Mark 16:1-8 "The Missing Body"

INTRODUCTION

The story is told about a smart young college student who announced to a group of friends one day that he would believe nothing that he could not understand.
Another student, who lived on a nearby farm, turned to him and said: “As I was driving into campus today, I passed a field in which some sheep were grazing. Do you believe it?”
“Sure,” replied first student.
“Not far from the sheep,” the second student said, “some calves were browsing. Do you believe it?”
“Yes,” the first student replied.
“And not too far down the road a gaggle of geese were feeding. Do you believe it?” the second student said.
“I guess so,” said the first student.
“Well,” said the second student, “the grass that the sheep ate will turn into wool; the grass that the calves ate will turn into hair; and the grass that the geese ate will turn into feathers. Do you believe this?”
“Ummm, ... yes, I do,” the first student said.
“But do you understand it?”

“Not really,” the first student said, somewhat puzzled.
You know,” declared the second student, “if you live long enough, you will find that there are a great many things that you will believe without understanding.”

THE MISSING BODY

Today is all about a story that is hard to believe, impossible to understand, and seemingly too good to be true.  Christ conquered death.  If the story of Jesus life had ended with his death or even with the empty tomb, we would not be here today celebrating. 

God be praised, we have Good News.
           When Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome head to the tomb on Easter morning, they aren’t expecting Good News. They are bringing spices to anoint the stone-cold, dead body of Jesus, a dismal and depressing task, and as they walk in the early-morning light they are worrying about how they will manage to move the heavy stone away from the entrance to the tomb.
They arrive to find the stone already rolled away. First big surprise!

Entering the tomb, they spot a young man in a white robe, just kind of hanging out. Second big surprise.  The gospel writer states that they are alarmed.  Well, yes, wouldn’t you be?  Imagine going to the cemetery a few days after the funeral of a good friend.  You’re going to place flowers on his grave in Loudin Park.  You drive to the cemetery, park your car near the gravesite.  As you approach the grave you find all the dirt piled to one side.  You look down into the pit and see an open vault, an open casket, and a young man dressed in white sitting in it.  You’d be freaked out, too!

Sitting in the tomb is an angel, thought the women don’t readily recognize the being as such.  I love all these stories of angels in the Bible.  The people who see the angels are always scared out of their wits, and the angels always say, “Do not fear,” or in this case, “Don’t be alarmed!”   Like that’s going to calm them down.  The angel tells the women that Jesus has been raised. This would constitute the third big surprise.  The body of Jesus is missing.  He’s not there.  And the angel instructs them to tell the other disciples that they are to meet up with Jesus back in Galilee.

Mark’s gospel is the shortest, most concise and earliest written of the four we have in the Bible.  It ends abruptly:  “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.”  It is from the other gospels that we learn of the first appearances of the Risen Lord.  It is a mystery why Mark’s gospel ends so abruptly.  Scholars believe that Mark was written prior to the fall of Jerusalem in CE 70, but certainly during the time when Christians were being persecuted.  Later manuscripts include extended endings to the gospel.  Apparently there was discomfort with this original ending early in the life of the church. 

Thanks to the recent discovery of the Gospel of Judas, people who know nothing about archeology and biblical studies are learning something about how the Bible developed. For instance, we know that writings in the Bible though attributed to certain scholars may or may not have been written by them.  We know that many writings such as that of the Gospel of Judas were excluded from the New Testament canon because the implied doctrine did not jive with the theology of the early church leaders. Also, we know that biblical scholars use manuscripts that were copied and recopied many times.

MARK’S ABRUPT ENDING

We can only speculate on why the writer of Mark ended his gospel so abruptly. Like Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in B minor, “the Unfinished Symphony,” it remains a mystery.   Perhaps the Markan writer was interrupted in his writing and never able to finish it.  Maybe he wanted to end the gospel with the sense of fear and amazement shown by the women who were the first to discover the empty tomb.  Another idea is that the writer’s audience already knew the rest of the story.  But this strange ending disquieted others who came after the writer of Mark.  Other authors penned two alternative endings early in the second century. Unfinished symphony.

