Part Three. Here are parts one and two.

Over the last few days I’ve been reflecting on the nature of sin and humanity; GOD and Jesus; death and loss and what comes next.  And the reality is that Sunday is the one day we feel ready to deal with.  We read the Passion only so that it can get us to Sunday and birth and new birth and rebirth and Jesus rising once again for the 1977th year in a row.  We are so eager to skip to it, to proclaim the risen Christ, shouting that 40-days-long exiled “Alleluia, alleluia!” with such fervor that we wonder if there is anything left within us–that we have expelled all that was there; optimistic that there will be something left when we leave through those doors, dismissed to serve Jesus in the world…

Except that we all said that sing song “Alleluia, alleluia!” like a loud whisper and then skedaddled to go to our respective Easter brunches.  And I wonder if Jesus’s death and disappearance and resurrection has touched our hearts.  I’m not sure.

Mark

My favorite gospel account of Sunday is Mark’s.  In it, Mary Magdalene, Mary (James’ mother), and Salome head to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus, and when they get there, the stone in front of the tomb is rolled back and there’s this young man in white sitting inside.  He tells them not to worry, that Jesus has been raised and that they need to tell Peter and the disciples to meet him in Galilee.  The gospel ends with this verse (8):

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.

And that’s it.  The story ends.  Early church people found this so distasteful, so difficult to deal with that they tacked on an ending that was more hopeful, that was like Matthew and Luke’s.  But the gospel’s traditional ending has the three women running away in fear.

The Perfect Ending

In some ways, this is the perfect ending to Mark’s gospel.  When we read through it, we are treated to a depiction of followers of Jesus that are imperfect and often making serious mistakes.  They fail to recognize the truth in Jesus until after the fact.  No where is this more evidential than in Jesus’s three depictions of his coming death in chapters 8, 9, and 10.  Each time, the disciples are caught in their earthly concerns while he is trying to teach them about the Kingdom and about heaven.

It is in this spirit that this ending is so telling.  The three women do the very thing that each of the disciples do throughout: run away from the ministry that Jesus has given them.

And in that lies its perfection.  The followers of Jesus are imperfect.  They have asperations to anoint a dead body, but when one is not found, they fail to recognize the risen Christ.  Why should humanity suddenly get what they spent the last three years not getting?

And just as telling is the church’s dissatisfaction with this ending, that a new one would be tacked on the end.  We don’t trust that the gospel can be heard and inform us as it is.  Even the gospel proclaimed out of the Altar book had the shorter ending (verse 9), choosing not to end on a down note.

The Down Ending

I don’t see this ending as a problem.  In fact, after the Holy Weekend, it is much more satisfying.  It speaks to the fear and confusion of a risen Christ, not just the joy.  It speaks to the trouble we have with the new reality: Jesus died and left.  Regardless of the resurrection, he is not a physical human to follow any longer.  He isn’t standing in front of us.  As Jesus is to have said in John 15:4

Abide in me as I abide in you.

And thus we are left with a Jesus that is always here but is never physically around.  And this is enough to drive the most honest among us mad.

For just as we are introduced to grief on Friday and that sense of loss on Saturday, Sunday does not reunite in the way we want it to.  Jesus isn’t raised from the dead to rejoin us.  His physical self is gone forever, which is cold comfort to the grieving.  And for all of our Easter revelry, it is hard to square that circle: that Jesus’s death and resurrection is anything but a metaphysical power play on GOD’s part.

The End is Not the End

The ironic realization, as we deal with Mark’s ending, is that it certainly implies that the story isn’t really over.  There is going to be this meeting in Galilee and hopefully Peter and the disciples will hear about it.  The story continues, even if the narrative does not.

We know that the end is not really the end.  This points to our understanding of all ends: that we can have faith that in our end, things do not end.  In a loved ones’ end, her life may end, but life does not end.

Throughout the gospel of Mark, the people aren’t supposed to be our example, the ones that we follow.  It’s Jesus.  The fact that Peter, James, and John all look like fools doesn’t keep me from understanding discipleship.  In the same way, that Mary, Mary, and Salome couldn’t handle the witness in its moment doesn’t keep me from understanding the risen Christ.

So if we are to call ourselves “Easter People,” let us take on the true spirit of this day: of fear and trembling before the resurrection.  Let us not spend our time in high-minded doctrine, but in the profound truth of resurrection and ascension: The King is Dead!  Long live the King!