Easter Sunday: 'They were afraid for ...'

 Opening Prayer

O Lord open our lips.
That our mouths may proclaim your praise.

O God, come to our aid.
O Lord, make haste to help us.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.

Almighty God,
you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you:
pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself,
and so bring us at last to your heavenly city
where we shall see you face to face;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

‘καὶ ἐξελθοῦσαι ἔφυγον ἀπὸ τοῦ μνημείου, εἶχεν γὰρ αὐτὰς τρόμος καὶ ἔκστασις · καὶ οὐδενὶ οὐδὲν εἶπαν, ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ.’

‘And having gone out they fled from the tomb, seized for them trembling and amazement and no one nothing they told they were afraid for …’

(This is a direct translation from the Greek of Mark into English.)

 

‘When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’ 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 …’

[Mark 16.1-8]

 

The ending of the Gospel of Mark* is an odd one, it does not end naturally, but with an open end. The women depart from the empty tomb afraid, but we are not told what their next action was. Of course, the other Gospels fill in the gap for us, but it leaves us with the question of what Mark’s intention is? Why does he end his Gospel not a definite ending, but with a preposition: in Greek it reads ‘they were afraid for...’ It suggests that something somewhere has gone missing.

 

Some have said that the final pages of the Gospel were lost along the course of history, which would not be unusual. Archbishop Rowan Williams has jokingly suggested that perhaps as Mark penned that final γάρ he felt a hand on his shoulder, and a steely voice saying in his ear ‘would you accompany me to the Praetorium please sir’. However, Rowan goes on to say that he thinks this ending to be intentional. This is not the end of the story, but its beginning!

 

Something similar happens in the account of Easter Day in the Gospel of St John where Jesus tells St Mary Magdalene not to hold onto him, because he has not yet ascended. Here Jesus’s is telling St Mary off because in holding on to him she risks missing the point of his later ascension, that is that in order for the Church to grow he must first ascend into heaven. The temptation is for her to hold onto Jesus, and who can blame her, she’s already lost him once! But if she does so then the faith remains locked in that moment: in holding onto him in this way there is no opportunity for us to grow, for us to move out into the world, or indeed go and tell the disciples that Christ is risen. And why would she want to? She has all she needs here in the garden with Jesus. In order for the Church to become the body of Christ St Mary must learn to learn to stand on her own two feet. She must learn to overcome her fear and to go out into the world and make Christ known, and so must we.

 

The story of the Gospel is not just the story of Christ, from Birth and Baptism to Death and Resurrection, it is the story of the Body of Christ, that is the Church. The story of Christ does not end with the resurrection appearances any more than it ends with the Ascension or the arrest and trial of St Paul. It will only finally come to an end when time itself does, and we are gathered from the four corners of creation into the New Creation. Until that moment we are called to fill in the words that come after that final γάρ … In effect it’s over to us. So let us not be afraid, but let us rather go out into the world and make Christ known, taking upon ourselves the boldness of the Apostles among them St Mary Magdalene the Apostle to the Apostles.

 

* There are three versions of the ending of Mark, two appear to be later editions, designed to tidy up the text. However, the most ancient versions end T with the word γάρ which in Greek means ‘for’, and the sentence reads ‘they were afraid for …’ thus when we anglicise the final sentence it becomes ‘For they were afraid …’

 

Closing Prayer

On this day, Lord God,

    you opened for us the way to eternal life

    through your only Son’s victory over death.

Grant that as we celebrate the feast of his resurrection

    we may be renewed by your Holy Spirit

    and rise again in the light of life.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

(one) God, for ever and ever.