"Out Ahead"
Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015
Mark 16:1-8
This sermon was preached at Trinity Lutheran Church, Eau Claire, WI by Pastor Kurt Jacobson.
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ, may the grace, peace and new life of Easter be with you today and always.
Good morning and welcome! Thank you for coming to be part of this worshiping community of Trinity. It’s my hope
that being here to praise God for the great news that death doesn't have the last word makes a difference in your life, not
just today, but every day.
The biblical account of Easter you just heard is one of 4 in the Bible. This one, written by the disciple of Jesus
named Mark, features three women. They're brave women who go out to the cemetery early on Sunday morning after a
wild few days of enormous unrest resulting in the death of Jesus. They go to dress his body with sweet-smelling spice, as
was the custom.
Arriving at the cemetery, they’re startled to find the stone rolled away from the door of tomb. Next they encounter a
young man, dressed in a white robe. He announced shocking, unexpected news about Jesus: “He is risen, he is not here.
He is going before you. Go, tell the others!”
And then, Mark tells us the women “fled from the cemetery; for terror and amazement had seized them; and they
said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." (v. 8) End of story.
This biblical account of resurrection ends abruptly, awkwardly. The other biblical accounts tell us the women run
back to town with great joy to share everything that they had seen and heard. But not Mark. He has nothing more at all to
say. His entire story of Jesus ends with this final word about the women running away in fear. It seems like a really lousy
ending.
It's been a long time since my 11th grade English class, but a few memories still linger. I distinctly remember my teacher,
Mr. Luth. I remember suffering through Charles Dicken's “Great Expectations.” I also recall reading a horrible short story
named "The Lady or the Tiger?" What made the story horrible was that it had no ending. “Great Expectations” I thought
would never end, whereas “The Lady or the Tiger” didn't end. What started out as a fine tale of suspense and adventure
came to an abrupt halt with the hero approaching one of two fateful doors. Behind one door was a beautiful young lady,
and behind the other, a man-eating tiger. That's where the author left it. I was disgusted. I wanted to know what happened.
Did the hero win the hand of the young woman, or did he get mauled by the tiger? Did he wind up at the altar with this
beauty on his arm or in the cemetery? The story didn't say, but leaves it up in the air. I remember Mr. Luth trying to get us
to argue the question one way or the other, but the discussion fizzled after Wayne Amato, voted our "Most Likely to
Succeed in a Life of Crime," suggested we go find the author and slug him until he told us the ending.
Thanks to Mr. Luth and some other very fine English teachers, I came to appreciate good writing. But I have never liked a
story without an ending. Call me conventional; but I want to know if the good guy wins. Did they live happily ever after?
I want an ending to the stories in which I get involved. Because without some kind of closure, whether happy or sad,
tragic or comic, I feel gypped, or worse yet, fooled.
Back to Mark's story of Jesus’ resurrection. It doesn't end. Mark just tells us the women were afraid. Are you
content with that ending?
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Let’s imagine that Mark crafted an incomplete ending by design and left the story of resurrection hanging on this
moment of fear and silence for a reason. Maybe because he knew that no story about death and resurrection could possibly
have a neat and tidy ending. Could it be that that this ending is intended to keep us curious - interested in paying attention
to God's surprising nature - for what could be more surprising than a dead person come back to life?
I know some people question the resurrection of Jesus and want it explained in scientific, logical terms. But that's
impossible. Literal-factual accounts of this event fail. But does that have to negate its meaning?
Let's go back to those three women and their dedication to Jesus and their shocking experience that Sunday
morning. Out of love they go to the cemetery for one last show of respect for poor, dead Jesus. "And entering the tomb,
they saw a young man who said, 'You seek Jesus? He isn't here. He's risen. He's already out on the road. Go, tell the
disciples that he has gone on before you."
And what did the women do? Nothing. They couldn't go and tell because they were so afraid - uncertain about what this
news meant. Once again, Jesus had given them the slip and had gone on before them, out ahead of them, into the future,
out of death, into life. It scared these women half out of their wits.
We live in a world where fear is one of the most powerful emotions that affects us in nearly every aspect of life. When it
comes to the dimension of faith – of professing a belief in God and for Christians, a belief in Jesus, perhaps there is more
fear and uncertainty in us than we care to admit.
Almost daily we hear news that makes people fearful about religion. We hear news connecting religion to acts of
violence and division. Two stories in the news this week: the murder of 147 Christian students at a university in Kenya
and the laws passed in Indiana and Arkansas called the "religious freedom restoration act" - giving business owners the
right to refuse serving people whose values differ from their religious convictions.
I wonder about such news where religious differences is justification for violence and division. How do such
actions and decisions in the name of religion come to bear upon regular folks like us? My fear is that the heightened
division and judgmental stances based on differing beliefs in God or interpretation of the Bible lead us to be like those
women: frozen in fear, unable to embrace the incredible truth that God loves; that God raised Jesus from the dead to show
people the extreme desire God has to bring hope wherever death and division capture us and cause us to fear.
So Mark, who wrote for us this Easter story, never got around to putting an ending on his story of Jesus. And there is the
whole point of the empty tomb -- the story is open-ended. Humanity, in glorious and gory ways continues to try and figure
out how to continue the story of God – who continues to be moving about this world. For us, in this little part in the world,
we continue the story in peaceful, inclusive and life-giving ways.
My friends - I hope that this news of Easter, of God's love for this world and for you will inspire greater faith in a
God who is good -- even when the news about religions seems to tell us differently. You know the real story - and Mark
leaves the ending of that story up to us. So we strive to live in our lives faithful to Jesus, who is out of the tomb of death –
and we move forward, into the future, certain that the Jesus who gave those three women the slip that first Easter morning
is already out ahead of us.
May this good news from God - which startled three women in a cemetery, inspire you with increasing faith,
guide your living, and prompt you to tell others of the abounding goodness of life from God, thanks to a Risen Jesus.
Amen.
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