Temple Monday
Debate Tuesday
Maundy Thursday
Good Friday
1. The burial of Jesus is not the end of the story! In many ways, it is just the beginning.
We get the impression from the other Gospels that Jesus was buried somewhat hurriedly. Joseph of Arimathea secures the body. The women take note of where his body was put so that they can come back after the Sabbath and perform proper burial rites. What can be done is done before the Sabbath begins at sundown.
Accordingly, the women come early on Sunday morning to the tomb with spices to anoint Jesus' body. Present are Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome (16:1), the same three women mentioned in 15:40. In that world, they are overlooked and often unseen. The others are hiding, but they are still thinking about Jesus.
Who will roll the stone away? It is apparently a large stone in front of the tomb. They are not expecting there to be any other people around. It is barely sunrise. But to their surprise, the stone in front of the tomb is already rolled away.
As we have seen throughout Mark, his presentation is very to the point. The women go into the tomb. It is apparently big enough at least for four people, for when they go inside, there is a young man in white sitting there on the right. Although Mark does not tell us, Matthew tells us this was an angel.
2. "He is risen!" That is the message that the angel gives them. "Don't be amazed."
But the women are fearful. Mark 16:8 ends the Gospel as it has survived with the women telling no one out of fear. More on the ending of Mark in a moment. It is curious that Mark says the women tell no one out of fear. In Matthew, which almost all think used Mark as its main source, the women immediately tell the disciples, as also in Luke and John.
Some have suggested that the women's reaction in Mark 16:8 fits with Mark's repeated sense of the disciples' misunderstanding. They repeatedly do not understand what is really going on. They don't understand the nature of Jesus' mission. They don't understand that he has to die. Here, they don't see that this is exactly what Jesus had been saying would happen.
Others have suggested that this ending is meant to urge us to tell about Jesus' resurrection. The women don't tell. Are you going to remain silent too? Go and tell that Jesus is risen!
3. Some have misread Mark as not teaching resurrection. But the angel clearly tells them that Jesus is risen. Just because Mark does not narrate any resurrection appearances doesn't mean he doesn't believe they happened. He clearly alludes to resurrection appearances in Galilee.
In Matthew and Mark, we only hear about resurrection appearances in Galilee. The fact that Peter is singled out probably alludes that the key resurrection appearance in Galilee was to him. The only candidate we have among the various appearances mentioned in the Gospels is John 21, along the Sea of Galilee. Luke syncopates the Galilee appearances out of his narrative, although he hints of the appearance to Peter in Luke 24:34.
These curiosities are a reminder that the picture is likely much clearer to us -- with four Gospels -- than it was to them as they lived through it. We wonder how anyone could question. But Jesus' appearances likely left room for both faith and doubt. As it is with us, there was enough evidence for faith if we have the heart for it. And there was enough room for doubt if someone had the heart for it.
4. The ending of Mark was quite a debate point when versions other than the King James began to come out. The earliest Greek manuscripts of Mark do not have 16:9-20. There is early evidence for it in the quotations of the Fathers, but these come to us by way of later manuscripts too. We can have fun debates about the external evidence for the ending.
The internal evidence is definitive. Mark 16:9 starts the resurrection story all over again, as if 16:1-8 didn't exist. It is in a different style, giving a pop-pop-pop summary rather than a narrative unfolding like the rest of Mark. In short, it is an obvious tack-onto a version of Mark that seemed to end abruptly. It caps a tooth using an early summary of Jesus' resurrection appearances, a summary that draws from the endings of the other Gospels. The summary may indeed be as old as the second century. There is another shorter ending among the manuscripts that did the same thing.
There's thus nothing wrong with the content of Mark 16:9-20. I suspect it's all true. It just wasn't part of the original Gospel of Mark. Given how ancient and orthodox it is, I don't have a problem with pastors using it (for example, I have seen pastors quote it's version of the Great Commission). However, I suspect many do so without realizing it.
Did Mark really end at 16:8? Like the ancient church, 16:8 does seem like an odd way to end the Gospel. I personally lean toward a sense that the original ending was lost or removed very early on. I've heard some suggest that the ending of Matthew points toward how Mark orignally ended.
Whatever the case, God has let it come to us as it is and there is nothing wrong with it. It does leave us with the question of what we will do. Will we be silent in fear or will we tell others that Jesus is risen. There is space for doubt. But there is space for faith too! What will you do?
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