to face with the fear of your own death or the death of someone you love? Are you heartbroken over the division in our country, sick to death of senseless mass shootings, repulsed by all the tragic wasting of life? Or is it that something within you has died? A relationship. A dream. Your faith. The forms of death are legion. Are you here this Easter Day to hear a resurrection story? Well, if so, you’re in luck! I just happen to have one for you.
Today’s version of the Easter Story from the Gospel of Mark is something of a literary mystery that becomes an invitation. The literary mystery is that according to the oldest and best Greek New Testament manuscripts Mark strangely ends his gospel with verse 8 where we finished reading this morning: And the women went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
Verses 9-20 in most translations appear in brackets because even many of the most conservative scholars believe these verses to have been a later addition to Mark’s gospel. And we are not all that bothered by this scholarship because in those additional verses Jesus is reported to have said that his followers will pick up poisonous snakes without being bitten and drink poisonous beverages without being harmed.
Anybody here ready to prove you believe? (We can have our very own Jim Jones bring out the Kool-aid! And Angela can pull out the snakes!) It is right here in these verses that our snake-handling Christian brothers and sisters get their biblical justification. Word of Warning: Don’t ever get into a Bible-believing contest with a snake-handler! Of course, snake-handling churches are not a growing group today. It just takes a couple of bites to subdue the enthusiasm.
But this strange ending of Mark’s resurrection story begins with a simple and beautiful act of devotion by women who had been followers of Jesus throughout his ministry. They were present at the crucifixion, but only from a distance. They witnessed the burial of Jesus in a tomb sealed with a stone against the door. Now that those in power have had their way and Jesus is dead, the women can at least tend to the body. Faithful Gospel women: last at the cross, first at the tomb.
The Twelve male disciples are not around. In the crisis of arrest, trial, and impending death, they had all abandoned Jesus and fled. In their place are the women. In all of Mark’s portrayals of the disciples this is the darkest. Because disciples were supposed to prepare their teacher’s body for burial and then lay him to rest. It’s early Sunday morning and the disciples of Jesus are nowhere to be found. The women are the loyal ones on their way to the tomb to perform this necessary service of love out of devotion to their deceased friend. Not in their wildest dreams are they anticipating the miracle that has taken place.
When they arrive, they find to their bewilderment that the stone has been rolled away from the opening of the tomb. They enter the tomb and see a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting where Jesus had been laid. The women become alarmed and afraid. Naturally so. We would all be afraid if we were in their shoes, because no one likes surprises in cemeteries. Holiday Inn used to run a commercial several years back that said something to the effect of “Stay at Holiday Inn – where there are no surprises.” Well, if we don’t like surprises at hotels, how much less at the cemetery! So understandably these women are alarmed. But the young man inside the tomb says to them, “Don’t be afraid. The One you’re looking for – Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified – is not here. He has been raised!”
Could it be true? Could it be true that the hope they thought was dead has come back to life? The young man says to the women: Go tell his disciples and Peter that he’s going ahead of you to Galilee, and there you will see him.
The disciples throughout the gospel of Mark have been portrayed as failures. But now, these very same disciples who deserted Jesus, including Peter who so publicly denied him, are called by Jesus once again to meet the One who did not forsake them when they forsook him. They are all now invited to a reunion with the Risen Christ in Galilee – the place where their ministry together first started. There they will be given the opportunity to begin again called once more to follow him. Only this time – they will be empowered by resurrection. And that’s good news for us all! For our many failures the resurrection power of grace is offered to us all once more with the call to follow Christ.
The young man at the tomb commissions these women as the first preachers of the resurrection. And the women cannot wait to tell the world, right? Not exactly. Mark says, They went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and astonishment had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
Now at the risk of criticizing scripture, that’s really no way to end a story of the world’s best good news. Of course, we know from other gospel writers that the women do eventually go and tell the resurrection news. But I think we need to ask why Mark leaves us wondering. Why would he end his story here with the women fleeing in silent fear? Why are there no resurrection appearances in Mark’s Gospel?
