We began our service this morning with the joyful affirmation that Christ is Risen! As we celebrate today, we are not just looking back to what happened 2,000 years ago, but rejoicing in the living reality of the Risen Christ in our lives and our world today. We are given hope for the renewal of the whole created order and for each one of us as an individual. Through the resurrection of Christ, God can transform everything and everyone, and that is surely a message that our desperately suffering world needs to hear.
During the 10.30 service today, Delali, Joana and Edem-David will be baptized, and their baptism is a witness to the living reality of the Risen Lord. They won't simply profess a creed; they will be united with Christ in his death and resurrection, and the story of their lives taken up into the story of his life. At one point, I will say 'Christ claims you as his own.' They will be drawn into the story of Christ, Crucified and Risen, and this is true of all of us who have been baptized.
But what is the story we are drawn into? This morning we have heard the account of the resurrection from Mark's gospel.
I was always taught at school, when writing an essay, that it was important to have a good beginning and even more important to have a clear ending. Well, perhaps Mark wouldn't have got a very good grade for the end of his Gospel. This is how it goes: 'So the women went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.' Is that it?' That surely can't be the end. Everything is left hanging in the air; the women find the tomb empty and run away in fear and silence. We want to know what happens next.
The reading we've heard this morning with that ending is Mark 16: 1-8. There are different opinions about why it ends like this. It's possible that Mark wrote more but any additional verses have been lost. Certainly some people felt Mark's ending was lacking something for two alternative endings were later added (and these are often printed in brackets at the end of Mark's Gospel). But Mark himself, whose Gospel is thought to be the first to have been written, either ended his Gospel at verse eight, with the women running away in fear and silence, or the original ending is lost. But, perhaps Mark actually intended to end his Gospel with this sense of unfinished business, of anticipation, leaving us wondering what happened next. The effect is to draw us into the story. What do we make of the news that the Lord is Risen? How will we respond?
Mark's is the shortest Gospel with the fastest pace. Jesus constantly calls his disciples to follow him, but they are very slow to understand. They are often fearful and puzzled. They cannot really comprehend who he is and what he has come to do. Jesus had taught them he would be arrested, tortured and put to death and that he would rise again from the dead; but they could not understand this message. When he was arrested they fled in terror, all except some of the women who watched his execution at a distance.
Some of these women come to the tomb early on the first day of the week, the day after the Sabbath. They want to anoint the body but know that the tomb will be sealed with a large stone. When they arrive, however, they find the stone has been moved away. When they enter the tomb they see an angel, and we're told 'they were alarmed.' The Greek word should really be translated 'terrified'. They were terrified! The angel says to them 'Do not be afraid' words which Jesus had repeatedly said to his disciples throughout his ministry; 'do not be afraid.' The angel continues 'you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised, he is not here... But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee, just as he told you.' Indeed, Jesus had told them earlier this is what would happen, but it had not registered with them.
The women have been given an important message: to go and tell his disciples – and Peter too – that Jesus is Risen. Perhaps Peter is especially mentioned because he needs that extra assurance that, after his past failure in denying Jesus, he is forgiven. The disciples are to go to Galilee where they will find the Risen Jesus who has gone ahead of them. Perhaps they are told to go back to Galilee because this is the place where it all started for them; Galilee was where Jesus first called them to be his disciples. He called them in the midst of their ordinary lives to follow him. Now they are to go back to the beginning again with a new call to discipleship, and a new joy that Christ is Risen; whatever will befall them in the future, in life and in death, he will be with them.
This is the message. But, we're told, the women 'went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them.' The women, when they hear the news of the resurrection run away, just as the male disciples had done earlier when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. And, we're told, the women 'said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.'
The women run away and say nothing. There is a wonderful irony here. Many times earlier in the Gospel Jesus has told different characters to keep silent and say nothing about him because the time was not right and he knew people would misinterpret stories about a miracle worker, failing to recognise who he truly was. But in many cases people spoke out even when told not to. But now, when the women are told to speak, they keep silent! But of course we know that they did not stay silent; the news of the Risen Lord spread widely, otherwise there would have been no Gospel written, and there would have been no early church, and we would not be sitting here in church this Easter morning!
The good news of the resurrection of Jesus was the foundation of the early church, as we heard in our readings from Acts and from first Corinthians. Peter speaks of being a witness to the fact of Jesus being raised on the third day, and that the Risen Jesus ate and drank with his disciples. Paul tells the Corinthians that he is handing on to them a message of great importance that he has himself received: 'that Christ died for our sins...and that he was buried... and that he was raised on the third day.'
This is the message we continue to pass on, from one generation to another, as Christians in churches all over the world. But this is not a dry creed, but a living reality, and we need to be drawn ourselves into the story. 'Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again' as we say in the Eucharistic prayer. What impact does that have on us and how do we respond?
Mark does not neatly round off his Gospel. It ends with the news that the Lord is Risen; Jesus is alive and he remains alive whatever the women say or do not say. The presence of the Risen Jesus hangs over the end of the Gospel even though there are no accounts of him meeting the disciples. The story ends with the expectation that he will appear to them, and the promise that they are offered a new beginning in following him.
What does this all say to us? Mark leaves us with a kind of question mark at the end, a blank to fill in for ourselves. What do we make of the Gospel story, the news that Jesus is Risen? The whole Gospel has been like an introduction to this Good News; what will we make of it? Like the women, we may well at times feel fear and puzzlement; we may be tempted to keep silent about our faith. But the Gospel may also leave us with the burning desire to meet the Risen Lord for ourselves; to have the eyes of our hearts opened to recognise him in his word, in prayer and silence, in communion, in fellowship with one another. The end of Mark's Gospel feels unfinished because the story continues. We, too, are invited to make our own response of faith; to follow as disciples of the Risen Jesus in our own ordinary lives.
This is the invitation to Delali, Joana, and Edem-David today as they are baptised. It is also the invitation to all of us. What exactly it might mean for us to follow Christ in our daily lives will vary according to our different situations. Some of us are studying at school or at college, some are working in demanding jobs while others are retired, some are actively involved in our local community and others know that their main contribution is to pray for a needy world. Whatever our situation, the reality of the Risen Christ is to shape all that we are and say and do. We are called to participate in God's transforming work in our world.
So let us remember today that we are drawn into the story of Christ Crucified and Risen; that our lives are joined to his. The Risen Christ goes before us; will we follow him?
Helen Marshall