Over two thousand years ago, the author of Mark’s Gospel understood something about cliff-hanger conclusions, as well. Matthew, Luke, and John give us smooth and happy endings to the crucifixion story: In these three Gospels, Jesus himself appears to the women in the garden. He commissions the disciples. He serves them breakfast on the beach. He ascends in glory into heaven. But the original ending to Mark’s Gospel (the ending that we heard today) leaves us with loose ends. We get an empty tomb and women who flee in “terror and amazement,” too afraid to speak of what they have seen and heard. In Mark, the horror of Jesus’ death so completely fills the hearts and minds of the women that they can’t fathom resurrection. They don’t remember that Jesus told them that he would rise again. They don’t remember his teaching or his power. They are simply afraid—and they run. Just like you and me. We are left wondering what will happen. Will they tell the other disciples? What will they say?
This jagged, suspenseful ending to Mark makes me want to holler at the Bible just like I do at my TV set when it’s time for bed. “Noooo ….We can’t stop here!” Easter isn’t supposed to end with fear and disbelief! I want the happy Easter ending! I don’t want to be stuck with fear and human failure! Somebody fix this, please! Tie up these loose ends!”
And throughout Christian history, that’s exactly what scholars and scribes have tried to do. In our Bible, Mark’s Gospel has not just one, but two, extra conclusions that ancient scholars tacked on to the original cliff-hanger ending. More recent scholars offer all kinds of speculation as to why Mark might have left us with fear and silence: Maybe Mark was arrested as he was writing the final lines, they wonder. Maybe the surviving manuscripts were torn? Maybe the complete ending got lost? But all of us binge-watching Netflix users know the real reason why Mark ends with the women fleeing in fear: It’s because the author wants us to rush back into the story, thirsty for more, searching for what’s going to happen next.
Without a Netflix button to push or another episode to watch, we are forced by Mark’s unfinished ending to return to the story the only way we know how: by turning back to the beginning and reading it again … and again … and again. Mark wants us to read it until Jesus’ story becomes our story, until we begin to see our lives through its lens. He wants me to see myself in Galilee, back at home with the risen Jesus. Galilee is “home.” It’s my everyday reality. My neighborhood. My parish. My family. Jesus wants me to add the frightened women and the clueless disciples to my daily life, just like I added those characters from “Outlander.” Jesus wants me to incorporate the morning news about fires and floods and shootings with the stories of Jesus’ miracles and compassionate healings. He wants me to mix today’s news along with Jesus’ death on a cross and his empty tomb. He wants my world to echo with the mysterious words, “He has been raised.”
Mark wants me to stop and ponder my world, unable fully to separate my story from God’s victory. He wants me to stop and wonder: “Wait, is this latest ugliness that I see around me all that there is? Or is God creating beauty underneath it somewhere?” “Wait, do I have to solve this problem by myself? Or is this situation in God’s loving hands?” “Wait, am I really alone here in my suffering? Or is Jesus with me?” That moment of hesitation is often all that it takes to open my life to God's transforming Spirit.
The resurrection isn’t some theological doctrine that we can chart out on a piece of paper. It’s not something that happened in order to teach us some lesson about God, or even about humankind. It is an ongoing reality, a way of life. Rowan Williams call it “the recreating of a relationship of trust and love on the far side [of death and suffering.]”[1] Today’s Gospel invites us to do more than “celebrate Easter.” It invites us to live Easter, with Jesus at our side.
Today, Jesus is alive, surrounding us with his presence here in our Galilee, waiting for us to decide whether we are going to proclaim him, not just with our words, but in our lives. The Story that we’re invited to enter is more scandalous than anything that Hollywood screenwriters can dig up. It’s more alluring than any mere human drama. It’s full of the sadness that we know so well. But it’s also full of the strange divine light that warms and intrigues us. The Easter Story dangles before us the biggest cliff-hanger ever: What is the role that I’ll be called to play? And the best yet ….? There's no need to fight the urge to push “start” just one more time.
“He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”
Go! The next season belongs to you! I can’t wait!
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