WADING RIVER CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH

SERMONS IN PRINT

Peter Vibert 3/12/06

Mark 16:1-20 “He Has Risen”

1) The Story

The resurrection narratives in all four gospels clearly reflect a common original story, even though it has come to down to each writer through a different line of tradition. Sometime very early on the Sunday morning after Passover, several women – and all agree that Mary Magdalene was one of them - went to Jesus’ tomb bringing spices. Just what they expected to do or to find is hard to tell, but it’s very clear that they encountered things that were very surprising.

All the writers agree that the stone was no longer covering the mouth of the tomb. There are also reports that one or more angelic beings were at the tomb, in one case “sitting on the stone.” The women are astonished, and very frightened. The angels strike fear into them – a constant feature of every angelic appearance in Scripture, and a reminder that beings who live in the presence of God reflect his brilliance and power in ways that dazzle humans! So as always, the first thing the angels say is “Don’t be afraid!”

There is more. The angels know that the women have come looking for “Jesus... who was crucified,” and their simple message is “He is not here. He has risen.” Now the women are bewildered. What has happened? What does “He has risen” mean? Although the women are depicted as more faithful followers of Jesus than the men during his trial, crucifixion, and burial, they are not portrayed as perfect – indeed their level of understanding and discipleship still has a long way to go too!

It is worth noting that none of the early Christian accounts of this day purport to describe the resurrection itself. All they tell us is what the women, and later the men, initially encountered. One was the empty tomb; the other was the message of the angels. The angelic message has three parts: he is not here; he will meet you again; go and tell his other disciples. The question is what the disciples will make of this statement, this promise, this command. Will their fragile faith allow them to grasp what is said to them? How will they react to these words?

2) The Result?

Mark tells us that the women, trembling and bewildered, fled the tomb, afraid, and told (at least for the moment) no-one. We would have hoped for more. We expect the word to go out, and for the risen Jesus to meet them.

But instead we come to a very strange point in the Gospel of Mark. Nobody knows what comes next! Any Bible you pick up today will tell you (in some way) that after Mark 16:8, the text becomes uncertain. Now here I have to introduce you to the sometimes bizarre world of New Testament scholarship – which I well understand is a place some people have no inclination to go, because it can easily lead into a swamp of disbelief! But Mark 16 is one of two places in the whole NT where there is significant questions over a large section (not just one word) about what was in the original Gospel, and what was added later (the other place is John 8). (Let me add that in 99.9% of the NT text, there is today no doubt about what the original manuscripts said – so do not for a minute go off saying “I told you so, you can’t rely on the Bible!”)

The many old handwritten manuscripts of the New Testament contain among them four different endings of the Gospel of Mark. The longest one, which we have printed still in our Bibles, was for a long time believed to be original, until still older Greek manuscripts were discovered in the last 200 years or so. The oldest complete NT manuscript ends Mark 16 at verse 8, and so do many other very old ones. No early commentator or writer shows any knowledge of the present verses 9-20 until the 2^nd century. What is more, the “internal” evidence of these verses - the syntax, vocabulary, theology – sound very different from what we have learned of Mark’s style up to this point.

You can test this for yourself. What does the risen Jesus’ appearance to Mary Magdalene, or to the Eleven, sound like? The Gospel of John. What does his meeting two people on a country road sound like? The Gospel of Luke. What does his ascending to heaven sound like? The book of Acts. Verses 9-20 read like a pastiche – a pasting together of incidents from other accounts. And what do snake handling and drinking poison remind you of? Nothing in the NT!

So how did Mark’s Gospel end? No-one is sure. Some think he meant to end at verse 8. Others say he never got to finish his Gospel. Others say the last page of his original was lost before copies were ever made and circulated. The current verses 9-20 read like someone’s attempt in the early 2^nd century to add a more satisfactory ending to a story they felt was incomplete.

If this is so, then we should - at the least - be careful not to build beliefs or practices on these verses if they are not well supported elsewhere. So I do not advise that in going out to witness for Jesus Christ, you assume that you will be protected if you handle poisonous snakes or drink poison, or that you can otherwise depend on God to do miraculous “signs” to confirm his word.

3) What Do We Have?

So what “ending” to Mark’s Gospel of Jesus Christ do we have? Is it enough for faith? We have the fact of the empty tomb, we have the

statement that “He has risen,” we have the promise of meeting Jesus again, we have the command to tell others. Notice too, woven into the command to tell the other disciples, is the explicit instruction “tell Peter.” It’s there to remind us that disciples who fall away, who deny their Lord, who are ashamed and penitent about their pasts, are forgiven and restored by Jesus.

