April 5, 2015 (The Resurrection of our Lord – Easter Day) – Mark 16:1-8
Mark 16:1-8
Ahhhhhhh!!!!!!! Bikrushta!!!!
The Resurrection of our Lord – Easter Day – April 5, 2015
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Let’s get into the spirit of Mark’s account of Jesus’ resurrection.
Most of you are familiar with the Easter greeting we use during the season of Easter.
“Alleluia! Christ is risen!”
Response: “Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!”
But in Mark’s Gospel, when the young man in the tomb announces the good news that
Jesus is risen, it more or less goes like this:
“Alleluia! Christ is risen!” says the young man.
Response: “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Or, as the professor of New Testament Matt Skinner suggests,
the response of the women is more or less, “Let’s get the hell out of here!”
That’s about it.
That’s how Mark ends his Gospel.
With terror and amazement.
Seems kind of abrupt, right?
No earthquake or blinding light.
No risen Jesus to comfort a bereft and sobbing disciple.
No garden.
No happy reunion.
No teaching about biblical mysteries and a divine plan.
No chance to touch the crucified’s wounds.
And no picnic on the beach with the risen Jesus making a delicious breakfast.
Just terror and amazement. Great!
It’s surprising. It’s a surprising ending.
ButI kind of like it.
Because I love surprises – now most of you know this.
I love the unexpected. I love serendipity.
I love not knowing what is coming and being surprised when it does.
I’m going to Japan three weeks from tomorrow.
I expect to be surprised by the wonder and delight of Japanese culture.
And so I have learned how to say one thing in Japanese: Bikrushta! I am surprised!
I love that: Bikrushta! If I had been at the tomb 2000 years ago on Easter morning,
I hope I would have been able to muster that up: Bikrushta!
Because I love surprises.
But let me qualify that: I love good surprises.
Not all surprises are good, right?
When my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at age 67 and was told she had
4 to 6 months to live, that was not a good surprise.
When my mother died, it was really really hard.
I would be hard pressed to tell you there was anything good about it.
It was a difficult time.
So I guess the question this morning is this: is it a good surprise or a bad surprise that
Jesus has been raised from the dead?
Somehow the surprise of this ending just doesn’t seem good.
When the women first enter the empty tomb, and there is no body, and
the young man is there, our translation says they are alarmed;
but really a better translation would say they are surprised.
But then what does the young man say?
He wonders why they are surprised! He’s been raised, he says.
As if resurrection was the most natural thing in the world.
Go back home.
Go back to the beginning of the story.
Go back to where all his work started.
It is as if he is saying to them, “Go and start over again.
Do the work he has called you to.
And then don’t be surprised to find him in that work. That’s where you will find him now.
In the work of healing and including and feeding and forgiving.
Don’t be at all surprised to find him there.”
But I guess that doesn’t sound like very good news to them.
Their surprise then really does turn to fear, to terror – and they flee.
As I’ve said before, though, it’s that sentence that Mark uses to describe what happens next
that is the key to the whole Gospel.
Lots of people have wondered over the way that Mark ends his Gospel.
For the faithful, there has been two thousand years of puzzlement over the way the story ends.
For the grammatically correct there has been two thousand years of puzzlement over the way
last sentence ends.
It’s an incomplete sentence.
Literally, this is what it says: “nothing they said to anyone, afraid they were for . . .”
And that’s it.
As if it were a Monty Python animation and a big divine hand reached down from the sky and
plucked Mark up to the heavens mid-sentence.
But I’m sure Mark ended his Gospel on purpose this way.
As if to tell us, “It’s not over. The Gospel, the Good News, is just beginning in the
life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
I don’t want to tie this story up in a neat bow because it’s not over yet.” The story’s not over.
It’s continuing on in that last un-completed sentence.
I know, and you know, that Mark is saying to us, that God’s story is not over yet.
Because everything didn’t all magically become better on that Easter Day 2000 years ago.
I know this and you know this.
Sure, there are good surprises in this life, but there are still bad surprises.
Illness still ravages. Death still stings. The hungry still go unfed. Injustice is still rampant.
I know Mark’s ending doesn’t sound like good news – but it is.
Do you remember the first sentence of Mark’s Gospel? It’s also an incomplete sentence:
“The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ.”
Everything Mark has written is just the beginning.
And that is good news because God isn’t finished yet. God is still working.
Jesus is raised and working! Jesus isn’t in some heaven light years away.
The Spirit of Jesus is alive and well and is way ahead of you.
Go to your homes, you will find Jesus there, working in the midst of illness.
Go to your workplaces, you will find Jesus there, working for fairness and equity.
Go to your communities, you will find Jesus there, working for an end to hunger and injustice.
Just go. Look for him with your eyes open. Look again. This is just the beginning.
You will be surprised.
That is what the young man is telling the women on Easter Sunday morning –
and that is what Mark is telling us.
Okay: our surprise may turn to fear and terror.
Because Mark and the young man are calling us to risk and commitment.
Mark and the young man are calling us to love, and to looking for Jesus in
those places we think Jesus cannot possibly be.
