An Unfinished Easter Gospel

Easter 2024; Mark 16:1-8

Mark’s Gospel ends abruptly, and without a resurrection appearance by Jesus. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome go to the tomb, where they meet a “young man,” are told the disciples must go to Galilee to see Jesus, then leave in silence and fear. The awkwardness of this ending was known and felt in ancient times; there are at least two attempts to compensate for it, already found in some ancient manuscripts and printed in many Bibles as “shorter” and “longer” endings.

The lectionary compilers however follow the overwhelming consensus that these are later additions, not from the same author or process who gives us the Gospel as we know it otherwise. While this doesn’t mean readers of scripture can dismiss the other endings—anymore than we can dismiss other evidence of editing or additions in scripture, which are many—this oldest version, which we read at the Vigil,¹ is a resurrection story suited to the message that Mark has shared through the whole work.

Less clear than what is older in Mark is what was intended. Some scholars think the work is incomplete, circulated without really being concluded, or that it lost its original ending almost at the outset. The fact that 16:8 ends with the word “for,” in the phrase “for they were afraid”—the Greek word order being different from ours—is awkward for one thing.²

There is a different sort of puzzle in an ending which indicates the women did not speak, yet which implies that they must eventually have told someone—or else there could be no story. And then there is the promise of an appearance in Galilee, which also implies action beyond what we read. These unfulfilled implications could suggest a missing page, but could also be part of Mark’s literary art. As it is, we should try to make sense of the text as it stands, even though we cannot be sure how it arose. There is a real ending here, yet it alludes to other stories still to come.

The story of an empty tomb without (explicit) appearances makes for a curious contrast with the other earliest witness to the resurrection—Paul—who conversely lists appearances without quite mentioning the tomb (1 Cor 15). A number of scholars have preferred this Pauline version of the resurrection message as more fundamental, partly because it is probably somewhat older, but also because of its on personal encounters rather than on “evidence” such as a missing body.

The differences are real, but the tension can be over-read. Mark assumes appearances of the risen Jesus, even if we do not read about them. Paul for that matter recites, in what sounds like a credal formula, that Christ “died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3-4). So there actually was a tomb for Paul, but it was no longer significant once Jesus was raised. Here—as in Mark—what is not said might actually be important to note, so we understand the importance of what is said.

And while the tomb story is clearly foregrounded in Mark, this—and all the Gospels—fail or refuse to narrate a “resurrection” in the sense that some would like. That is, there is no account of Jesus standing up and walking out—we read instead of the consequences. Even when these include the empty state of the tomb as well as the transformed people, the Gospel authors are all clearly focussed on the impact of these events, not on the sort of dubious apologetics that confuse an event being true with it being “proven.” This aligns closely with Paul’s understanding.

Resurrection; Master of the Egmont Albums, 16th century Flemish. Yale University Art Gallery

Paul’s and Mark’s approaches to the resurrection thus have in common a sense that the resurrection is both a divine act of cosmic significance and a personal one whose impact is shaped by specific relationships. They tell the stories not to narrate events, but to invite discipleship.

In Mark of course the impact of this resurrection story does not sound like discipleship, at least as we want to imagine it, but is literally fear and amazement, which will be baffling at least initially. It is important to remember we are reading Mark, where this sort of reaction has been characteristic of the followers of Jesus throughout. The motif of fear in Mark is related to understanding Jesus; while not wholly adequate, fear, amazement, reflects how the power of God is discerned at work, and not to fear would have suggested this was less a manifestation of God’s presence and power than (say) the Transfiguration or acts of Jesus that had provoked the same response.

This however does not seem to be the last word; the same paradox that allows the story of silent women to be told allows the possibility that fear is turned into joy. The message of the young man (or angel³) helps suggest how. The appearance of Jesus, according to this message, seems to be more than statement that he is alive again. As for Paul, how he is alive matters very much; and in this case the question of how is also one of where.

Throughout this Gospel the significance of place has come up again and again; its most basic expression is the two-fold division of the Gospel into Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, and his fateful journey to Jerusalem. In the countryside, he has been welcomed and recognized (if not fully or adequately), while in the seat of power he has been rejected and killed. The instruction to the disciples to go to Galilee is thus not merely a set of geographical directions, but of theological ones.

Jesus has been raised, Mark tells us, to the same commitment he had shown to the poor and marginalized, who accepted his reign without knowing fully what it meant. Now however its real meaning can be grasped, but a journey is needed to do so. While the apparent end of the Gospel is absence, silence, and fear, the implicit end is proclamation, joy, and Jesus’s presence. Yet these are not to be found merely by recognition that there was an Easter event. Rather they are found by seeking the unfinished ending, and traveling to make it our own. Belief in his rising is one thing—Mark however suggests that the risen one is to be found not in the witness of the empty tomb, but in Galilee: “there you will see him, as he told you” (v.7).

1. The General Convention of TEC updated the Standard Book of Common Prayer in 2015 to provide for different readings at the Vigil in each of the three years of the cycle, as in the Roman and Revised Common Lectionaries.

2. Adela Yarbro Collins. Mark: A Commentary. Hermeneia. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007, 797-99.

3. The vague reference to a “young man” is typical of such appearances. See Vincent Taylor, The Gospel According to St.Mark: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indexes. London: Macmillan, 1959, 606.