Easter Sunday
Mark 16:1-8
The people in the Gospel of Mark have to be some
of the most thick headed, dull witted examples of human kind on the face of
the earth. Either Mark has a singular disdain for them or he is being brutally
honest about humankind in general. The people of Mark’s gospel just never
do what they are told.
Time and again Jesus tells them not to let on
about his miracles and healings and it seems they can’t move fast enough
to blab those wonders all over the place.
The leper comes to Jesus and begs to be made clean.
Moved with pity Jesus stretches out his hand and touches him and he is clean.
Jesus sternly charges him “See that you say nothing to anyone.” But
the leper goes out and talks freely about it and spreads the news so that Jesus
can no longer openly enter a town.”(1:43)
And Jairus’ daughter. The servants come to
report that she is dead. But Jesus disputes their claim and goes to the ruler’s
house, takes the girl by the hand and says “Talitha Cumi” which means
“Little girl I say to you arise and immediately she got up and walked.”
And Jesus strictly charged them that no one should know this.” (5:41) Is
it any surprise then that “King Herod heard of it: for Jesus name had become
known.”(6:14) Then they bring a man to him who was deaf and had an impediment
in his speech; and they besought him to lay his hand upon him. Jesus takes him
away from the multitude and privately proclaims to him “Epaphtha”
be opened. And his ears were opened, his tongue was released and he spoke plainly.
Again Jesus charges them to tell no one; but the more he charged them, the more
zealously they proclaimed it. (7:34-36)
It seems as if the more Jesus wants to remain
low-key and subtle the more people have to spread the word.
How ironic is our lesson today. The women, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother
of James and Salome go to the tomb where Jesus is buried bringing spices with
which to anoint his body. And what they find is a young man dressed in a white
robe, sitting on the right side and he says to them “Do not be alarmed;
you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He has been raised.
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.”
“Go and tell,” he says to them. “Go
and tell.” The cats out of the bag—it okay now, you can say whatever
you want. Go up to the housetops and shout, start passing this juicy bit of
information over the backyard fence. Go and tell! Confide it to the disciples,
leek it to the grocer, print it in the headlines of the daily. It’s okay
now to let the world know. It’s okay.
And what do the women do “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.” They said nothing to anyone.
An Italian filmmaker once said that every story
has a beginning, a middle and an end but not necessarily in that order. I would
say that our text even coming at the end of the gospel is actually the beginning
of the story. Mark hinted at that in the first words of his writing “The
beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God.” We begin our lives
as Christians not at the manger but here at the empty tomb with the command
to “Go and Tell”. All that has come before only makes sense in light
of God’s cataclysmic, earth shattering, death defying triumph over all
the powers that would bind us to the tomb. Go and tell, Go and tell this good
news that he is not here. God has acted! God has triumphed! Nothing will ever
be the same again.
I don’t blame those women for being afraid.
This is one powerful message. Perhaps we too are afraid for if we believe these
words our lives will never be the same again. In raising Jesus of Nazareth from
the dead, God showed us the world according to God. In Jesus Christ the world
is now a new world. It is a world where the meek do inherit the earth, even
when they don’t have a deed to it registered in a courthouse. It is a world
where the poor in spirit have the only riches, and among the poor the bread
is blessed and broken and everyone has enough. In the new world of the resurrection,
those who mourn are more than comforted; they dance before the Lord. It is a
world where the peacemakers know themselves, and everyone else, as children
of God, and the merciful know what mercy does; it turns our enemies into sisters
and brothers and causes weapons to be transformed into tools.
We too have the commission to go and tell, to
share the good news that the power of evil will not prevail. That hunger and
homelessness are not the end of the story, that broken relationships and scarred
bodies can be healed, that anger and violence need not hold sway in our world.
That young man in the tomb directs the women “Go
and tell!” But they were too afraid. There’s a kind of eeriness, a
suspense that Jesus is out there, waiting for them in Galilee. Galilee is home
to the women, it’s the place they’ll resume their ordinary lives,
their routine tasks—but somehow they won’t be ordinary or routine
anymore. Perhaps we too are afraid? Perhaps we live as they did with the constant
expectation of meeting the one who has an absolute claim upon us, who gave his
life for us. We cannot hide from him behind our willful rebellion and unbelief
for he will not stop seeking us. We cannot protest that our guilt and shame
keep us from him, for he will not stop forgiving us. We are not safe behind
our pride and resistance, for he will keep loving us until those walls of pride
and resistance come crashing down. We are not protected by our comfort and ease,
for he keeps showing us his nail-scarred hands and feet. We cannot withdraw
securely into our selfishness, for he will keep meeting us in the poor and the
sick and the dying. "You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.
He has been raised. He is not here but go tell his disciples and Peter He is
going before you to Galilee; there you will see him..."
Our problem is no longer that we cannot find Christ, but rather that we cannot escape him.2 He’s waiting for us in Galilee. Dare we keep quiet? “Go and Tell!”
Amen.