By way of preparation, I should warn us all today that we will be reading a different Gospel today than many in the liturgical churches around us, and even many of our Episcopal churches here in the Diocese of Tennessee. I was reminded of that last week as everyone shared their sermons on John’s Gospel with me. Many Adventers know we sometimes have two choices for one or two readings on any given Sunday built into the lectionary. I am a huge fan of exposing people to as much of the Bible as possible, so I rotate my choices. On odd years, we do the first reading; on even years we do the second reading. It does not matter to me whether it is the OT reading, the NT reading, the Psalm, or, in this case, the Gospel. As Anglicans we proclaim that we want God to help us read, learn, and inwardly digest the Scriptures twice a year, right? Good. I see nods. My thought is that we have to read them to, you know, truly learn them. I’m glad so many of you agree. Here’s the problem. Today our focus is rightfully on the Resurrection of our Lord Christ. I mean, it’s Easter, right? But the second reading, remember it is 2024, is Mark’s Gospel.
Those of you reading and trying to figure out where I am going may already have. Look back at your Gospel of Mark in the Order of Worship. Notice anything missing? Come on, you can say it. Finally. That’s right, Jesus. By the way, if you are visiting or attend infrequently, sometimes you can cheat when I ask a question of the congregation by just yelling “Jesus.” Chances are, He will be the focus of my sermon. Lol. Back to our problem . . . How can we have an Easter reading without Jesus’ Resurrection? And now you know part of the reason why so many of my colleagues stuck to John this week. Jesus seems absent.
There is another problem, though. As y’all just heard, the Gospel book from which Deacon Susie read was different from what is in your Order of Worship. Those of you with different Bibles at home, if you care enough to look after today, may notice there is a shorter ending and a longer ending of the Gospel of Mark. Annotated Bibles will explain this, but, essentially, we have an archaeological and systems problem this morning. When we research texts, any texts, we tend to think older texts are closer to the text of the original, if not THE original. For many years, the oldest texts we had of Mark’s Gospel contained the so called “longer ending.” But then archaeologists discovered a couple older manuscripts. They dated them by carbon dating, so there is some confidence in their ages. Both had the ending that we read today, the one with no Jesus and no Resurrection encounter. Since the shorter is older, many scholars think the other three scrolls which we use for Mark’s Gospel are the result of scribal additions. The thinking is that people did not understand the shorter ending of Mark, so some scribe added the last 20 or so verses to make sure people understood Mark’s point.
Now, to be clear, such discussions for Anglicans are not salvific. We believe that the Scriptures are God-breathed, which means we think God is in the writing, the editing, and the collecting. Put a bit differently, if Peter asks you a question like I just did, when you meet him at the gates, the answer very likely will be Jesus. He is not likely to ask you whether you accepted the shorter or longer version of Mark as a condition of entry in heaven. Lol.
Of course, we have them. So we are tasked with wondering why an Apostle wrote what he wrote and why God included it in the canon. As far as fights are concerned, there was little to no fighting in the early Church over the four Gospels that are included in our Bibles. Make no mistake, there were fights about other gospels and other letters, but these four Gospels were well accepted all over the ANE by the time the Counsels of the Church got serious about discerning which books should be included in what you and I call the Bible. So, how do we read Mark’s Gospel, and, more importantly, why do we read it on an Easter morning 2000 years later?
Part of why we read Mark’s account is related to its purpose or intended audience. Those of you who took EFM or have studied the Gospel of Mark have likely heard it described as Crucifixion narrative with a bit of an introduction. You are all chuckling, but it is an apt description. Most of the details we have about Christ’s Passion and Crucifixion comes from Mark, much in the same way that Matthew and Luke provide most of the Christmas details. Mark is incredibly focused on the Cross as the focal point of salvation history. Mark gets right to it in his Gospel. There’s nothing about Joseph and Mary. There nothing about what you and I would say was the beginning of this story. Those present way back in Epiphany might remember “The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ” serves as our introduction to Mark. From that point on he is determined to get to the Cross. Jesus is God’s Messiah. The Messiah’s redeeming work is done on the Cross. Everything else in Mark is background noise. Jesus goes from miracle to miracle “immediately,” all with a purpose to what we observed this last week. Why the emphasis on the Cross?
