Easter 2024
Happy Easter! So, this Easter we hear the resurrection story from Mark’s gospel, which I usually avoid, but using John’s version, because the ending to Mark is notoriously odd. In Mark, the tomb is empty (apart from the messenger), but nobody gets to see Jesus or touch the nail holes in his hands. There is no great commission, no recounting of the Hebrew Scriptures or a meal shared with travelers to Emmaus, and no intimate conversation with Mary in the garden nor sudden arrival of the risen Christ behind locked doors.
Apparently, Mark’s good news requires no resurrection proofs based on encounters between Jesus and his disciples. Instead, there is a promise: “He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”
Will the disciples trust that promise? Will we?
Note that Jesus’ resurrection happens in the dark. The women are coming to the tomb just as the sun is rising. “The resurrection happened in total darkness. Sometime in the predawn hours of that Sunday morning, a great mystery transpired in secret. No sunlight illuminated the event. No human being witnessed it. And even now, two thousand years later, no human narrative can contain it. All we can know is that somehow, in an ancient tomb on a starry night, God worked in secret to bring life out of death. Somehow, in the utter darkness, God saved the world”. And God continues reaching out, through Jesus, to save each and every one of us, every day.
Today Mark’s gospel tells us to go to Galilee and there we will see Jesus. Jesus goes ahead of us. Mark’s ending actually takes us back to the beginning. “This is the beginning of the good news” is how Mark’s gospel opens. We are being invited to be a part of Mark’s story. We are being invited to continue the story, to continue the good news.
Mark invites us to peer into the tomb ourselves. Mark invites us to confront our own fears and allow God to work within and among us. The young man, dressed in white, first says to the women. “Do not be alarmed”….don’t be afraid. Whether we are afraid to face our own addictions or our own broken relationships; whether we are afraid to walk in our neighborhoods or to acknowledge how we have contributed to a declining environment; whether we are afraid to become involved in conflicts or poverty; we can each name our own fears….the invitation is to face our fears.
The good news is that Jesus goes before us. If we will act in faith, we will meet him where he sends us. We will see signs of new life and resurrection all around us. We will meet him in the grocery stores and in the office. We will meet him at the restaurant and in the classroom. We will meet him in the “Galilee” of our lives, the everyday places we frequent and the places we know so well.
Last week, Thistle Hills celebrated its first graduate from the program. She spent two years with us and, speaking of resurrection life, she wanted her graduation theme to be butterflies. And on her own, she prepared cards for every person who attended the graduation event, and each card said “Thanks for the opportunity to grow”; they each included different sayings about butterflies. Mine said, “Your love has given my cocooned heart the wings to find the sunshine”. If you know anything about addiction, this is a very powerful statement…being in a cocoon is to be in darkness, to not yet be fully alive. She shared about the opportunity to grow, to change, emphasizing that change really is possible, she has done it, and there is hope for a life more than her past. This is a resurrection life story. I am eternally grateful for the gift of walking with her in this part of her life’s journey. It took darkness, it took almost dying, for her to find her light.
In Mark, the resurrected Jesus is not described as being “with you”; instead he is “going ahead of you.” If that is true, then death is stripped of its power. There is nothing Jesus’ followers will endure, no place they can go, that Jesus isn’t already there. Jesus is already there. Jesus is already here.
But if we run in fear, we will never see him at work. If we keep looking in the tomb, we will never find him. If we close our eyes we will never find the treasures God has in store for us.
The women eventually told the story or it would not be written.
But the question still remains, how will we respond? Which way will we run? This is not a story we can just read and say, “Isn’t that a nice story?” The way Mark tells it demands a response on our part. We are invited to complete the story. What we do today and the rest of this week will be our ending to the story. Easter Monday, Easter Tuesday, Easter Wednesday…the story continues.
The invitation is face your own fears and allow God to lead you. The promise is that if you take the risk of change in your life, that God will go before you and be with you wherever you go. You don’t need to be afraid.
The resurrection is not the end of the story. It’s only the beginning.
This Easter, may the Christ who rose in the darkness lead us into new life, new light, and new hope. May we know him in the half-lit places, the shadowy places, the hard places. And may we always share with hope the news of God’s greatest mystery. Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.
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