As we learned last Sunday, the place where Jesus has come to be with us and
to be at work with us are the seemingly ugliest places:
in places of abandonment and suffering and loss and injustice and
violence and despair.
This is surprising: bikrushta!
The places Jesus has come to be with us are the cross-filled places of our lives,
both inside us and outside us.
That is kind of terrifying because those places are terrifying.
But terrifying is kind of Jesus’ address – terrifying is where Jesus gets his mail.Bikrushta!
When Mother Teresa was a young woman and was called to go to Calcutta and
work among the very poorest of the poor, and the sickest of the sick,
and the seemingly most godforsaken of the godforsaken, she was afraid.
When she went to seek out the sick to see if she could heal them she was afraid.
When she went to seek out the hungry to see if she could feed them she was afraid.
And when she went to seek the dying to see if she could simply comfort them she was afraid.
But here’s the thing.
In the faces of the starving poor, she discovered the face of Jesus.
In the faces of the neglected, she discovered to her surprise the face of Jesus.
In the faces of the lonely dying, she discovered to her great surprise the face of Jesus.
Bikrushta! Jesus had got there ahead of her!
Because that is where the risen Christ is and had promised to be.
As he had promised 2000 years ago, he had gone ahead of her, to her Galilee,
to the place he had called her to work.
The young man says: “Go! He has gone to Galilee just as he has promised to meet you there!”
So the question for you this morning is: where’s your Galilee?
Where has Jesus gone ahead of you for you to find him?
Is it in your homes where you thought Jesus isn’t and cannot be? Bikrushta! He’ll be there.
Is it in the hospital room where you thought Jesus cannot be? Bikrushta! He’ll be there.
Is it in the relationship that needs reconciliation and forgiveness? Bikrushta! He’ll be there.
Is it at the Community Meals where Jesus has called you to serve? Bikrushta! He’ll be there.
Is it in our Kids Club free summer drop-in for children ages 6-12 in our neighbourhood?
Bikrushta! He’ll be there!
Is your Galilee the face of the stranger you have yet to meet?
Is your Galilee the person you offer hospitality to?
Is your Galilee your own despair?
Is your Galilee the new thing God is calling you to?
Is your Galilee the friendship you’ve taken for granted?
Is your Galilee the thing you’ve done you’ve felt guilt for for years?
Is your Galilee the well of deep sadness you’ve kept hidden inside you?
Friends, the great good news this Easter morning is that the risen Jesus has gone ahead of you to
all these places and will meet you there.
You will find him, just as he promised, working for meaning and reconciliation and love and life.
Bikrushta! He is risen! God’s not done yet! The story is not yet over! Bikrushta!
That strange, surprising last non-sentence is Mark’s way of proclaiming the Good News in
the most powerful way he knows, with an incomplete sentence:
it’s his way of telling us that what God has begun to do in Jesus is just the beginning.
It’s his way of inviting us into the story –
it’s his way of inviting us into the sometimes scary work that Jesus did.
It’s his way of telling us that that is where we will meet Jesus – in that work and
in those situations we do not possibly think Jesus can be:
in the faces of those we will serve, in the faces and the lives of those whom Jesus has
joined himself to on the cross:
the godforsaken, the lonely, the despairing, the dying.
See: the question is not so much, “Why did God let this situation happen?” but
“How is the risen Christ present even in this situation bringing life?”and
“How is God in the Spirit of the risen Christ struggling against this situation?”
This is Mark’s way of saying to us: the Good News is that the story’s not over yet.
And that is great news!
In some ways Mark’s Gospel is the most honest of the Gospels.
He is honest about the fact that everything isn’t all sunshine and rainbows with Easter morning.
So we can trust Mark, right? Mark is brutally honest and that makes us trust him.
On this side of the resurrection Mark knows that loss still hurts.
Mark knows that illness still ravages.
Mark knows that despair still makes the days long and makes the nights even longer.
Mark knows that fear still grips and Mark knows that death still stings.
But here’s the thing: Mark also knows this: Mark knows that Jesus is raised.
Mark knows that Jesus stands among us this morning, wounded but working,
serving us and feeding us in broken bread and wine poured out: Bikrushta!
And Mark knows that the love Jesus has unleashed into the world still works through you:
Bikrushta!
And Mark knows that Jesus will meet us in all the places we fear and
will be right alongside us: Bikrushta!
Mark knows that God is not done yet.
Mark knows that what began in Jesus is just the beginning.
Mark knows that God wants desperately to be at work in your life and
Mark knows that God wants desperately to be meaningfully at work in this community.
Mark knows that Jesus always goes ahead of us to the cross-filled places in this world
and will meet us there.
And Mark knows that finally, finally love and grace will win.
That justice will reign.
That the hungry will all be fed on God’s mountain.
That the sick will be healed and that the dead will be raised.
And that God will wipe every tear from every face in every nation.
Mark knows that in the end, nothing good will be lost and that nothing evil will remain.
So with Mark and Isaiah, with Peter and Paul, and even with Mary and Salome and
Mary Magdalene, let us not say “Ahhhhhhh!!!!!!” on this Easter morning.
Instead, let us simply say together, “Yes: it shall be so.”
Let us together say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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