A big reason would be the intended audience of Mark. Based on the carbon dating, we are confident that Mark wrote during the reign of Nero. Nero will famously put Paul and Peter to death, but he will do lots worse. Nero will be the first emperor to persecute Christians. By persecute, I don’t mean scoff at them or call them Jesus freaks, like some of our brothers and sisters in America think of “persecution.” Drought causing starvation? Blame the Christians and kill them! Our armies lost a battle? Blame the Christians and kill them! A Plague is ravaging the empire? Blame and kill the Christians. Nero, who is more famous in the world around us for fiddling while Rome burned, a fire many rumored he likely set in order to enlarge his palace, though the historian Tacitus disagreed with those rumors. What is not disagreed is who he blamed the fire on. You guessed it. Nero famously had Christians burned alive in the streets of Rome to be a light in the darkness. Good. You are a bit squeamish at that thought. You should be. Imagine living in a place and a time where your faith cost you your life. That’s persecution!
Imagine living in that time. Pandemics, wars, hungers, natural disasters. I guess, on second thought, we need little imagination, huh? Early Christians expected Jesus to return at any moment to begin His reign. But as the delay continued and the world testified against His victory, Christians were trying to figure out what went wrong. Mark wrote his Gospel for that environment with those kinds of pastoral concerns. Was Jesus who He claimed to be? Absolutely! Would He one day return to establish His kingdom? Again, absolutely. But what about now? If He is who He claims to be, why is the world the way it is? Those of you who attended during Carola’s interim ministry here at Advent might well remember the “tension between the already and not yet.” We know Jesus has authority and power—the Resurrection is the final demonstration of that, but Creation is not yet remade. Because you and I can understand the weight of plagues or food insecurity or wars or whatever, we can understand better the purpose of this Gospel. It is meant to encourage us, and it is meant to remind us that our faith, like our Lord’s faith, is cross-bearing. Put a bit differently, the glory comes later, after the suffering for Him and His purposes.
But I think there are a couple other important foci this morning, and I want to draw your attentions there. Notice that Mary, Mary, and Salome are headed to the tomb of Jesus. They are bringing spices with which to anoint His body. Do they know Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea have already spiced Jesus’ body? Are they intending this an an extra act of loving care and devotion to Jesus? We just do not know. But they are headed to the tomb the day after the great sabbath.
Upon their arrival, they discover the heavy stone has already been rolled away. More surprisingly is the fact that someone in a white robe is setting on the table where Jesus’ body would have been place on Friday. The presence of this man in a white robe would be more shocking than we think, though we may be more open to it thanks to the Passion readings of this week. Touching a dead body, or entering anything with a dead body, meant that one was ritually defiled. In order to be able to go to Temple or synagogue or associate with others in the community, one had to be purified. No one wanted to do that. Remember Friday how Pilate came out to the High Priest and Chief Priests because they could not enter the house of a Gentile? Good, I see nods. Think like that, but more significant. Remember how those witnessing Jesus’ execution ask that the legs of the condemned men be broken, but the soldiers discovered Jesus was already dead on Good Friday? Nobody entered a tomb unless they had to. Now, that had might be out of love, as families had to care properly for their dead, but it was not something one did willy nilly. Yet, this man in a white robe is apparently sitting on the table in the tomb.
Mark tells us that the man told the ladies not to be alarmed. That warning and the white robe, of course, convinces many of us that he was an angel. But, in case we doubt, the messenger has more instructions. He tells the ladies to go tell the disciples and Peter to go to Galilee, that Jesus is no longer in the tomb and will meet them there, just as He promised. For those of us who have paid attention to Mark’s Gospel this Lenten season, this promise is not new. Jesus has informed and taught His disciples that He will die and be raised from the dead before it happens. Now the mysterious stranger in a white robe in the tomb where Jesus’ body was laid, reminds the women of His teachings before the events of last week took place.
