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Easter Sunday
April 20,2003
Christ Church, Covington
“So [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.”
On this greatest festival of the Christian faith, when we celebrate the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, our gospel reading ends not on
a note of joy and triumph, but on a note of fear, failure, and paralysis.
Commentators tell us that the verb used to describe the women’s reaction
to the empty tomb and the angelic messenger, which is translated
“alarmed,” is the same word used to describe Jesus’ agony in the garden of
Gethsemane the night that he is betrayed and arrested: “Jesus took with
him [to Gethsemane] Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed
and agitated.” It is a strong word, by which Mark clearly wants us to
understand that the women were terrified—so terrified that they were
paralyzed. So terrified that they fail to carry out the angel’s
commission.
Instead of going to tell the disciples that Jesus has been raised and is
going ahead of them to Galilee, the women are silent. They say nothing to
anyone.
This is the original ending to Mark’s gospel—fear and terror, paralysis
and disobedience. It is an ending of failure—failure to trust that Jesus
is alive and has plans for them and for the world; and failure to act in
the light of his living presence. This ending has been disturbing to the
church since the second century. It was so disturbing that two additional
endings to this gospel were appended by unknown authors as early as the
second century—endings of trust and triumph, not fear and failure.
As I pondered Mark’s peculiar and strange ending this week, it occurred to
me that perhaps it is God’s providence that we should have this particular
gospel as our text for Easter Sunday this year. It speaks to where we find
ourselves in the pages of world history, individually and corporately.
There is a spirit of fear, yes, even of terror, in the hearts of many
people today. A fear that is debilitating and paralyzing; a fear that can
keep us from living confidently and faithfully, trusting Christ’s
provision and guidance and living presence in our lives and in the life of
the world.
The news media report that air traffic is down by about 25%. Why? Fear. My
husband told me that he heard a NPR broadcast this week on “Homeland
Security.” Included in this broadcast was a report about a city or federal
official who was on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Mardi Gras day. This
official noted bubbles floating through the street, and thought to himself
that this could be a clever way to poison a great crowd of people. So he
followed the bubbles to a machine perched on a balcony, and went to
investigate this possible threat to public security. He satisfied himself
that this possible threat was nothing more than a group of Mardi Gras
revelers. Before September 11, bubbles in the street on Mardi Gras would
hardly have been noticed, much less set off an alarm in the mind of a
public official.
What are your fears? They may or may not be connected with September 11.
Is it fear about the future for your children? Is it fear about
diminishing returns from the Stock Market, or job security? Is it fear
about grades, or getting in the “right” school? Fear about having enough
money for retirement, or having enough money period? Is it fear about
repairing a rocky marriage, or living with a failed one? Fear about a
debilitating disease? Fear of dying? Fear of failure? You know your fears.
I know mine.
Mark invites us to confront and identify the fears in our own lives and
our own times. He assumes that we have them, just as the first disciples
had them. He assumes that our fears can have effects which are
debilitating and disastrous, because fear produces patterns of behavior
which lead us away from trust and faith, from hope and goodness, from
mercy and love and joy—from God.
Fear caused all the disciples to flee when Jesus was arrested. Fear caused
Peter to deny ever knowing Jesus. Fear kept the disciples from being
present as Jesus hung on the cross. Fear caused the three women in today’s
gospel to stand at a distance from the cross while Jesus was dying, and
terror caused them to flee from the tomb and tell no one about God’s
latest act of redemption and triumph over the powers of evil and death.
Desertion, betrayal, isolation, distance from those whom they loved and
cherished, silence about the truth, paralysis, guilt, shame. These were
the effects of fear in those first disciples. How are our fears affecting
our lives as Christians? How does fear manifest itself in our actions and
attitudes?
Yes, today’s gospel ends on a note of fear and failure, but what is Mark
trying to tell us?
There are about as many theories of why Mark ended his gospel this way as
there are commentaries on his gospel. But do you know what I think? I
don’t think Mark has ended his gospel. I think Mark is leaving his account
of the good news open-ended, because the history of God’s redemption of
the world through Jesus Christ is open-ended. Christ’s resurrection
signals God’s triumph over the powers of evil and death. That has been
accomplished once and for all. But the work of God’s redemption of the
world continues; it is not finished. It will not be finished until that
day when Jesus comes again. There are pages of redemption history yet to
be written, and those pages are being written now, by you and by me. There
is a gospel of God’s saving work in Christ that is being composed now in
the 21st century, in your life and mine, in the life of this parish, and
in the life of this community.
Will those pages of God’s saving work in our lives witness to fear, or
will they witness to trust—trust in the living, active presence of Jesus
Christ now, in this present time?
I heard two stories of Christ’s working this week, in the life of this
parish. The first came from a friend who drives a SUV because she hauls
around a lot of “stuff.” She said, “Pamela, I’ve gotten a new car.” I
said, “Oh, what kind?” She answered, “A smaller car. You know, the thing I
was driving got ten miles to a gallon, and I drive over 40,000 miles a
year. I decided that was too much gas for me to consume. I just couldn’t
do it any more. My new car gets over twenty miles to a gallon. It’ll be
packed to the gills with my ‘stuff,’ but it is a better use of the earth’s
resources.”
The second story came from a women who describes herself as “becoming a
Christian.” She is highly gifted and well-educated. She tells me that a
number of her friends are atheists, and she has a fear of what they will
think of her as her faith grows and deepens and more and more directs her
life. She told me about a conversation she had with one of these friends
this week. She said, “Pamela, do you know what words came out of my mouth?
I had been reading Paul this week. I told this friend that I was becoming
a Christian and why. At the end of the conversation, these words just came
out of my mouth: ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel.’” I am not ashamed of
the gospel.
Listen again to the angelic proclamation: “Do not be alarmed; you are
looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He has been raised; he is
not here…Go, tell his disciples…that he is going ahead of you to Galilee;
there you will see him, just as he told you.”
My friends, we are today the ones to whom this commission is given. We can
leave here today and go back to our daily lives tomorrow with our fears,
or we can take to heart the angel’s message, and allow the living, active
presence of Christ to be seen and known in our lives.
“Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was
crucified. He has been raised; he is not here…he is going ahead of you…you
will see him.” Amen.
Sermon by the Reverend Pamela P. Snare
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