The Gospel with the Improper Ending

Mark 16:1-8

Buddy Summers

Introduction

When Disciples and Presbyterians seek to understand God’s way, the Good News of Jesus, and the life to which we are called, we turn to scripture. The Bible matters.

With all the help we can get, we try to understand the stories in scripture in the spirit in which they were written. And then, we still need to sit down together, talk and even pray through the possibilities. The search for understanding requires thought and love, even some trial and error.

Easter Sunday raises a fundamental, but far from easy, question for the Bible. The Easter message is “He is risen.” So, what were they really saying? What are we supposed to do about it?

Today, I’m looking at The Gospel According to Mark, especially at the abrupt way that the gospel ends. What’s that all about? What was Mark hoping to accomplish?

They Couldn’t Let Mark’s Ending Stand

Who is this young man sitting in the tomb where Jesus was supposed to be? Whoever he is, he knows more than the women. “Jesus who was crucified? Risen. Not here. Go tell the disciples that he will meet them in Galilee.” The women, frightened, run out saying nothing to anyone. The end. Finis. Curtains. Lights.

“Wait, wait,” screamed somebody. “That’s not how it ends. This is how the story ends”,

So the women went right out and told Peter and his pals everything. Afterwards, Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, “the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.” The end. Curtains.

“No, no, that’s not right either. Actually, it was like this”:

First, you see, Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene. She told Peter and the others but they didn’t believe her. Then Jesus appeared to two disciples out in the country. They went and told the disciples but no one believed them. Finally, Jesus appeared to the eleven, scolded their failure to believe the testimony of the other witnesses. He gave them a great commission. And then….

It’s not called the longer ending of Mark’s Gospel for nothing. It is (longer), but it’s definitely tacked on. The language, the style, everything is different. Something about Mark’s original ending apparently just didn’t satisfy everyone in the early church.

What did people think was missing in Mark’s original ending? And what was he trying to accomplish by ending his gospel the way he did?

The Appearance Stories Are Missing

What’s missing? The post resurrection appearance stories. In Mark, the empty tomb is the end of the story. Matthew and Luke, which were composed ten to fifteen years after Mark, go on to relate stories of a mostly realistic risen Jesus interacting with the Disciples.

With only one story to tell, Matthew is fairly modest in his representation of the post resurrection Jesus. Jesus appeared to the eleven in Galilee. Some worshipped Jesus. Some doubted. Jesus issued the Great Commission, the one that begins go into all the world, and then said, “And behold I am with you always.”

Luke’s appearance stories are more developed than Matthew’s. Jesus first appears to two disciples who were getting out of Dodge (Jerusalem). As you remember, they did not recognize him. They invited him to stay the night with them in a roadside inn. It wasn’t until he had interpreted scripture to them and broken bread with them that they recognized him.

In Luke’s other appearance story, Jesus appears to the eleven disciples. He says, “I’m not a ghost. Touch me.” He ate some fish. Then he floated up, up and away. OK, I said “mostly realistic.”

Composed twenty to twenty-five years after Matthew and Luke (that is--some seventy years after Jesus’ time) John’s Gospel has even more complex appearance stories to tell. First, there is the garden appearance to Mary Magdalene. Until he addresses her by name, “Mary,” she thinks he must be the gardener.

Then Jesus passes into a locked room scaring the pants off his disciples. He gives them his Spirit. Thomas had been out of the room when Jesus appeared. So to convince Thomas that he was indeed the same Jesus who had been crucified, Jesus says to Thomas, “Put your fingers in the wound in my side.” Jesus blesses Thomas for believing but, even more, Jesus blesses those who believe without all the show and tell.

In a final Gospel of John appearance, Jesus appears early in the morning to seven disciples who had gone fishing. When they had come ashore with their catch, he ate breakfast with them. John says no one dared ask who he was, since they knew it was Jesus. Afterwards, Jesus had his little talk with Peter—you know the one, where he says, “Do you love me, do you really love me, then, feed my sheep.”

Did more appearance stories come to light over the seventy odd years after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, or was there an inevitable need to concretize or illustrate faith’s declaration ‘he is risen’? Good question. Who knows?

It’s important, I think, not to excommunicate each other (or worse) over differences in the way we imagine the resurrection.

The appearance stories do have these things in common--

• the risen Jesus was mostly not immediately recognizable,
• there was a relationship between recognizing Jesus and biblical interpretation and communal practices like eating together, and lastly,
• recognizing Jesus usually involved some kind of commissioning and empowerment to go and do the work which Jesus had been doing and which he was passing on to his followers.

Mark’s Circular Ending Sends Us Back to the Beginning

The earliest gospel, written only some thirty years after the time of Jesus, apparently had no particular interest in depicting the post resurrection Jesus as a person walking around as he had walked around in the past. Instead, The Gospel of Mark reinforces Jesus’ call to discipleship. He employed what today might be called a “circular ending.”

The message that Jesus will meet the disciples in Galilee sends the story back to the beginning. Galilee is the place from which Jesus came to be baptized in the Jordan by John. Galilee is the place to which Jesus subsequently returned to begin his ministry.

In Galilee, Jesus began preaching “the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of is near, repent and believe the good news.” In Galilee, he ate with sinners and tax collectors and called his first followers.

In Galilee, he cast out demons and healed many people of their illnesses and forgave sins. Some were healed owing to their faith (remember the woman who had been hemorrhaging.) Others were healed due to the faith of their friends (remember the man who was lowered through the roof of the house where Jesus was teaching.) Still others were healed because the demons within them called attention to themselves by confronting Jesus.

In Galilee, Jesus appointed twelve of his followers to go out two by two to do exactly what he had been doing. After they had returned, full of excitement and experience, Jesus left Galilee heading for Jerusalem and teaching about the realm of God along the way.

He invited the rich man to sell everything and follow him. He cast out the demon known ominously as Legion. He overturned the market which had been set up in the Temple. Finally, he was crucified by the Romans (whose Legions were everywhere).

In a typical “circular ending,” the protagonist, the hero, returns to the beginning of his story as a changed person. In Mark’s “circular ending,” however, it is the reader who is the changed person. We, as readers of Mark’s Gospel are sent back to the beginning. We are invited to read the story again, this time with a deeper understanding and a more profound response.

This time, we are the ones called and empowered by Jesus to preach the kingdom, to heal and to embody God’s way of being in the world—and, without fear and in love and holy confidence in God’s spirit, to cast out the controlling demon Legion wherever he appears before us.

For Mark, “he is risen” means that we are not to look for Jesus in the tombs and traditions of the dead. Rather we are to return to Galilee—there to be called, healed and commissioned by Jesus to proclaim that the time to change our minds and settled ways of privilege and exclusion has come, to proclaim the time of rebuilding society and relationships has come, and to proclaim the time of renewing our world has come--and that the realm of God indeed is near.

Conclusion

So I did it. Yesterday, after a long nap, I re-read the Gospel of Mark, slowly, deliberately. It’s the shortest. Doesn’t take very long. I can recommend it. If you want to do it and don’t have a Bible at home, take one from the pew. It’s a gift.

I like the Gospel of Mark because it doesn’t put too many obstacles between twenty-first century people like us and his very human Son of God Jesus who, I must say, is a still very much a person to be reckoned with, still very much a person who will meet us in Galilee and who is still a person who can bring us, who can bring all of us, who can bring humankind home.

Thank you Gospel of Mark for your take on the Good News of Jesus Christ, Son of God. He is risen. He is risen, indeed.

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