Read Mark 16 first: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+16&version=NIV
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed and we did it! We read through Mark!
Before we get into the Mark passage I have some thoughts on Easter-today I gave the most difficult children’s sermon I’ve had to give. Talking to your phone that’s 10 ft away on a stand next to a septic tank in an empty field is a weird way to give a message, when you normally give it to a crowd. I was thinking about how I’ve been waking up super early this year. And how Jesus who was a napper, wasn’t in the tomb when the women came. Why not just hang out to show them he was fine? I think there’s a variety of reasons- God wants it to be about faith and not doubt so I think the empty tomb allows room for faith and hope that our tombs too will be empty some day. Secondly when ever Jesus goes to a funeral he raises the dead. He hates death. He hates the tomb. That’s the reason he hates sin. It’s what it leads too. Jesus has no desire to be in a tomb- he’s a living savior. Then finally I think he did want to be with his friends. In the easter accounts it seems like he’s not initially meeting with people. He allows room for hope before appearing to people. It may have been too much for people to take if he immediately popped up. It seems like people’s vision is blurred until they realize it’s Christ. Maybe psychologically that’s helpful. But more importantly than the timing- Jesus does show up for all his close friends. He shows up for the Marys, the disciples who were walking away from Jerusalem and Christ, for the disciples who were locked up just like we are right now, even to Thomas who wasn’t their either. Jesus shows up! Today we can’t show up at church but Jesus still shows up in our homes and I pray you seem him in the love of the people around you today, through His word as we have read it, and in the many online services you can watch!
Here we see two endings to Mark. One is an empty tomb and a random young man saying Jesus ain’t there. Mark has told us a thousand times Jesus has risen so the ending isn’t necessary, and it leaves room for faith but it seems like an anticlimatic ending. The rationalization for this I’m told is that Mark was likely the first gospel written and it was to be read out loud so after this passage you were tell your story of the risen Christ. Which makes sense- even today when people first encounter Christ it’s not typically through the written word. It’s typically a story someone’s story of how Jesus has changed them and later scripture is shared. But I can see someone reading Mark as a letter in an afternoon before tv existed and then saying- this is how Jesus met me- Paul tells us he met with over 500 people so there would be many to tell the story. Or it could simply be that now the question is turned to the reader of Mark- what do you think happened next? Do you believe Jesus when he said he would rise from death at least three times in this book do you believe it to be true? Is it true for you?
The other is perhaps a latter edition pulling from the other traditions or perhaps even added by Mark later- but it has some troubling things in it like- hey drink poison and get bitten by snakes. You’ll be fine. However it does end with these words: “the disciples went out and preached everywhere and the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word by signs that accompanied him.”
“The Lord worked with them” That’s a powerful statement that I believe is true for me and everyone. Without God no work can be done and how often has my work influenced more than I could have imagined when it wasn’t the work that I had imagined. The things I have done that have touched others typically weren’t planned. How great that our God works with us!
But here’s the truth. Jesus isn’t here- not in the walking around healing everyone, serving everyone, messing with pharisees way, but is he here working with us, brightening our days, giving us the nicest day we’ve had this year when we can’t be at church? Is he working in families to show his love? Encouraging us to love kids? Is he here in an even deeper way bringing Easter resurrection and forgiveness to our failures so we can rise again every day to serve Him? I believe so. Who do you say Jesus is? What do you make of the resurrection? Reflect on that especially this Easter day! And know that He is risen!
Indeed!
Marking It Up 