You and I have the perspective of history on these events and words. We know that Jesus has been raised from the dead and that He will spend the next 40 days appearing to His disciples, conversing with His disciple, eating with His disciples, encouraging His disciples, and finally instructing His disciples before His Ascension. We even have the perspective of recognizing for ourselves that the promise of Pentecost has come true. The Marys and Salome have no such perspective. Dead people do not rise! Normal people, God-fearing people, avoid defilement! It is no wonder they freak out when they hear the words of the messenger. It is no small wonder that they were afraid and seized with terror, to use the words of our translators. But here is where things get both fun and hard with Mark.
The oldest manuscripts of Mark end with that double negative and preposition. English teachers among us would cringe, and those who taught us would mark us down (no pun intended!), were we to write using double negatives and ending sentences or books with prepositions, right? Mark’s Gospel makes it clear the ladies told no one nothing, because they were terrified. The end. Yes, Susie read the so-called “intermediate” ending of Mark from the Gospel book a few minutes ago; and, yes, many of your Bibles at home will have the longer ending with footnotes marking the shorter and intermediate endings. But oldest manuscripts end here. Why? More importantly, why would we read this in Nashville 2000 years later? Jesus is not reassuring the ladies. Thomas is not yet invited to stick a finger in Jesus wound. Where’s the comfort? Where is the reassurance? Where is the attempt to convince us the Resurrection was true and not a figment of peoples’ imagination?
Imagine, if you can for a moment, you are hearing this Gospel read in a setting. The reader has breathlessly read “immediately, immediately, immediately.” The rug has been pulled out from under you on Palm Sunday. You have made it through the shock and horror of the Passion and Crucifixion. This story, which seemed so hopeful, so full of miracles and God’s promises, has ended tragically and abruptly. But it ends with that famous “They told no one nothing because they were terrified.” At some point, as you reflect on that ending, something interesting should dawn on you. Wait a minute. If they were too afraid to tell anyone anything, how can I be listening to this story? Ah, I see looks of comprehension. Yes, Mark was employing a literary device to draw his audience into the story. If no one had shared it, it would not be written nor read today, right?
But Mark is not finished with the purpose of his writing. I reminded all a few minutes ago that Mark begins his book with the words “The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ.” His purpose is not the same as John’s, who begins his Gospel in the Creation and announces today in a new garden, right? Just as significantly for Mark, this story of the Good News of Jesus Christ does not end until His return. What happens in between?
I see some wonder on faces. Good. We should all be filled with awe and wonder. Mark understood that God used human beings to relate His plan of salvation. How was the Resurrection in Mark shared? The ladies told people, probably Peter and the other disciples. And those people told people, and those people told people, and so on, and so on, until someone told you and me. Yes, other Gospel writers share with us that the disciples and Apostles met the Risen Jesus, but Mark does not include any of those stories. Mark writes his Gospel knowing that you and I, and all who read or hear his account, are grafted into God’s story of salvation. For reasons understood only by Him, He has chosen men and women and children like you and me to be the messengers, to be the sons and daughters, to be the heralds of His saving grace. As you hear this story afresh for the umpteenth time in your life, maybe the Holy Spirit is reminding you how you were too afraid to believe it when you first heard it. Perhaps the Holy Spirit is reminding you that you feared to accept the possibility it was true, when you first heard of Jesus. But somewhere along the way, just like the ladies today, you realized its truth. More importantly, you realized its significance. Most importantly, you heard the story from someone who loved you, who valued you, who wanted you to know how much God loved you. And they, following in the steps of Mark and of God, entrusted the Good News of Jesus Christ to you, that you, in turn, might share it and Him with those who you loved similarly.