“Tell Peter,” and tell all the other sinners, all the other failed disciples, all the people then and now who can’t grasp what is going on, who don’t understand who Jesus is or what it means to be his disciple – tell them all that Jesus forgives and restores. And tell it to everyone everywhere, because it’s a message everyone needs to hear! Tell it to people who once followed Jesus but do so no longer; tell it to people who have never followed him, but have watched him and his people from a distance. Jesus forgives and restores. “Tell Peter.” There is the whole Gospel in two words!

But here is a challenge for you and me to consider. How do you think Mark’s Gospel really ended? For a moment, play the NT scholar! I have been intrigued to see how the opinions of scholars spread out on this issue, because it is a wonderful portrayal of how faith and belief can determine how you see things, what arguments you find convincing, how you pursue scholarship (or life). One line of argument says Mark intended to end at 16:8. Its proponents argue that this leaves an honest depiction of what was known and not known, and the challenge that faced the disciples then, and now. Are you prepared to follow Jesus’ commands? Are you prepared to be his disciple? If so – if you will “go to Galilee” as he has commanded - there you will meet Jesus again. True discipleship means following Jesus commands, and its reward is coming to know Jesus more and more. On this view, ending Mark’s Gospel at 16:8 is just fine, because it leaves the challenge of faith to the reader: follow Jesus by faith, and so meet him as he has promised.

Not at all, say other scholars. The other Gospels make clear that no disciple had true faith until they met the risen Lord. “True discipleship is only possible after Easter” (Ben Witherington). Until they met the resurrected Jesus, his followers were at best confused. After they met him, they became powerful and confident witnesses to his resurrection and preachers of his gospel. From this point of view, of course there was more to Mark’s Gospel – but it was somehow lost.

So do faith positions determine “scholarly conclusions”! What do you think? Is Christian faith about following Jesus and his commands until finally you are rewarded by meeting him? Or is it about being sure that you have yourself met the living Jesus, and then following him?

4) Meet Him!

I side, as you know, with those who say you must meet him to become a person of faith. And I think not only the other three Gospel writers affirm this in the way they structure their narratives, but the unknown composers of different endings for Mark’s Gospel also show that they were aware that more needed to be said about meeting the risen Jesus.

The story of discipleship is not one that ends with people leaving the tomb “terrified and bewildered” and unable to speak to anyone. This is not a place where faith can begin. Yes, the promise of forgiveness and the command to follow and to witness are all there, but true faith and discipleship require a personal knowledge of the living Lord. That was what changed his followers.

When and how you meet the living Jesus is another matter, but meet him, I believe, you must. You may have grown up knowing about him, learning that he loved you, trying to love him in return. Or you may never have known or cared anything about him, or you may have turned away from what knowledge you did have because it no longer seemed relevant to your life, or because the church “turned you off.” Whether you always knew something of him, or not, the issue for every one of us is whether we know him today.

Do we have a sense that he is with us, that when we read or hear the Bible, he speaks to us now? Do we sense that something “spiritual” has stirred within us that makes us want, at some level, to know Christ better? Have we ever put ourselves in the place of a Peter and faced that we have failed in crucial ways – even by our own standards – and that we long for forgiveness, for renewal, restoration, a second chance, an opportunity to start over? It takes courage to come to that point of self-knowledge and – yes – repentance. It takes humility to accept the gift of grace. It takes willpower to say “Lord Jesus Christ, forgive me for all the wrong I have done to you and to other people and to myself; I give myself to you and ask that you will become known to me as Redeemer and Lord; help me become what you created me to be.”

The testimony of millions is that when we take these steps of faith, the risen Lord makes himself known to us; and that over time, by the work of his Spirit, under the leading of his Word, in the community of his people, we come to know him – in some ways, as we know other people. Then our faith becomes stronger, then our lives find direction, then we know our calling, then we are motivated to follow his ways and to obey his commands, then we become confident of his presence and his provision for us always.

Do you know the Lord? Have you met the risen Jesus? Do you sense his presence among his people and within you? Do you hear him speaking to you? Then respond to him, and follow him, and be his witness to the further parts of your world, and love other people as he loves you, and remember that he will be with you always.

Let us pray...