Easter, April 5, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of life, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

While the younger kids are engaged in the Lindsey Chapel with the Small Wonders program, I want to tell you a little story. About fifteen years ago, my wife Joy came home from a walk through Mount Auburn Cemetery with our then four-year-old daughter, Grace. They had been enjoying a beautiful summer day, looking at statues and gravestones and flowers. After being quiet for a while, Grace looked up and said, “Mom, what happened to that guy who died in church?” Joy repeated the phrase to give herself time to think, “the guy who died in church.” Her mind raced. Had there been a recent medical emergency during worship? Had there been prayers for a loved one who had died? Had Grace heard something in the news? She hadn’t been to any funerals yet. Grace repeated, “you know. The guy. Who died. In church.” All of the sudden, Joy knew who she meant. “Jesus?” “Yes!” said Grace, “Jesus! What happened to him?” As Joy was relating this conversation to me, before I could learn what she said next to Grace, I interrupted with, “did you tell her he died from listening to sermons that were too long, or from singing every verse to all the hymns?”

I think Jesus would have liked the Gospel of Mark’s account of what happened to him the best. Compared with 20 verses in Matthew, 53 verses in Luke, and two whole chapters in John, in eight short verses, [1] Mark tells what happened to that guy who died in church. There’s no fluff. Three women, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome went to the tomb to do a proper burial, to anoint Jesus’ body. Knowing that even together they didn’t have the strength to move the big rolling stone that covered the entrance to the burial cave, they worried about how they would get in. When they looked up, they saw that that particular work had been done. When they walked into the cave, they saw a young man, sitting there, wearing a white robe. They were astonished. I don’t think alarmed is quite the right translation. I like astonished, amazed, perhaps apprehensive. He said, “Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, has been raised and is going ahead of you to Galilee and you will see him. Tell Peter and the others it’s just as he told you.” 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.

Actually, not only is there no fluff in this version, there’s no ending in the oldest manuscripts of the first Gospel written. The words at the end actually read more like an ee cummings poem: something like this: “and they went out fled from the grave they had for themselves trembling and ecstasy and they said nothing nobody they were afraid for. For…. That’s the unusual last word of the Gospel of Mark. They were afraid for. And that’s been a textual dilemma for Gospel hearers Bible scholars ever since! One commentator has famously said about this passage, “this is no way to run a resurrection!” [2] “They were afraid for…” It seems like (and is) an incomplete sentence. Did the writer of Mark keel over in mid-thought? Did someone else stop the writer mid-thought? Or did the writer know that, when it comes to that guy, Jesus, the best endings are left up to the readers? (That’s what I like to think.)

The amazing thing about the man sitting in the burial cave was that he is clothed in the garment of a vindicated martyr, according to the Biblical tradition. [3] His message is that Jesus, too, has been vindicated. Jesus’ most shameful death has not had the last word. You may know that the stories of raising the dead in Jesus’ Bible – the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings – are not about living forever in the sense of immortality. They are stories about God’s vindication of people who have been oppressed and disgraced. They are about fullness of life being restored. Like in our reading from Isaiah this morning: “on this mountain, (in other words) right here in this place, the Holy One will provide for all peoples plenty of delicious food and drink, a great feast, and destroy the pall that has been cast over all the nations, and will swallow up death forever. Then the Holy One will wipe away the tears from all faces and take away the disgrace of the people.” Biblical salvation is about life without oppression and disgrace. Biblical resurrection is about vindication for the “victims of the callous and powerful.” [4] Easter Sunday is not a special day in the church year to praise God for what will happen to any of us after we die, whether we are good or not so good. (There is actually nothing more deadening or deadly than religious belief that is all about heavenly rewards after our lives are over.) Easter Sunday is a special day in the church year to praise God for redeeming human lives that have been utterly devastated and humiliated. To praise God, as Bishop Steven Charleston writes, “for when love returns, when what has been lost is found, when an abandoned hope comes alive.” [5]

In the Gospel of Mark, the women are told to tell Peter (who was last seen and heard weeping bitterly) and the other disciples (who had forsaken Jesus and fled) that they will see Jesus again in the Galilee. The Galilee of the Gentiles or Nations – was how it was known because it was a cosmopolitan home to Jews and non-Jews. It was both the disciples’ home turf and a major crossroads of international trade routes, a center of traveling and communication highways. Barbara Brown Taylor once preached that the women thought they were going to the burial cave to grieve, not to organize! [6] These women thought they had gone to engage in a sacred burial ritual; they did not expect to get sent back home to start a mission hub! They left trembling and ecstatic. They were afraid for, ….for it to be true and probably afraid for it not to be true, so they may have been dumbfounded for a while, but we know that they eventually found and used their voices! They called Peter and the other disciples together and they all went back to the Galilee, to get back to the work, the work of healing, and serving, and the work of spreading the Love of God all around, lavishly and evenly, because they discovered that death had not been victorious after all.

According to Mark, resurrection is not necessarily a happy ending, even if it is filled with hope for restoration. They were afraid for…for there was, indeed, much to be afraid of. Boston College theologian, Pheme Perkins writes, “Mark has insisted that the cross is the way of life for those who wish to follow Jesus. He does not compromise the paradox of suffering service by producing a glorious triumph in the end. Instead the reader [the hearer] must learn that the powerlessness of Jesus on the cross has broken apart … evil and [re]initiated the rule of God.” [7] The assurance is that no matter how frightening it may look, Jesus is going on ahead.

With Mark, as with all of our sacred texts, the most important question for us is not, “did it happen?” but “what does it mean?” According to Mark, it means if we’re looking for Jesus, we can’t look back, we’ve got to look ahead. He’s going before us, beckoning us to follow. With Jesus, it’s about the future, not about the history. Death does not deter him, and fear of death must not deter us from spreading the Love of God all around. Although, according to Mark, with Jesus, there are no cookie cutter endings, there is no “closure.” We will not see Jesus in the place where we know his body was left. We will not see Jesus where we saw him last. We must stop looking back and look forward. The promise of the resurrection is that we will see Jesus wherever we go to alleviate pain and sorrow. We will see Jesus wherever we go to promote well-being. We will see Jesus wherever we go to repair hearts and homes, cities and nations, and maybe even the church! Happy Easter everyone!

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