In some ways, brothers and sisters, our world is similar to the world in which Mark’s manuscript was first written. Our modern rulers care for us far better than Nero, right? BTW—if you are visiting, that tone you heard in my voice was sarcasm. Can any of us think of a politician who really cares about us? Who really wants what is best for us? Most seem to participate in government for money or for power or for the ability to make soundbites, which leads to money and power. But at least other politicians around the world care for their people in ways that teach us how we should be doing it, right?
Along those lines, I mentioned that Nero loved to blame Christians when Rome experienced plagues, economic issues, natural disasters, defeat of their armed forces, and who knows what else. You and I are told we are on the transition from a pandemic to an endemic, that COVID-19 will just be another of those viruses with which our descendants will suffer. We have too many natural disasters, it seems like. We are so bored with war and rumors of war that most of us have tuned out from both Russia’s on-going attack on Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas. We who call ourselves followers of Lord Christ ignore the suffering and oppression of war and mimic our politicians with a “what can we do?” Economically, we are in challenging times. The younger generations have lost hope in the American dream. No longer do they buy into the myth taught to our mature members of society, that hard work will produce results and better standard of living. Those in power like to tell us it is that “kids” are lazy, that they want things handed to them. Do the “kids” expect to make enough to be able to have an apartment and food and car? Sure. Do our successful companies pay such “living wages,” or do they find millions for their executives and toss scraps to the “less valuable” in their companies? Worse, how many of our “kids” have seen the mature members of their families abandoned by those companies to whom they were loyal? How many of those kids have seen the mature members of their families chewed up and spit out by the machinery of capitalism? The kids may not know what they want, but they know they don’t want that! I see squirms. Good. We all understand it is complicated.
In the midst of all that, you and I should be unsurprised. Lent and Holy Week remind us intentionally of our sins and of our need for a Savior. And the Resurrection reminds us of God’s power and will to redeem all things. Better still, in Mark’s Gospel, as we are being grafted into this amazing story of salvation, as we are baptizing others into the Covenant and into the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we should also be reminded of our Lord’s last words in Mark’s Gospel. Don’t worry. I will not ask who knows it.
Jesus’ last words in this midst of this story into which you and I are grafted come from the Cross. I reminded you that Mark was focused on Jesus of Nazareth as God’s Messiah. The whole point of Jesus’ coming was the Cross, so it makes sense that it is from the Cross that Jesus speaks His last words. As Jesus hangs and is dying, He utters those famous words, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Those who attend Advent regularly know what I am about to remind them and everyone this morning. Those words are not defeat. Those words are not full of hopelessness, as some misunderstand. Those are the first words of Psalm 22. Psalms in Temple worship were as well known as any famous song in our cultural context. If I belt “New York, New York” in my best imitation of Sinatra, we all know the song, never mind my tone deaf singing. Similarly, for our Hebrew brothers and sisters, the psalms were like their Top 150. Psalm 22 was a uniques psalm. In theological terms, we call that psalm a psalm of re-orientation. The psalmist acknowledges that the world seems wrong, that God seems defeated or uncaring, that things are miserable. But as the psalmist worked his or her way along that psalm, they remind themselves and us of God’s power and will. By the end of the psalm, the psalmist is vowing to God that he or she will proclaim His salvation in the midst of the great congregation and that those who come after will know the saving works of God because of his or her testimony.
Think now about how Jesus’ last words in Mark’s Gospel were heard. He was hanging, dying on the Cross. He chooses to use a last breath on a psalm of re-orientation, a psalm which associates with misery and pain and God’s seeming inaction, yet by the end causes the speaker to declare that he or she will proclaim the saving works of God in the midst of His people. How can Jesus claim that? What would bring that psalm to His mind? Unless . . . Jesus is confident the Father will redeem even the suffering that leads to His death? And now, as we listen to Mark’s Gospel end, we are confronted with both the question of how we know this story and how God redeemed Jesus’ suffering. More amazingly, though, we are reminded intentionally by Mark that we are now part of God’s story.
