The Rev. Carol S. Wedell
April 12, 2009

This week I received an email survey from a friend with only six questions.  I usually let these things go, but since I was busy procrastinating about everything I needed to get done, I gratefully made an exception.  Unfortunately however, one of the questions stumped me!  What are your four favorite television shows?  I could only come up with sports and news, so I'm sure I "failed!"  But in my television watching days I remember one of the more frustrating things that occurred periodically.  The show would be coming to a critical point and you would be wondering what on earth was going to happen, when all of a sudden, three dreaded words would appear on the screen, "to be continued...."  Arggh!  How irritating!

Or how about the image of Frodo and Sam hiking over the rough terrain between Gondor and Mordor, at the so-called end of The Fellowship of the Ring, when the same words appear?  Even though I knew that this was a trilogy, I was stunned when the words flashed on the big screen. Do you really want to wait until the next movie is released to find out what happens? 

I'm guessing that most of you don't like such non-endings either.  We want to know how things come out.  We want the loose ends tied up, and a clear conclusion reached.  We want questions answered and to leave satisfied and at ease.  Most of us are uncomfortable with lack of clarity.

Well, we're faced with a similar dilemma this morning. I'm guessing that if I asked most of you the basic parts of the Easter story you would put together a similar scenario:  Jesus is crucified and then buried.  On the third day, some women - or was it just Mary Magdalene? - go to the tomb to take proper care of the body.  When they get there, the stone has been rolled away and an angel appears and tells them that Jesus has been raised, and they should to go to Galilee - or is it back to the disciples? -and tell them what they have seen.  But on the way, while she is still crying, a man says to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" And looking up, Mary sees Jesus.  That's about it, isn't it?

Well, there is only one problem here.  Or I should say four.  Because each of the four gospels gives us a slightly different edition. What I just attempted to do was to meld all four together - which I must say, was much harder than I anticipated! 

The gospel of Mark, the oldest gospel, upon which much of Matthew and Luke are based, is like a frustrating television show.  It leaves us hanging in the air, with a "To be continued...." kind of non-ending. "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."

Actually, that's better than the original Greek which ends mid-sentence, "to no one anything they said; afraid they were for..."  It just stops.  In Mark, Jesus doesn't appear again.  In fact, no one appears again.  The story is over. There is no doubting Thomas or breakfast on the beach.  This gospel which up until now has moved at break-neck speed, as if to get to some important destination simply ends, right where it is.

For the musicians among you, it is as if you were moving through a standard chord progression, and just stopped on the dominant chord. We want the chord to resolve. But you don't have to be a musician to understand that.  You can all hear it.  (Organist plays chord progression, ending on the fifth).  Kind of drives you nuts, doesn't it?  It doesn't feel like it has concluded.  That's where the gospel of Mark leaves us. Suspended in mid-air. Was the evangelist perhaps planning a sequel? Did the writer run out of ink? The story is incomplete.

Now those of you who followed along in your Bibles while I was reading, may have noticed that there looks to be more in the gospel of Mark than I read.  And you'll see notes at the bottom talking about all of the possibilities of different endings.  Yet most scholars have long agreed that all of those alternate endings are not a part of what Mark wrote originally.  They were added decades later by folks who could not stand that lack of resolution.  They could not stand the void.  Mystery shook their faith.  So they wrote imaginary endings.  But the abrupt ending is clearly the most authentic account of the resurrection that we have.  One commentator has noted, "Mark, like the conflicted world in which we live, will not let us slither off to easy Easter answers scented with blankets of white lilies." (Journal for Preaching, James Lowry).

Mark leaves everything hanging, and as a result does exactly what those words "to be continued..." do to us.  They make us wonder what will happen next.  This abrupt ending pulls us in, making us involved in the unfolding drama.  It becomes our story too.

As we have moved through the gospel of Mark this year, I have made a point of saying that because Mark moves so quickly, you know that nothing he wrote was filler, or simply added by accident. Every word is important. (Those youth who were curious about a portion of the Passion reading last week may see me after the service!).  So if Mark left it in mid-sentence without any satisfying conclusion, he did so for a reason.  Why?

