Saturday, April 4, 2015

Vigil sermon: Will we follow Jesus?

Robert Berra
Sermon
The Easter Vigil, 2015
Mark 16:1-8


On this night of holding vigil—and now of celebration and joy—in which we greet Easter and the news of the resurrected Jesus Christ, our gospel reading gives us this final sentence:  “ [The women] 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 Chapter 16 Verse 8.  What a strange place to end a reading from the Gospel on Easter.

But this brings up an interesting thing about the Gospel of Mark.  While Mark in our Bibles goes on to Chapter 16 verse 20, which rather hurriedly mentions a number of resurrection appearances,  in most modern translations of the Bible you will see a footnote that reads “Some of the most ancient authorities bring the book to a close at the end of verse 8.”  The remaining 12 verses came later in the tradition, probably added sometime in the second century.  In fact, in the manuscript tradition of the Gospel of Mark there are no fewer than four possible endings to Mark’s gospel.  And the earliest commentators on the Gospel note in cases where there is something after verse 8, the additions are not present in the best manuscripts they have on hand.  In other words, Mark 16:9-20 were added to the gospel later on, and Mark may have intentionally ended his Gospel with the amazed and terrified women fleeing the tomb, not delivering the message to Peter and the disciples to follow the resurrected Jesus on to Galilee.  The earliest copies of Mark point to this moment of amazement, terror, and silence as the end of the gospel account.

It might be odd to think of a book that calls itself an account of Good News of Jesus Christ ending in a cliffhanger; but personally, I love it.  With Mark ending his Gospel at verse 8, we do not get a clean, rounded off, happy ending to the Jesus story.  We instead get terror and confusion.  That is in keeping with the rest of the story Mark tells, in which the people around Jesus just don’t get what he is up to.   Jesus orders folks to be silent about his identity as the messiah, which they do not do, and misunderstand the nature of Christ’s work. The disciples didn’t listen when Jesus told them the way he treads must lead to the cross.  Those same disciples abandon Jesus at his arrest.  Peter does not just abandon Jesus, but denies him thrice.  The women go to the tomb expecting to find Jesus’s body, meaning that no one has remembered what Jesus said when he prophesied his resurrection and return to Galilee.[1]  For Mark, the story of the disciples is one of little faith.  Why would Mark do this?

What Mark leaves us with, we who read this story so many years later, is a challenge.

As Mark has it, the angelic visitor who meets the women tells them: “you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here…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.”

Mark’s challenge to us is this:  Will we heed the angel’s words?  Will we follow Jesus to Galilee?

We have seen the stone rolled away, and the empty place he was laid.  Will we follow Jesus where he has led, even through death and the tomb?

We know that the cross was not the final word, and God’s love triumphed over death by resurrecting Jesus.  Will we follow Jesus, with the promise that we will find our life in losing it?[2]

We heard from the angel that even Peter and the disciples—deserters and deniers—are invited to rejoin Jesus.  Will we follow Jesus, trusting in his gracious ongoing invitation even when we find our faith wanting and lapsed?

Will we follow Jesus, who tells us that the greatest task we set ourselves to is to love God with all that we are, and love our neighbors as ourselves?[3]

Will we follow Jesus, and being witnesses proclaim in word and deed the good news of the Kingdom of God?[4]

You see, the first verse of Mark’s Gospel sets out what it is.  Mark says it is ‘the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.’  And Mark makes clear by his ending that, actually, our story is its continuation.  Our answer to his challenge to believe and follow Christ is part of the ongoing story of Christ’s work in the world.  The gospel is not something we can put down, like a finished book.  We are always writing the next chapter and answering the challenge of discipleship.[5]

We continue this story tonight, and we begin new chapters of God’s good news as we welcome these two children by baptism into the household of God.   Let us renew our vows to follow Jesus, and make our vows to help these little ones do the same.

Amen.



[1] Mark 14:27-28.
[2] Mark 8:35.
[3] Mark 12:29-31.
[4] Mark 13:10.
[5] I owe much of this language to Tim Geddert, "Beginning Again (Mark 16:1-8)." (Direction: Biblical Scholarship 33, no. 2, 150-57. Accessed April 4, 2015. http://www.directionjournal.org/33/2/beginning-again-mark-16-1-8.html).