Christ Lutheran Church

1701 Arroyo Chamiso

Santa Fe, NM 87505-4775

(505) 983-9461

church@clcsantafe.com

  

 

April 12, 2009

Easter Sunday

 

Gospel: Mark 16.1-8

 

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.  2And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.  3They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”  4When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.  5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.  6But he said 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.  7But 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.”  8So 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.

The Shorter Ending of Mark

[[And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterwards Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.* ]]

The Longer Ending of Mark

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene

9 [[Now after he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. 10She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping. 11But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.

Jesus Appears to Two Disciples

12 After this he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. 13And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.

Jesus Commissions the Disciples

14 Later he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were sitting at the table; and he upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.* 15And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news* to the whole creation. 16The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned. 17And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18they will pick up snakes in their hands,* and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.’

The Ascension of Jesus

19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. 20And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.* ]]

 

Which Ending Is the Real Ending?

 

+ In nomine Domini.  Amen.

Christ is Risen.  He is Risen Indeed!

The 40 days of Lent are over.  The short cold days of winter are changing (we hope!)[1] into the longer days of sunlit warmth.  The “Alleluia” has returned to our liturgy, in fact, doubled for the next 49 days.  It is Easter Sunday, and we rejoice because we hear again the good news of faith, the Story around which we gather, the Story which feeds us and nourishes and causes us to be not religious people, but followers of Jesus who live with a mission, a purpose, a vocation, a calling … to live each day loving God by loving our neighbor, to be in this world for the repairing, the mending, the putting back together of the brokenness, in other words, to be fully human … to live our lives in resurrection light.

And, if that is too poetic or romantic for an Easter Sunday morning, then let us put it this way: Because Jesus lives, so we are called to live, and live in such a way that when we find someone in need, when we find injustice, when we see the broken spirit of human beings around us – perhaps even in our own close relationships – then we are to do what Jesus taught us to do, extend ourselves beyond ourselves in compassion and caring.  That is what it means to say this is Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus, the conquering of Death and Sadness, the establishing of the Reign of God in human time and condition.

To say Christ is Risen.  He is Risen Indeed is to do more than just come to a Service or even 10 Services in a Church … to say Christ is Risen.  He is Risen Indeed is to put oneself into the world and not flee from it, not hide from it, not ignore its needs and wants.  To say Christ is Risen.  He is Risen Indeed means that you renew a promise to be like Jesus, to see humanity around you and touch it with love.

+++

The stories we have about this Easter Day come from the second part of the 1^st Century.  We have them in our Bibles.  The earliest comments about Jesus being the Risen-Crucified One we have from the pen of St. Paul in his various letters.  He does not relate an account about an Empty Tomb, he does not talk about the women coming early in the morning, he is not full of nostalgia … rather he writes to the community of followers of Jesus in the Greek city of Corinth located on that little stretch of land that connects the Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece, a community that was full and active in commerce and trade and thinking and religion … he writes to them what he believes, his article of faith, a kind of early Creed, if you will … and he does not say that he saw it happen, he says …

“ … I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared …”

And writing in Greek as he did, the word he uses for appeared means more than that, it means “was seen.”[2]  And Paul hands down that story to the collection of early followers, it is his faith, what makes him go into the world and be like Jesus, to see humanity around himself and touch it with love.

Paul writes that about 20 years after the time of Jesus.  And then 20 years after the letters of Paul, comes the 1^st Gospel, the one we read this morning, the Gospel According to Mark.

We have been living with this Gospel since the beginning of this Church Year back in November.  We have been reading it and studying it and learning from it.  We have seen how this Story of Jesus is not a literal history, but a Story of faith.  It’s job it not to relate facts, but to create devotion, and paint a portrait of Jesus that will be more than a holy image hung upon the wall of the church, rather a portrait that will compel us who listen to the story again, as if for the first time … will compel us to acts of love and mercy in Jesus’ name, in the name of the Risen Lord.

That is what this Gospel does.  It brings Jesus into our midst so that we can hear him and see him and feel his touch upon our existence; and that experience brings Jesus into our lives, and just so compels us into the world.