Better still, the re-orientation of Psalm 22 leads to what next Psalm? That’s right. Psalm 23. Before we can get to Psalm 23, we have to make our way through Psalm 22. Before we make our way to the verdant pastures and still waters and table set before God’s enemies, we have to make our way to our own crosses.
Like those who came before and those who will come after, we are part of God’s story of salvation. We know Mary, Mary, and Salome shared with others what the messenger said. We know that Peter and the other disciples shared their experiences of the Risen Jesus. We know those who came after shared their experiences all the way down to us. And we know it falls to us to share with those who come after, those born and those yet unborn, the saving works of God in our lives, in the world around us, that they may join us the Great Congregation and share with us, in turn, the things God has done in and around and through them. How we each experience God is in, some ways, unique. Sure, we have corporate testimony like Body & Soul. Some of may say, “You know, God did amazing things at Advent. We bought 40-50,000 pounds of food a year, but God added 200-250,000 pounds to their work for free! He added beef. He added lobster. He added all kinds of things, things no one at Advent valued, like tongue! And people loved it! The food insecure were given a pledge, an appetizer of the Great Feast that is to come.” And when people ask how you know it was of God, you can say without any hesitation that you knew them, the priest and all the people who served, and none of them were smart enough to make this happen. You are laughing, but you are laughing because of the joyful nature of such truth. We are not that smart. We are lucky to make it through a day or week. But when we look back over the year, we recognize God’s redemptive hand in our midst. We are filled with wonder and incredulity and joy, much like those who encountered the Risen Jesus!
Individually, of course, the stories should be far more significant and joyful to us. There will be efforts today in churches to prove the Resurrection. And as people engage the world around them, people will begin to wrestle with those questions of faith. Most of us gathered here today will not be able to testify to an encounter with the Risen Jesus, mystics being the exceptions among us. What we can testify to, however, is the consequence of the Resurrection, namely, the fulfillment of Jesus’ promises regarding the Holy Spirit. Because He died and was raised and ascended, the Holy Spirit has come. You and I have experienced that promise. And so we testify how God has provided, how God has comforted, how God has protected, and even how God has used our suffering in His Name to glorify Him in our lives! You and I can speak to those experiences and to the peace that passes all understanding. We can speak how something in our lives reflected a truth expressed in the Bible or made clear through the Sacrament. We do that, in obedience to our Lord, because He commands and instructs it. We do that, because we remember how loved ones and strangers once shared with us their own experiences. We do that, as did Mary, Mary, and Salome, because we understand that God has grafted us into His story of salvation. And we do it, trusting that those who come after and who hear Mark’s Gospel ending read in congregations not yet gathered, will ask the same questions we ask today and hear answers not unlike our own! We do that because, reminded of God’s will to use us and His power to redeem sinful human beings like us, His plan of salvation proceeds in tranquility, to use one of our Collects from last week, until His return and re-Creation. We do that because, we were to fail, even the stones themselves would cry out!
My friends, this day I encourage you to recall who first shared this story with you. Who was the person or who were the people in your life who, despite being afraid of what you might think of them, braved the fear we all feel when confronted by power of God and cynicism of you and those around you? Who braved the inner desire to tell no one nothing because they were afraid, but determined to share with you their experience of God’s saving grace in their lives? Who, in the most flattering imitation of Jesus on the Cross and despite the seeming testimony of the world around them that God was not real or did not care, declared to you and those who would come after His saving work in their lives? Most importantly, who is in your life that needs to hear your testimony? Who needs to be shown the loving arms of Jesus Christ on the Cross and the redemptive power and will of God, not with fancy words, not with flawless arguments, but in your life? Who, like you, is being offered that wonderful opportunity to participate in the Good News of Jesus Christ, begun in Bethlehem nearly 2000 years ago, and continuing until His return, when all things are re-made as He intended, and we share in those blessings He has promised all who call Him Lord?
