Terror, Amazement, and Resurrection --- Sermon for Easter Sunday (Mark 16; Isaiah 25)
It was the morning of the first day of the week. Just a few days earlier, Roman officials crucified Jesus. Since the Sabbath was close at hand, a follower of Jesus named Joseph of Arimathea got permission to take Jesus down from the cross, and he simply placed the body in a tomb. Finishing the burial process would have to wait until after the Sabbath. On the day Jesus died, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses watched Joseph place the body in the tomb. Then after the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, along with Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices to the tomb so they could finish the burial process.
As the three women walked toward the tomb, they remembered that a large stone covered the entrance. While they had the spices, they wondered who was going to reopen the tomb? After all, none of the men went with them.
When they arrived at the tomb, they were surprised to discover that the tomb was already open. When they looked into the tomb, they were alarmed to find a young man dressed in a white robe sitting where Jesus’ body should be lying. The man spoke gently to the frightened and alarmed women: “Don’t be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.”
Although throughout Mark’s Gospel Jesus had been telling his followers that he would die and be resurrected, they didn’t really understand what Jesus was talking about. So they expected to find a body in the tomb but the tomb was empty except for this man who told them that Jesus had been raised from the dead. That was a message they weren’t ready to fully understand.
This young man, who might have been an angel, gave the women further instructions. He told them to “tell [Jesus’] disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” In Mark’s version of the resurrection story, the disciples would have to wait a bit before they can encounter the risen Jesus.
Mark ends his version of the story with the women fleeing from the tomb in “terror and amazement.” Apparently, they didn’t tell anyone what they had seen and heard. That means we will have to figure out the rest of the story without Mark’s help.
While the other three Gospels describe Jesus’ resurrection appearances, something that Paul confirms in his first letter to the Corinthians, Mark only offers us the heavenly messenger’s testimony. With that in mind, we can return to the quote I shared last Sunday from Grace Ji-Sun Kim, who reminds us that as Christians it’s not a matter of “seeing is believing,” but instead “believing is seeing.” So, could it be that in this account, Mark invites us to put our trust in God even when we can’t see the full picture of God’s work in the world?
Next Sunday we’ll encounter the story of St. Thomas who, according to John’s Gospel, demands to see the risen Christ before he will believe in the resurrection. Thomas makes a good point, as we’ll discover, but for now we’re being asked to believe without seeing the risen Christ. Mark is asking us to head to Galilee even though we’re not sure what we’ll find there. The messenger gives us a choice: Will we head to Galilee hoping to see Jesus or will we walk away in disappointment because things didn’t work out the way we expected?
Although we have the other three Gospels to rely on for evidence that Jesus appeared to his disciples, Mark doesn’t offer us the same assurances. Now, we could check out the “Longer Ending” of Mark, but while it seems to fix the problem it doesn’t appear in the oldest manuscripts. It also includes some unsettling material including stories of the disciples drinking poison and handling snakes without suffering any adverse effects. Those stories don’t appear in any of the other accounts.
Since Mark begins his Gospel by telling the reader that he is going to reveal to us the “good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk 1:1), how does this abrupt ending reveal this good news about Jesus being the Son of God? What might this version of the story say to us about walking by faith with Jesus when we don’t have the full story?
I find it interesting that Mark speaks of both terror and amazement. They seem to be different responses, so how might we move from terror to amazement and onto faith in a God whom we can’t see, but whose presence is with us?
While Mark doesn’t provide us with resurrection appearances, leaving us only with the silent witness of the women who hear the good news but can’t process it, as I ponder the story, I sense that before too long the terror and amazement and alarm finally gave way so the women could share the message with the other disciples so they could head to Galilee and meet with Jesus. That’s how I complete the story, though admittedly, I draw on the other Gospels.
We have before us the message given to the women by the young man dressed in white who sat in the tomb waiting for the women to arrive. His message to the women invites us to ponder what the message of Easter means for us in this moment in time. How does this Easter message of Christ’s resurrection impact the way we live in the world?
The message that Christ is risen from the dead stands at the heart of our Easter celebration. So, what does Jesus’ resurrection say to us about the meaning of death? Paul answers that question by connecting Christ’s resurrection with our own resurrection. He tells the Corinthian church that in Christ’s resurrection death has been swallowed up in victory. Therefore, even though we all die in Adam, even so in Christ we will all be made alive (1 Cor. 15:20-22; 54-55). This is the foundation of our hope as followers of Jesus. The one who lay in the tomb, now lives.
As we ponder Mark’s version of the Easter story, which leaves us hanging, we also hear a word from Isaiah who speaks of God destroying the shroud of death “that is cast over all peoples.” Good Friday surely cast a shroud of death over the people, especially those closest to Jesus. Let’s remember that when the women went to the tomb, they were still grieving their loss. They lived without a sense of hope for the future. Nevertheless, even as we lament our losses in life, we hear Isaiah promise that God “will swallow up death forever” and “God will wipe away the tears from all their faces” (Is. 25:7-8).
While Isaiah doesn’t speak of Jesus’ resurrection, he does speak of a future where death loses its hold on creation. On that day God will gather all people on God’s holy mountain and “make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines.” While we’re not sharing in a service holy communion this morning, when we do share in this sacred meal we not only remember Christ’s last supper before his death, but we also participate in the meal in anticipation of the messianic banquet at which God will serve all the people a “feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines.”
Although Mark doesn’t give us an account of Jesus’ encounter with his followers in Galilee, the promise of that reunion is here in the word of the messenger. If we turn to Luke’s Gospel, we hear that when Jesus finally meets up with the disciples in Galilee, he shares a meal with them (Lk 24:36-43). It might only be a fish dinner, but it serves as a sign that God’s realm is present in our midst, even if not in its fullness.
While we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus this morning, his resurrection serves as the foundation for our own experience of resurrection. This is the good news given by God to us. Jesus’ resurrection is, according to Paul, the “first fruits” of the resurrection of all God’s people. It is, as theologian Jürgen Moltmann reminds us:
Jesus’s resurrection from the dead was never viewed as an individual resurrection but rather as universal as death is for mortal man: “For as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ” (1 Cor 15:22). The Pascha (Easter) icons of the Orthodox tradition show this: the resurrected Christ takes Adam’s hand with his right hand and Eve’s hand with his left hand to pull both up from their graves. With Adam and Eve, Christ pulls all humanity from the “kingdom of death” into the light of eternal life. Christ’s death on the cross was lonely, and his experience alone; his resurrection is a collective, inclusive act that encompasses all of humankind and all of creation—a cosmic event, the beginning of a new creation of all things. [Moltmann, Resurrected to Eternal Life, p. 13].
So, even if Mark leaves us hanging when it comes to encountering the risen Christ, we have enough information to go on so we can shout the good news of Easter: “Christ the Lord is risen today! Alleluia!” In this declaration, we are reminded that death doesn’t have the last word. Instead, with Christ’s resurrection death loses its hold on our lives and we can enter into God’s realm and begin experiencing in the present God’s gift of eternal life.
Preached by:
Dr. Robert D. Cornwall
Interim Supply Pastor
First Presbyterian Church (PCUSA)
Troy, Michigan
Easter Sunday
March 31, 2024
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