It is no romance novel, it is not a Book that we open up one time a year and feel warm and thrilled by a Resurrection narrative.  No, it is far different than that, it does something to us.

We see that this Easter morning as we read the very last Chapter of this Gospel.  As the words are read aloud, we find ourselves shaking our heads a bit.

Jesus, the Gospel tells us, has been buried before the sun went down and Shabbat (the Sabbath) began that Friday evening.  He had been buried hurriedly, without funeral preparation, because in Judaism, one cannot be buried on Shabbat.

And now the day of rest was over we are told and it is in the early morning that three women, three of his followers, three of his close companions, come to the tomb carrying the ritual spices with which to anoint the body, to finish what should have been done before he was buried.

Mark tells us who they are: Mary, Mary and Salome.  They walk and talk and wonder, “Who will roll back for us the stone covering the entrance to the cave where Jesus was buried?” 

They look up, we are told, and lo and behold the stone is already rolled back and the entrance to the cave is clear.  And inside they go, and as their eyes become used to the darkness, there is a man there and he scares them.  It would seem to be an angel, this man, and he tells them that he knows they are there to find Jesus, but Jesus is not in the tomb, look for yourselves, he says, and then he tells the three women to go tell the men, the followers, the disciples, and Peter that Jesus is going up from Jerusalem to the Galilee and he will meet everybody there.

And then comes that wonderful verse that concludes the Gospel of Mark, “So 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.”

But that ending did not satisfy later generations of followers of Jesus.  And so sometime between the year 70 when this Gospel came into being, and 100 years later, there developed two alternative endings to the Gospel.  And if you look in your Bibles, you will find those endings, either in the text itself as additions, or as footnotes.

The oldest manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel end the way we have read it this morning.  The women come, they see, they run away afraid.

But scribes who copied the story supplemented the ending. 

One of the supplements, the shorter one, affirms that Jesus sent the disciples out on a mission to the world.

And the other, a longer ending, already known in the 2^nd Century, combines elements of the resurrection stories of the other Gospels (the later Gospels of Matthew, and Luke and John) and also the book of the Acts of the Apostles … where the tradition of the apostles’ ability to perform miracles, speak in tongues, handle deadly serpents, and heal the sick … along with Jesus’ ascension into heaven … are included.

So which ending is the real ending?  In my opinion, it is the one we read this morning. 

Three women come to anoint the body of Jesus, they see the entrance to the tomb is open, they go inside, have an encounter of startling awareness that Jesus is not there in the tomb, are instructed to go and tell the others, and they run away from the tomb afraid.

But it’s not a satisfying ending, is it?

No, it isn’t, and that’s what I love it.  That’s why Mark is my favourite Gospel.   You can’t make a Movie out of it.  It doesn’t have a cute ending.  It’s rather open-ended, and that is its beauty.

+++ 

There was a 5^th Century Bishop of Ravenna (northern Italy) named Peter Chrysologus (Peter the “Golden Worded”).  He was called the “Doctor of Homilies”, known for his short but inspired talked, being afraid, as he was of boring his congregations.

And, in thinking about how this Gospel of Mark ends, he had the following thoughts, especially about the part of the “stone being rolled away from the entrance of the tomb.”

This is from “Sermon 82”:

“Is it [the stone that needs to be rolled away] from the door of the sepulcher, or of your own hearts?  From the tomb, or from your own eyes?  You whose heart is shut, whose eyes are closed, are unable to discover the glory of the open grave.  Pour then your oil, if you wish to see that glory, not on the body of the Lord, but on the eyes of your hearts.  By the light of faith you will then see that which through the deficiency of faith now lies hidden in darkness.”

Which is the ending that is the real ending?

The ending that ends in us.[3]  Jesus rises into the community of faith, Jesus rises into us and lives in us.  And when we move into the world into the lives of those around us, touching as we have been touched, healing as we have been healed, offering hope as we have been given hope, then that is the Promise of Easter!

Christ is Risen.  He is Risen Indeed!

 

+ Deo Gratia.  Amen.

The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III, Pastor