All Saints’, Dorval
March 31, 2024
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.
That’s the end of the Gospel of Mark.
Some later manuscripts have a few more verses tacked on, but those are pretty clearly additions by a copyist who couldn’t cope with the weirdness and ambiguity of the original ending, in which the women at the empty tomb never actually see Jesus after the Resurrection, and the last word of the Gospel is “afraid”.
Twenty years ago in seminary, I got to witness a great New Testament scholar make a genuine discovery. Professor David Bartlett, of blessed memory, was preaching on the story of Jesus walking on the water, in which the disciples are terrified as their boat is caught in a storm on the Sea of Galilee, but Jesus walks across the lake, gets into the boat, and the wind stops.
Professor Bartlett’s insight, recounted in real time on that memorable day, was this: whenever, in Mark’s Gospel, people are scared absolutely out of their minds, as the disciples were on the boat? The next thing that happens is that Jesus shows up.
So if the women are seized by terror and amazement, and are afraid? The next thing that’s going to happen is Jesus showing up.
Mark doesn’t have to say it in so many words; if you’ve been paying attention, you know what comes next. And maybe you’ll just turn right back to the beginning of the Gospel and read it over again, with new insight now that you know how the story ends.
Of course, the women eventually had to say something to someone, because otherwise we wouldn’t still be telling this story two thousand years later!
But today’s readings tell us three important things about Jesus’ risen life:
- You don’t have to have actually been there;
- You don’t have to have it all figured out; and
- It’s OK if you’re scared to death.
Both the readings from Acts and Corinthians emphasize how the good news of Jesus’ rising from the dead, and the joy and power that it brings to the people who hear about it, aren’t limited to the people who personally witnessed it. Peter, preaching to the household of Cornelius, affirms that “God shows no partiality,” but “commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God”. Peter, a Jew who witnessed the Resurrection, is passing on the good news to the household of a Roman centurion, his natural enemy, who has only heard about Jesus’ victory over death by word of mouth. But Peter and Cornelius are equally saved by this news, and rejoice equally – and so do we, two thousand years later, having heard the same good news thanks to hundreds of generations of our ancestors in faith.
Likewise, Paul, who never met Jesus in his earthly life and yet became one of his greatest apostles, nevertheless grounds his proclamation in having seen the risen Jesus: Peter saw him outside the empty tomb, Paul saw him on the road to Damascus, and those two experiences are equivalent. And so we, too, can encounter Jesus just as those early apostles did, and just as dramatically and unexpectedly, even in the midst of profound grief or furious rage.
Because if there’s one thing that everyone who encounters the risen Jesus has in common, it’s that they have no idea what’s going on. The women thought he was dead, and their first response to the angel’s message was not joy and relief but abject terror. The male disciples’ first response to the announcement that Jesus lived – when the women eventually pulled themselves together enough to make it – was disbelief. And Paul, when Jesus knocked him over on the road, was actively hunting down believers.
So if you find yourself flabbergasted by an experience of the overwhelming presence of God at the most inconvenient possible time, or when it seems like absolutely everything is going completely to pieces, take heart: that’s just how God operates. We’re all pretty much making it up as we go along.
And fear is part of the process. As the women fled from the tomb, seized by terror and amazement, it was inevitable that they would encounter Jesus. It doesn’t make the fear less real. But it means that when we are terrified, we can start training our souls to look for Jesus – because he will show up, whether it’s in a storm on the sea of Galilee, or a vision that knocks us down on the road to Damascus, or in a quiet conversation with someone we know and love.
In just a few minutes, we will baptize six – count ’em, six! – young people ranging in age from four to fourteen. Along with their parents and sponsors, they will affirm that this story – the story of Jesus rising from the dead and defeating death for all of us – is their story. They will say “no” to evil and “yes” to God. They will promise to continue in fellowship, to come to the table, to repent when they do wrong, to tell the story to others in word and deed, and to look for God in the face of their neighbour and in all of God’s good creation.
Five and a half years ago, Jaxson was baptized here, and Laurieanne was there, with her five kids plus the twins in utero. Today, we baptize those twins, and two of their siblings, and rejoice at the way that God works over time to bring more people into God’s family in the most unexpected ways.
And we also welcome Nicole and Victoria, who began life on another continent but who have heard the same Good News that has been preached to every race and nation since the first Easter morning long ago.
In baptism, we become part of the joy and power of Jesus’ risen life. We affirm our place in the long line of people who have told the good news to each other, since those first women ran away from the tomb because it was all too much for them to take.
Baptism is not a guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen to us, but it is a guarantee that Jesus is with us in every moment, and that death is not the end of our story, or of the world’s story.
We weren’t there at the empty tomb. We definitely don’t have it all figured out. And we may be scared to death. But that just means that we’re in excellent company, and Jesus will show up any minute.
Alleluia! Christ is risen. Happy Easter!
Amen.
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