Re-Reading the Story- Wendy McCormick
Rev Wendy McCormick
March 31, 2024
Mark 16:1-8
Even after many years, I still vividly remember that one college professor. I imagine many of us hae a memorable teacher in our past. This college English teacher was the one to be feared, to be respected, and not to be missed. He critiqued our writing with a kind of socratic method that left you explaining to the entire class that you actually had no idea what you were talking about. What I remember most is that each lecture on Jane Austen’s novel Emma began, “when you re-read Emma . . .” When you re-read Emma. I can still remember my sophomore self thinking, “Who is he kidding?” Re-read Emma? I will be so lucky if I manage to finish all the reading assigned for this semester, there is no conceivable way I will re-read anything. But there it was every class “When you re-read Emma . . .” Of course, the final exam was, “What did you learn when you re-read Emma?”
It's true that it’s a wonderful experience to re-read a great book or re-watch a great film. You see all kinds of things you didn’t see the first time because now you know where the story is going, you’re in on it; you’re not just following the plot. You see so much more.
Easter invites us to re-read the Jesus story, the gospel. And that’s true in the version we read this year from Mark. The gospel of Mark has this abrupt and completely unsatisfying ending. Some think the original ending has been lost, while others think this abrupt ending is on purpose. Whichever it is, this very unsatisfying ending sends the early readers and us to, flipping back to re-read. “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.”
If this was a regular book, you might check to see if it was missing the last page – and if it wasn’t, looking anxiously back through the story to find a clue to this bizarre ending.
Back to what happened before . . . . and perhaps that is what we are meant to do.
The women arriving at the tom to care for Jesus’ body were performing normal, funeral rituals in their culture. And, as funeral rituals do, it promised a kind of closure. Pastor and preacher, Dr D Cameron Murchison points out: “the closure was closure not just upon an important personal relationship, but also closure on a world-embracing dream.” Think of all the hopes that had been pinned on Jesus, the dreams of a world where people treat each other with respect and dignity, the promise of down-trodden people being lifted up, where mercy and love and shalom are the order of the day – every day – rather than hatred and violence and evil. Dr Murchison points out that for Jesus’ followers, closure on Jesus’ death was also closure on the great demands that dream made on the followers. Murchison says: “Experiencing the unalloyed love of God involves readiness to risk unalloyed love for neighbor. . . . The grief that comes with the thought of losing the one is tempered by the relief that comes with losing the burden of the other.” Sobering but perhaps true. Sad as it was to lose Jesus and the dream he offered of a better world he promised, his dreams made demands people weren’t really up for. It wasn’t just see what I do, but do what I do.
Just like a sleep-deprived sophomore longing for the closure that comes at the end of the semester when the last assignment is submitted, perhaps the followers of Jesus experienced a kind of closure as a movement ended with the death of the leader. Surely they would never forget him and they would tell stories about how awesome he was and how great those three years had been, but it was a check in the box. Closure. Jesus could now and forever be placed on a pedestal to be revered, no longer a companion alongside us, calling us to live differently, urging us to strive each day to do justice, love kindness, walk humbly, to share good news with people whose lives are bad news.
As painful and tragic as it was to lose this incredible friend and leader, that nagging feeling that he expected something challenging of them – of us – died as well. The traditional funeral and burial rituals performed. A great man remembered with love and admiration for the rest of their lives. Exalted in memory. Like a war hero. Glorified in death. Forever frozen in time.
But the extraordinary encounter at the empty tomb provides anything but closure and leaves everything open-ended, calling on those terrified women – and every would-be follower since – to go back and re-read the story, carefully, from the vantage point of this empty tomb – and then perhaps to start writing the ending and writing ourselves into it.
What could be more alarming than to find that enormous stone rolled away and a young man seated inside the empty tomb. And his first words are, “do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. . . . and then comes the really alarming part --- he is going ahead of you to Galilee, there you will see him, just as he told you. It’s not over. No closure.