Well, the last time we see Jesus in Mark’s gospel he is nailed by his hands and feet to a tree, with a cry of godforsakenness on his lips. Mark’s focus throughout his gospel has been on Jesus the Suffering Messiah, and the call for us all to take up our cross and follow him into suffering. Could it be that Mark’s desire, while making sure we know that Jesus has been raised, is to keep our focus on the cross? I think that could be part of it. There’s a lot of preaching on discipleship these days with no cross. Did you know that the builders of the Crystal Cathedral in California were told not to put a cross inside or outside? They wanted no reminders of failure. And many a church has followed in their steps not only with their architecture but in their teaching. So yes, to keep our focus on the suffering nature of discipleship could have been part of Mark’s reasoning to end his gospel the way he did.
But I think there’s also something to be said here about the connection between resurrection and fear. I don’t know for sure if it was the case with these women at the tomb, but I know that for many of us, we can sometimes be afraid to experience the power of resurrection. We may or may not be afraid of life after death, but many of us are sure afraid of life before death. Some of us have been so wounded, so disappointed that we would rather stay in our tomb, seek shelter from life’s pain, protect ourselves in a comfortable refuge, and try to stay safe from the suffering world around us.
Life can be so very painful. Suffering and death can so overwhelm us at times we become paralyzed by terror. So much so that we finally reach the point where we say to ourselves, “Enough! I can’t take the pain anymore. I’m going to retreat from the world. I’m gonna build a wall around myself so I can protect what’s left of me.” We decide that trusting resurrection, facing life again after so much death, is just too frightening. Who knows what it would be like if we tried to embrace life again? So we’ll just stay in our sheltered lifeless tomb, thank you very much, afraid of resurrection.
However, Easter Sunday always gives us another chance to change our minds. For Easter Sunday is not just an opportunity to get all dressed up and come together to hear the story again about a one-time miracle. On this day every year
we are invited to encounter the Risen Christ anew so that Resurrection can breathe new life into our frightened and secluded existence bursting forth in surprising ways, confronting us with more life than we ever imagined, calling us to serve this dying world alongside God’s Easter people.
But we often refuse to let it happen in us – because we are afraid of more pain and because despair is easier than faith. It may be that you are trapped in a tomb of guilt and feel too ashamed to come out and experience the forgiveness and freedom of resurrection. Your tomb may be paralyzing grief. Only you know what keeps you in the grave. The tombstones of our lives have many epitaphs. But when all around you seems like death and dying, the Risen Christ calls us to believe in life once more and to trust that God can breathe resurrection into our dry bones.
Let’s be honest: It’s not easy to walk out of a tomb. And yet, while pain is a powerful reality in our lives the Easter gospel calls out to us to believe that the cross of suffering is not the end of our story.
The women who went to the tomb that first Easter morning went grieving death. But they found to their astonishing surprise that Resurrection had unexpectedly happened: “Fear not,” the Easter messenger says. The one who was crucified – He ain’t here. He’s been raised. Go and tell the disciples. He will meet you in Galilee just as he said.”
The Easter gospel calls us out of our open graves into a world where the Risen Christ can lead us into newness of life. A life full of hope for tomorrow with a vision of what can be and the courage to face our fear and walk out of our tomb in spite of our fright because death and fear do not write the end of the story.
Mark leaves us with an unfinished gospel of frightened people fleeing resurrection. And the question Mark places in our hands is not, “Did the women go and tell?” but: “Do we have the courage to walk out of our open graves and meet the Risen Christ in the suffering need of a hopeless world and let Resurrection happen through us?
We are left to write the ending. This literary gospel mystery has become an invitation. Jesus has gone before us. He waits for us to come out of our tombs. He invites us to Galilee, the place of ministry, to continue the work of the kingdom Jesus began, and there we will see him. We will see him in the suffering and the sinner, in the needy and the hurting, in the poor and the excluded.
Are you willing to see what the Risen Christ might still have in store for your one and only precious life? Whatever you decide know this: Wherever he calls you, the Risen Christ will meet you there.