Faith & Fear

Easter Weekend, Mark 16:1-8

You may notice that something is missing in our passage today, or rather, someone. The ending of the Gospel according to Mark has disturbed and dissatisfied Mark’s audiences from the very moment it was written down. So much has it disquieted believers that early church communities took it upon themselves to make some edits, to compose more than one addendum to elaborate on what they hoped was Mark’s point. Were Mark’s Gospel narrative to be left here, as it had originally been composed, the final word on the story of Jesus of Nazareth would be this: “He is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told 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.” He is not here. They said nothing to anyone. This ending leaves us with absence, with silence, and with fear. The Gospel according to Mark, the oldest of the Gospels and the text which presented to the world its Savior, ends in absence, silence, and fear. It is no surprise that such an ending does not satisfy the reader, or even seem to warrant the title of evangelion, Good News. Where is the Alleluia? Is he even really risen?

The additional endings to Mark assure us that, while the women were silent at first, they did tell Peter and the other disciples, and Jesus did meet them at Galilee as promised. The editors reiterate Mary Magdalene’s primacy as the first to receive the Good News of the resurrection, and cast the eleven as scolded doubters for not believing her right away. It is clear that the tradition had been careful to remember who it was that first brought them the news of salvation, revealing to us that the women who fled the tomb did not remain silent for long.

So why do we stop there? Why did Mark choose to end his story in silence, emptiness, and fear?

Before we can really contemplate our answers, we must take a step back, and look at how we got here. Maundy Thursday, Jesus’s final meal with his friends and followers, has come and gone. The twelve have abandoned him to trial and death at the hands of the state. Soldiers beat, stripped, and hung him, and mocked him as he died. At the end of Good Friday, after a great darkness has covered the land and the curtain of the Temple is torn in two, the final breath leaves Jesus’s lungs, and he is removed from the cross and placed in a tomb without the traditions of burial. The Sabbath dawns, and with it the waiting and wailing and weeping of a terrified community whose beloved leader has been slaughtered. None of them know what will happen next, and many fear facing a similar fate. The day ends, night comes and goes, and in the wee hours of the morning, the women who followed Jesus from trial to tomb return to that place of death, determined to restore dignity to their fallen friend. There is much fear in the story of these three days, much violence and devastation. But these women’s actions cannot be mistaken for cowardice. Their witness is one of steadfast love in the face of terror, of stubborn presence when others turned away.

Going to the tomb on the third day is both an essential misunderstanding of Jesus’s promises and a stalwart insistence not to let the hideousness of the cross have the final word. Perhaps Jesus was not the Messiah they had expected. But he was not allowed to die alone, or be abandoned at the grave. The disciples who fled failed and were overcome by fear, yes. And the disciples who stayed, the ones who arrived at the empty tomb on that fateful morning, also failed. Their compassionate burial plans, their reaching for the body of Jesus, is a loving disbelief in the promise that Christ would be raised from the dead. And so God redeems both the disciples who fled and the disciples who stayed, arriving in Galilee laden with resurrection joy on the doorsteps of fear and silence. Our imperfect servanthood, our faltering faithfulness, and our repetitive misunderstanding are all reflected back at us in the mirror of our ancestors, to whom Christ himself came in body to embrace their unbelief. Seeking closure, the grieving women find an opened tomb, a desolate emptiness replaced by a hopeful absence. He is not here, the messenger says. He is risen. Go and tell the others. “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.” The hope of the empty tomb, the joy of the message that they will see Jesus again in Galilee, is theophany, revelation. This revelation of God is, quite simply, too good to be true. Impossible. They are told that the one who was stolen from them by jealous empire and power-hungry greed is being given back to them, not at some future time when all will be made right, but now, right now, this very day. They were afraid. But, is fear the same as not believing? Would they be afraid if they did not have faith? Their fear and silence are perfectly appropriate responses to such a message. God’s own voice of love resounds in the silence of the tomb, compelling them toward Galilee and toward the new life to be found there. Faith coexisting with fear led the Easter Alleluia to burst forth from the broken hearts of grieving women overcome by hope. And what God has done with that testimony can never be undone. Mark leaves us in the stunned silence of this impossible truth, this ending that isn’t the end. It is God who will complete the story. Alleluia, Christ is Risen. Go and tell the others.