Making Sense of Easter
Mark 16:1-8
As I was preparing for today, several preachers were commenting on how they were always glad when Easter was over. Why? Well, it’s hard to find something new to say about events that get talked about so much. For those of you who go to church on a regular basis, how many times don’t you hear the same thing said about the resurrection? Let’s be honest, for those of you who go to church regularly, do you really expect to hear something new today?
And what about those of you who don’t go to church all that often? What do you expect to hear today? It’s always been a little ironic to me that the two Sundays during the year when we have the highest number of people who don’t go to church regularly – the Sunday before Christmas and Easter Sunday – are the two Sundays when we talk about the most hard-to-believe aspects of the Christian faith. Think about it. At Christmas we talk about the virgin birth. That’s a pretty big stretch for our minds. And on Easter, we proclaim the resurrection. It’s almost as if Easter’s trying to one-up Christmas on shock value. For those folks who may only come to church on Easter and Christmas, it’s no wonder they often say what goes on in church has no relevance to their lives.
Now, I can’t say I dread Easter like some preachers. But I’ll admit it does take every ounce of my creative energy, prayer, and wrestling with the text to try and bring fresh and relevant insights to the familiar and hard-to-believe story of Easter.
So what shall we talk about on this day of familiarity, high-expectations, and hard-to-believe events?
Let’s start with the resurrection story from Mark’s Gospel. I love Mark’s version because it’s not a nice and tidy package. An angel appears to Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome and tells them Jesus is not there! He has arisen! These women don’t burst into hymns of praise. They don’t go out and buy new Easter dresses and hide colored eggs with sweets inside. What they do is run away in a state of confused terror. And that’s how Mark ends the story. Literally, the end of Mark goes something like this, “To no one anything they said; afraid they were for…”[1] It’s like Mark was dragged away from his writing in mid-sentence and never completed his thought. Is this any way to run a resurrection? Who’s going to say, “Yeah, sign me up! I want to be part of that!” We’re not sure if the message from the angel is good news or bad. We only know that Jesus is not where everyone thinks he’ll be.
Most biblical scholars believe that Mark’s Gospel ends at verse 8. Verses 9-20 are an addition – an attempt to bring closure and make sense of an indescribable event. And people have been explaining and speculating about Jesus ever since. In recent weeks, the Gospel of Judas has been getting a lot of attention. This ancient writing claims Jesus and Judas were co-conspirators in a cover up. Jesus supposedly told Judas to betray him. Believe what you want but I think this is just another attempt by us – human beings – to put Jesus where we think he belongs – in a place that makes sense to our way of thinking. The story just doesn’t make sense on its own so let’s fix it.
What we are left with in Mark is an ending that leaves us haunted and hungry. We’re hungry because we want to know more. We’re haunted because we think it might have something to do with us, but we’re not always sure exactly what.
Well, here’s what I think it has to do with us. Notice where the angel tells the women Jesus has gone – to Galilee. This is where his ministry began. For Jesus, this was going home.[2] It would make more sense if Jesus had stayed in Jerusalem and paraded down main street saying, “I told you so!” We’d even cut Jesus some slack if he took a few moments and barged into the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes board meeting with a moment or two or gloating. But Jesus does none of that. He goes home – to Galilee.
In Jesus’ day, Galilee was often called “Galil of the Gentiles,” or “the region of the Gentiles,” or simply, “the region of the nations.” You see, Galilee was a very eclectic place and very ordinary place. It was a melting pot of nationalities and races. And while that may sound profound and important in our day and age, it wasn’t. Galilee was more like the place you went when you couldn’t go anywhere else. Galilee was the societal garbage dump. What was so great about Galilee? Nothing. But that’s where Jesus went and that’s where the women were told to go.
Now, most of us would not consider our homes to be a societal garbage dump but sometimes our homes can feel like a dump when life presses in us. Sometimes home is the place we go when we can’t go anywhere else. And you know what? Most importantly, home is where Jesus still is for us. Jesus meets us in the stack of dirty dishes sitting in the sink. Jesus meets us in the aftermath of the argument we just had with our spouse. Jesus meets us in our disappointments and our celebrations. Oh, Jesus may show up in our prim and proper moments of worship when we’re decked out in our Sunday best but he’s more likely to show up and be most true in our moments of real living – when life is ordinary, confused, and horribly hard. Moments when we’re both hungry for something more. Moments when we’re haunted with disappointment and fear. Those are the times we’re most likely to have our own resurrection encounters.
If Mark’s Gospel ends at verse 8 like most scholars believe, then we never really know if Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome went to Galilee to see Jesus. We don’t know if they went home. If they didn’t, then oh what an opportunity they missed.
Let’s not miss our opportunity to experience the risen Christ. So let’s get out of here and go home! Christ has risen and waits for us!
Amen.
[1] Thomas G. Long, “Living By The Word,” The Christian Century, April 4, 2006.
[2] William H. Willimon focuses on this going-home aspect in his article, “At Home With Christ,” Pulpit Resource, Volume 34, Number 2, pp. 17-20. I shape the last part of my sermon using and adapting Willimon’s thoughts.