The Gospel according to Mark – Easter Week

A note as Mark’s story concludes: The end of Mark’s gospel tells the first story of Easter day. For those of us who grew hearing the Easter story, Mark’s narrative surprises us: it is very brief (only 8 verses long); the disciples do not see the Risen Jesus (they see only a young man – an angel? – seated beside the tomb); and the story ends very abruptly (“They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid”). As early as the second century, other writers added to Mark’s story, using incidents taken from the gospels of Matthew and Luke. But what follows is the earliest ending we have from the writer of Mark:

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.

Living Mark’s Story: We, along with Christians as far back as the second century, find Mark’s original ending very unsatisfactory: if the women had really “said nothing to anyone”, then Mark’s story would never have been told! Mark also says that the women at the tomb heard these words: “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.” The disciples are being told to go back to the beginning, to the place where they first met Jesus.

If we go back to the very beginning of Mark’s gospel, we read these words: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight...” and “Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe the good news.’”

All along, Mark’s story has been about the Way – the Way of the Kingdom. From your own reading of Mark’s story, how would you describe that Way?

Like the women at the tomb on Easter morning, I’m now going back to the beginning – of Mark’s story, of the gospel of Jesus Christ – to try to understand on a deeper level what it means to seek the Kingdom, and what it might mean to live according to the Kingdom’s values.