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Tell Everyone!
A sermon by Dr. Jim
Somerville
Pastor, Richmond’s First Baptist Church
Richmond, Virginia
April 12, 2009
Easter Sunday
Mark 16:1-8
The traditional Gospel reading for Easter Sunday is John 20:1-18,
where Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb early on the first day of the week, while
it is still dark. You know that story. It’s a good one. Mary comes to the
tomb and finds that the stone has been rolled away, and so she runs back to tell
the disciples, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know
where they have laid him!” Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved,
come running to the tomb. The other disciple gets there first and looks inside
but doesn’t go in. Peter, impulsive as ever, goes on into the tomb and sees the
linen wrappings lying there, empty, and the cloth that had been around Jesus’
head rolled up and lying in a place by itself. Then the other disciple comes
into the tomb and sees what Peter sees but unlike Peter he believes, that is he
believes that Jesus has risen, and not that his body has been stolen, and this
is even before they understood the scripture that said Jesus was supposed to
rise from the dead. Maybe that’s why Jesus loved him so much.
At any rate, the disciples
return to their homes but Mary stands there just outside the tomb, weeping.
Finally she looks inside and sees two angels sitting where the body of Jesus had
been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They ask her why she is
weeping and she says, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they
have laid him.” When she turns around she sees Jesus standing there, but she
doesn’t know it is Jesus. She thinks it is the gardener. He asks her, “Why are
you weeping. Whom are you looking for?” And she says, “Sir, if you have
carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”
And that’s when Jesus says, “Mary,” and when she hears that voice pronounce her
name, as she has heard it so many times before, she knows who it is. Her heart
leaps and she says, “Rabbouni!” which means “Teacher.” Apparently she runs to
embrace him because Jesus says, “Don’t hold on to me, because I haven’t yet
ascended to the Father, but go and tell my brothers, ‘I am ascending to my
father and your father, to my God and your God.’” And so Mary goes and does
just what Jesus has told her: she tells the disciples,
“I have seen the Lord!”
It’s a good story, isn’t
it? A great story. It’s the surprise ending of the greatest story every told.
Which is probably why John 20:1-18 is the suggested reading for Easter every
year and not Mark 16:1-8, not even in this year when we have been reading
through that Gospel. Mark also tells the Easter story, but he tells it in a
much different way than John does, and most would say a much less satisfying
way. In Mark’s version it is Mary Magdalene, and Mary the Mother of James, and
Salome who come to the tomb on the morning of the first day, after the sun has
risen, and on the way they wonder who will roll the stone away. But when they
get there they find that it has already been rolled away, and when they peek
inside they see a young man dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he says (which was probably necessary). “You’re looking for
Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He’s not here. He’s been raised from the
dead. Look, here is the place where they laid him.” And sure enough, there is
that empty place where Jesus’ body had been only the night before. The man in
the white robe says, “Go and tell his disciples, and Peter, that he is going on
ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” But
instead of going and telling his disciples, these 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” (Mark 16:8).
Can you see why we don’t
usually use this version of the story at Easter? There is no appearance of the
risen Christ in this version. There’s not even an angel, not by name, anyway.
Just a young man in a white robe who tells the women that Jesus is not there.
And then, when he tells them that Jesus has been raised, and that they should go
and tell his disciples, the women don’t do it. They are seized by terror and
amazement. They flee from the tomb and say nothing to anyone, because they are
so afraid. Well, what kind of Easter story is that? It seems incomplete,
unfinished, and so, through the years, well-meaning Christian writers have tried
to finish Mark’s Gospel for him. In my study Bible there is something called
the “shorter ending of Mark” just after verse 8, and a “longer ending of Mark”
just after that. The shorter ending doesn’t even sound like Mark, which may be
why it is omitted from most Bibles. It says, “And all that had been commanded
them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterward Jesus himself sent
out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of
eternal salvation.” For a writer who rarely uses a three-syllable word, “the
imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation” seems a little out of character.
The longer ending (verses
9-20), which you probably have in your Bible, looks as if it has been pieced
together from all the other Gospel accounts. There is a section in which Mary
Magdalene goes and tells the other disciples (who are mourning and weeping) that
Jesus is alive, much as she does in the Gospel of John. There is a section in
which Jesus appears to two disciples who are walking in the country, much as he
does on the road to Emmaus in the Gospel of Luke. There is a section in which
he tells his disciples to “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news,”
which sounds very much like the Great Commission from Matthew’s Gospel. And
then there is a section in which he says something about picking up serpents and
drinking poison that doesn’t sound like any of the other gospels at all. It
doesn’t even sound like Jesus. The footnote in my Bible says that although this
longer ending has been around since the late second century, “it is missing from
the earliest, most reliable Greek manuscripts.” In other words, some of those
well-meaning Christian writers have tried to finish Mark’s Gospel for him
because the way he left it seemed incomplete. But biblical scholars agree that
this is the way Mark left it, right there at verse 8. They believe it was
Mark’s intent to end his Gospel with women fleeing from the tomb, seized by
terror and amazement, and saying nothing to anyone because they were so afraid.