The angel testifies that Jesus has been raised from death.  The angel further directs the women to deliver the message to the disciples and encourage them to go to Galilee.  Were the women afraid to tell the disciples that the body of Jesus was missing?  Were they afraid to tell them that Jesus had been raised?  The last few moments those disciples had spent with Jesus were not their finest hours.  Peter, James and John kept falling asleep in the garden when Jesus was engaged in tormented prayer.  After Jesus’ arrest, Peter denied Jesus three times.  And all of the male disciples, save John, completely deserted him.  The women had more to fear than the angel. Furthermore, they didn’t understand it.

The other gospels remind us that the women did tell the disciples about the empty tomb and the risen Lord.  They spread the good news that Jesus is alive.  That’s a story too big to be overshadowed by reports of death and disaster, injury and illness, corruption and conflict. When Jesus is raised, he actually succeeds in putting death to death.  Jesus turns the tables on those who see violence, corruption, disease, and destruction as unchanging constants in the world. When Jesus leaves the empty tomb traditional assumptions shatter.  And they see everything through the perspective of the cross and empty tomb.

The disciples are directed to go to Galilee, back to where it all started with Jesus.   When the disciples go back to the beginning, they begin to understand the parables and teachings they didn’t get the first time around.  After the cross and the empty tomb, they see their time with Jesus through new eyes.  As they review the events of the past three years, they see Jesus breaking through “Jesus breaking through into human life as one who is powerful, but also as one who”[1] would suffer and die. God’s power is different from the power exercised in the world.  It is a suffering power.  It is the power of the cross.

           Jesus went before the disciples to Galilee.  He appeared to them.  We have their eyewitness accounts. Just as he went ahead of those first disciples, Jesus goes ahead of us into the future that he is planning for us.  He invites us to follow him in the direction he is going.

Jürgen Moltmann Embraces the Gospel
 During the Second World War, an 18-year-old German named Jürgen Moltmann was drafted to serve in Hitler’s army. Assigned to an anti-aircraft battery, he experienced the horror of watching fellow soldiers being incinerated in fire bombings. After surrendering to the British, he spent three years in prison camps, and saw how other German prisoners “collapsed inwardly, how they gave up all hope, sickening for the lack of it, some of them dying.”
             Moltmann had not grown up as a Christian, but an American chaplain gave him an Army-issue New Testament and book of Psalms, signed by President Roosevelt. He read the Psalms and found something he desperately needed: hope. He became convinced that God was present with him, “even behind the barbed wire.” After being transferred to a camp run by the YMCA, Moltmann learned Christian beliefs, and experienced the love and the acceptance of the local population. They “treated me better than the German army,” he told journalist Philip Yancey.
            Jürgen Moltmann found new life in Christianity after seeing only death in the Second World War. The gospel was life giving good news for him, and it can be for us as well.
           There is more to the story. The risen Christ was moving ahead of Moltmann, leading him into an unexpected future. After the war, Moltmann became a Christian theologian and focused on the ideas that God is present with us in our suffering, and that God is leading us to a better future. I studied his “theology of hope” when I was in seminary.  Moltmann described Easter as “God’s protest against death.” God is not satisfied with the way the world is today, and he intends to make all things new.“[2]
CONCLUSION

Easter brings us a story that is hard to believe.  We have to trust in the witness of those who saw the empty tomb and the Risen Christ.  And as we reflect on the life of Jesus we know that the Christ who was crucified knows our deepest personal anguish. The Christ who was lifeless knows the complete desolation of death. The Christ who was raised knows the life-giving power of God.  The Christ who goes ahead of us knows that the future is full of promise and possibility.  We the followers of Jesus are promised, “You will see him.”  He goes before us leading us into a better future.