Let's take a closer look at what Mark did tell us.  On the third day, we find three women-the faithful disciples who have not run away-trudging resolutely toward the tomb. These women have witnessed the torture, the pain, the blood, the agony of the cross. Now they go to the tomb to give Jesus' body proper burial preparation - with oils and spices.  This could not be done at the time of his death because the Sabbath had already come. 

Can you imagine how they must have felt?  Not only was Jesus dead, but so were the dreams he had given them.  I can imagine them in a kind of numbed-out fog, going through the necessary motions as one does when grief has overtaken you, but there are still things to be done.  To go now and take care of a body three days dead, was to be confronted with its stark, smelly reality.  Stay here with the three women for a minute. Put yourself in their place.  It is tempting to view death from a distance; that's what most of us like to do.  While the 11 may have done precisely that, these three women did not.  They were ready to meet death head on.

The women went to the tomb for several reasons.  First they go to the tomb, because that's what women were supposed to do.  Cooking, cleaning, preparing dead bodies - the so-called "dirty-work" was theirs. They also go to reach some closure.  It was these women - not any of the twelve disciples - who stood by Jesus during the crucifixion.  This was the last step. They wanted to see it through, so they could come to a resolution.  They didn't like death - but they understood it.  And their fearless commitment was, ultimately, a gift of love - the one thing they could do to honor this man who had so dramatically changed their lives.

So far as we know they were worried about only one thing: how to move the stone from the entrance to the tomb. Expecting to encounter the body of a dead teacher and friend, they were met by one surprise after another.  Terrified is probably not a strong enough word for what they felt as things unfolded.  When they get to the tomb, the stone has been rolled away!  Had someone stolen Jesus' body?   What's going on?  Imagine their anxiety as they peer into the tomb where Jesus had been laid.  Only the tomb isn't empty.  A man in white clothes speaks to them, "Don't be afraid."

Why is it that when someone says, "don't be afraid," you know instantly that you had better be ready to bolt? These women had every reason to be alarmed, startled, confused. They weren't lightweights, who bailed out when the going got tough.  Not them. But this was totally beyond their range of experience.

The man in white says, "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." Hadn't they been here?  Didn't they know that already?  "'Go,' said the young man in white, 'tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.' They fled from the tomb, filled with terror and amazement. And said nothing to anyone for they were afraid." The translators of the Jerusalem Bible put it this way, "The women ran away from the tomb because they were frightened out of their wits."

Doesn't that seem like an appropriate response?  Candidly, fear or terror, are probably a more appropriate response on Easter morning than our joyous celebrations.  It is out of the darkness that the light of the resurrection emerges. It is through the pain of death that the possibility of new life arises. Many of us know something of those feelings of fear today:  as we look into our economic future, as we wonder about relationships, as we face major health issues, as we watch in horror the violence that humankind seems capable of inflicting upon itself.

Many of us have walked the path of grief that these three women walked.  In the midst of that overpowering grief, almost unaware of what is going on around them; they are greeted first with an empty tomb, then with a man they don't know in a white robe, speaking of things they can't possibly understand.  I would be afraid - wouldn't you?   Easter celebrates the new life that comes precisely in our darkness.

And as they flee, they say nothing - again, an understandable reaction.  What is there to say?  Rather, we are left with the impression that they simply wanted to get out of there, and return home where they could try to sort things out.  Mark doesn't tell us that they went to Galilee, or that they told the disciples, or that they did anything they had been told to do.  Mark doesn't tell us where or how the story concludes.  He might as well have added, "to be continued...."

But over 2000 years later, we know that those women spoke at some point!  How else would anyone else know?  I believe that they did go to Galilee.  After all, it was home, it was safe.  It was where everything started, those three short years ago.  Mark doesn't tell us that's where they went. But something happened to them in Galilee as it had before.

