a Sermon for Easter
Text: Mark 16:1-8

This is the tough Easter gospel. The gospel we know as mark is the only one without joyous celebration and is perhaps a strange note to cast on a celebratory morning like this. These three women, Mary, Mary, and Salome come to the tomb expecting to prepare Jesus for burial. When they get there they find the entrance disturbed, Jesus is gone, and a young man we presume is an angel is there. He gives them instructions and they run away. The End.

As I described last night, this must hae been profoundly unsettling to people who heard this gospel because all of the gospels that come later have more story. In fact, some well-intentioned writers added two additional endings to Mark, not happy with this conclusion. It sort of feels as if George Lucas ran out of money filming Empire Strikes Back and never filmed Return of the Jedi. Imagine that view of the group staring off into space as the end of the story. Han is gone! Does the Empire win?

We don’t know how to deal with such inconclusivity.

The same goes for our personal lives. Some of us may know what it’s like to know there is something wrong with us but we can’t get a diagnosis. How hard it is to not know! My mother developed some health problems a few years after chemo and radiation treatments. It took years and literally dozens of doctors before she found an internist that said something like “I don’t care about a diagnosis! How about we treat your symptoms?”
We don’t like things unsettled and up in the air. We want conclusions and concrete statements. We like knowing what was, is, and will be. We often describe our faith with such certainty. But this gospel ends without it. It ends with fear and retreat.

Sort of.

Unlike the other gospels, this one ends with the resurrection! No more teachings, but the promise of appearance. What is to come actually is what John describes in the other option for today: that Mary Magdalene goes to the other disciples and preaches the first Easter sermon; that a woman is first to proclaim the good news of the risen Christ. She first had to run away in fear.

We can be certain of this, not because the words in the other gospels say its true, but because there are other gospels at all! That there is a church and that we gathered in community to share in it! Our proof is in the work and all that has been poured out from that moment.

And one of those signs is baptism. We know the risen Christ because someone who was baptized, baptized us. And in just a few minutes, we will together baptize two more people. This is our work and our proof.

As we prepare Mia and Robert for baptism, we will do two things: we’ll vow to raise them and care for their spiritual welfare—we’ll swear to do this—which means we’re all on the hook, not just the parents, so we ought to take an interest. The other thing is that we’ll reaffirm our baptismal vows. This is our chance, not for a do-over, but a new chance of re-commitment and reminder. A chance to hear and affirm what we’re called to do here.

In the resurrection, which baptism is (a resurrection), the ending is removed: we are open-ended. Our future is new, it is fresh, and it is ours together.