The question is why. Why would Mark end his Gospel this way?
I have a theory.
According to reliable
sources it was the composer Franz Liszt whose clever wife used to get him out of
bed in the morning by playing the first seven notes of a scale on the downstairs
piano: do re mi fa so la ti…. And then she would go back to the kitchen
to finish cooking breakfast. Poor Franz would try to ignore it but finally he
would have to throw on his robe, stumble down the stairs and play that last
note: do! But at least by then his breakfast would be ready.
There is something in all of us—not just composers—that craves resolution,
completion, something that cannot abide the unfinished work. If you don’t
believe it let me ask our pianist, Eunice Kim, to play the first part of “Christ
the Lord is Risen Today” while leaving off the last note. Eunice? (she plays,
“Christ the Lord is risen today! A-a-a-a-a-le-lu-u…”). Do you see how you just
have to put that final note on it, how you have to resolve the tension in some
way? I think that’s what Mark was doing! I think he was telling the story of
Easter with the ending left off so that, just like Franz Liszt, his readers and
hearers would have to tumble out of bed on Easter morning and finish it. If
these women wouldn’t tell anyone Christ had risen, then somebody would have to
do it, and that somebody (Mark might say with a wink) is you.
This is especially
interesting when you compare the ending of Mark with other parts of the Gospel,
in which Jesus often warns people not to tell anyone who he is or what he has
done. In chapter one he cleanses a leper and then, “after sternly warning him
he sent him away at once, saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone’”
(1:43-44). In chapter five, after raising Jairus’s daughter from the dead, “he
strictly ordered [her parents] that no one should know this” (5:43). In chapter
seven he heals a man who can’t hear or speak, and afterward orders the crowd to
“tell no one” (7:36). Along with those healings there are exorcisms, where
Jesus’ casts out demons and unclean spirits who seem to know exactly who he is:
Jesus of Nazareth, “the Holy One” and sometimes even “the Son” of God (1:24).
But Jesus commands them to “be silent” (1:5), forbids them to speak (1:34), and
sternly orders them not to make him known (3:12).
And then, in the middle of
the Gospel, something happens. Jesus takes Peter, James, and John with him and
goes up on a high mountain where he is transfigured. His face begins to shine
and his clothes become dazzling white, whiter than anyone on earth could bleach
them. Suddenly Moses and Elijah are standing there with him, and a cloud
overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, the
Beloved, listen to him!” It is as close as we come in this Gospel to seeing a
vision of the risen Lord, and if Peter, James, and John had any doubts before
about who Jesus was, they couldn’t doubt it now, could they? And you can
imagine that they can hardly wait to get down the mountain, to tell everyone
what they have seen and heard. But as they were going down the mountain Jesus
ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, to tell no one—that is—until
the Son of Man had risen from the dead. “But,” he might have said, “when that
day comes tell everyone, tell the whole world who I am!”
Which makes the ending of
Mark’s Gospel that much more strange. Jesus has said, “Don’t tell, don’t tell,
don’t tell,” but now that he has risen from the dead there is no reason not to
tell. So, the young man in the white robe says to the women, “Go! Tell
everyone!” But “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” [organ
plays a low, somber, “A-a-a-a-a-le-lu-u…”]. It’s strange, isn’t it? When Jesus
told the leper not to tell anyone that he had been cleansed the leper went out
and proclaimed it freely, spreading the word so effectively that Jesus could no
longer go into a town openly, but had to stay out in the country (1:45). When
he healed that man who couldn’t hear or speak he told the crowd to keep quiet,
“but the more he ordered them the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were
astounded beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done everything well!’” (7:36-37). So,
when Jesus healed people and told them to say nothing they said everything, but
when these women were asked to tell everyone he had risen they didn’t tell
anyone. They were afraid. Which means that if this story is going to be
resolved, if it’s ever going to have a happy ending, it will be up to us. So,
when I say “Christ is risen,” you say, “Christ is risen indeed!” Ready?
Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed!
Christ is RISEN!
Christ is risen INDEED!!
CHRIST IS RISEN!!
CHRIST IS RISEN INDEED!!!
One more time! Let them
hear you on Monument Avenue!
CHRIST IS RISEN!!
CHRIST IS RISEN INDEED!!!
[Organist Becky Payne plays a triumphant “Christ the Lord is risen today!
A-a-a-a-a-le-lu-u-ia!” drawing out the final note so that everyone knows the
tension of incompleteness has been resolved, that the story—at last—has a happy
ending].
Let us pray:
Lord Jesus, keep us from being afraid. Give us the courage to take the
Alleluias of Easter with us, and to share the good news of your resurrection
with all who will hear. There may be friends, neighbors, co-workers, or family
members who need a generous helping of our Easter faith, who need to hear us say
that we believe, and that now that the power of resurrection has been released
into the world, anything—anything!— is possible. Amen.
—Jim Somerville © 2009
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