Did they leave the tomb believing what the man had said, because they had seen an empty tomb?  I doubt it.  After all, an empty tomb doesn't really prove anything.  If you are looking for scientific evidence of the resurrection this morning, I can't give it to you.  The empty tomb is only a source of unending speculation; not faith.

But those women went to Galilee - and there they met Jesus.  Mark doesn't tell us that this happened, or what Jesus looked like or what he said.  But friends, it took more than the memory of an empty tomb for them to break their silence.  And we wouldn't know the story unless they told it to someone.

Trembling, still in shock, they return to Galilee.  Remember that women were entirely disposable in this culture.  They could not testify in a court of law.  Yet all of the gospels mention at least one of these women.  Why?  Why remember, much less believe, what someone with no authority says?

Because, friends, death and terror were not the final words.  They never are.  There was also amazement, awe - for they had begun to see the power of God at work.  Fear and awe are appropriate responses when we have come face to face with the power of God.

So back to Galilee they go.  For it is in their Galilee - and ours - where the real action occurs.  Jesus promised to meet them there - and meets us as well. Jesus goes ahead of us to Galilee - always to Galilee - the place where we live and work, where we raise families, and deal with hardship. The place where dishes need to be washed, beds need to be made and bills need to be paid:  The classroom, where students are put under more and more pressure to "test well," where restless children make life difficult for teachers, and quiet students go unnoticed.  The business meeting where yet more budget cuts await, and no one is sure who will have a job tomorrow.  The bedroom where that nagging argument with your spouse simply won't go away.  The hospital where death faces you with only a whisper of hope for life beyond death.

The man at the tomb tells the women - tells us to go to Galilee. Go to where we live our daily, ordinary lives. It is there that we will find the Risen Christ. It is there that we will find this Jesus who claims us and pushes us and saves us with deep, dark, demanding love. Yes, it is in Galilee that Jesus will bless us and befriend us as he always has - walking with us and talking with us. And leading us to resurrected hope, to resurrected purpose, to resurrected living - on this side of the grave. 

In Galilee, or in Pepper Pike, or Cleveland Heights or Chagrin Falls, our risen Lord meets us, with a story that needs "to be continued..."  It is in Galilee that we recognize that the story continues - with us.  We are the ones to live out the next chapter.

Giacomo Puccini, who wrote such works as Madame Butterfly, La Boheme, and Tosca, was stricken with cancer in 1922. He decided to write one more opera entitled Turandot.

One of his students said, "But suppose you die?"

"Oh, my disciples will finish it," Puccini replied.

Puccini died in 1924, and his disciples did finish the opera. The premier, which took place in Milan, Italy, at La Scala Opera House, was conducted by one of the composer's best students, Arturo Toscanini. The performance continued to that point at which Puccini's work had abruptly ended. Toscanini paused and said to the audience, "Thus far, the master wrote. . . and then the master died." Then he picked up the baton and shouted out to the audience, "But his disciples finished his music." (Lectionary Homiletics, Volume III, Number 5, page 26)

Friends, we have some music to finish, as well.  For ultimately, Mark's "unfinished gospel," leaves the good news of Jesus in our hands.  The next chapter occurs when the hungry are fed, and the homeless given shelter, when forgiveness is offered and broken relationships are mended.  The resurrection is seen when a person who walks through these doors lonely and afraid, leaves with a new family and a new hope.  Jesus is raised, but the story is left in the hands of his disciples - in our hands, and those who come after us.

This morning I would guess that many of us came today with little or no expectations.  We came to sing familiar hymns, to enjoy the beauty of the sanctuary and like the three women to pay our respects to Jesus. But friends, this is the good news:  death could not contain him! Jesus is here among us, inviting us to the very challenging task of walking with him through all of the ordinary places of our lives.  We can stay by the tombs of our lives, mourning what could have been, or we can live as disciples working to finish the story and expecting the risen Christ to show up.

Christ is risen.  Christ is risen indeed.  Alleluia!  Amen.