Time to re-read the story. All that stuff he did and talked about back in Galilee? Go back there. . . back to where he met you and called you and invited you into this movement.
Terror and amazement seized them. No kidding.
They flee. They tell no one. Easy to criticize, but it feels like what I would do.
All those miracles – calming the storm, casting out unclean spirits, healing people of incurable diseases . . . . if he’s back in Galilee where all that happened . . . . maybe it wasn’t a show . . . . maybe it was an example, a lesson, a model --- maybe we are meant to join Jesus to bring calm to the storms of life, to stand up to what is unclean, wrong, demonic, to free people from what binds them --- as we reread it, maybe we were meant to be paying attention not just to be amazed but to follow his example.
When we re-read, we notice he commissioned his followers to cast out demons and to anoint the sick with oil . . . . He told them – and showed them – to feed hungry people --- don’t just send people away to find food, he said.
“Do you still not perceive or understand,” he would say. Do you have eyes and fail to see, ears and fail to hear? Feeding of the 5000, then on the next page feeding 4000. Don’t you get it, he seemed to be saying. Yes, we need to re read.
Go back to Galilee. He will meet you there. Go back to Galilee where there are hungry people, hurting people, people whose lives are bad news who need to meet with some good news.
Re-reading the story maybe Christ is alive wherever people are bringing hope and healing and good news. Maybe it’s not a linear story that ends when the body is buried and the deceased is forever remembered as the most amazing person ever, to be admired and memorialized, worshipped and adored and lifted up on high, to be set apart at the right hand of God somewhere far away, but not to be, well, followed. The following part is what’s so hard. They thought the following part had closure too. They were terrified and told no one.
Follow me, he said. Leave the ordinary behind. Watch me. Do what I do.
He is not here. He is going ahead of you to Galilee. Like he said.
When we re-read the story, perhaps we also “re-read” our own lives, our own stories --- how does this resurrection lens change the story of what God is calling us to do and be in this life.
If the one calling us to share good news with people whose lives are bad news, the one calling us to stand up to what is demonic, to bring comfort to those who are hurting, to stand up to religious voices that make people’s lives worse instead of better --- if the one casting that vision and calling us to be part of it is not dead but instead he is calling us to meet him, to follow him, to find him in the places where he always was ---- calming storms, speaking truth to power, feeding the hungry, comforting the broken ---- and if he is meeting us there not just as one who is about to get in big trouble but as one who has risen above the worst the world has to offer, then there is way more to the story than we thought.
If Jesus, the risen Christ, is alive in the world and that’s where you will find him, then what storm might you calm? What hunger might you feed with such abundance that there are leftovers? What hypocritical and hurtful teaching might you counteract? What pain might you comfort or heal? If you re-read the story not as one of a great person who is not like us but instead as the living power of God’s love alive in the world unable to be contained by any tomb or stone, literal or metaphorical --- how might you re-read the Jesus story? And more important, how might you re-read your story?
How might you re-write your story?
This Jesus story is our story, and it is left open-ended. There is no closure. The story isn’t over yet.
They were terrified and amazed. Well, yeah. Terrified because of Easter and what it asks of us. But also amazed because of Easter that the power of God is so different than the powers we know and deal with every single day and that it is ultimately triumphant. Both terrified and amazed that the story isn’t over after all.
Because of the abrupt ending of this Bible story, we don’t know what happened next. Whether that’s by accident or by design, the ball is left in our court. We will go back to our own Galilees, the places we live and work and encounter children of God of every stripe. Will we go back believing everything is pretty much the same as it always was? Or will we go back with fresh eyes looking for Jesus, the risen Christ, hiding in plain sight wherever mercy and comfort are offered, wherever the hungry are fed, wherever justice is demanded, wherever a third way is offered in the face of the polarizing ways of the world. There you will find him, just as he said. He is not here. He is risen! Go and find him where he said he would be. Go re-read the story. Christ is risen!
