Even Stranger Than You Imagined

Mark 16:1-8

I have worn some outfits I’m not proud of.  I’ve dressed in clothes I regret wearing.

I was a member of a 4-H club for one year when I was in grade school.  I do not remember anything that happened other than the fact that I entered a square-dancing competition.  My partner and I had matching outfits.  The outfit involved white jeans with a western dress shirt with snaps, made out of a fabric with white background and strawberries on it.  I don’t remember what shoes I wore.  I can’t imagine any shoes that would go with that outfit.

 

Yet another unfortunate outfit was my 7^th grade marching band uniform.  You youngsters in marching band have no idea what we went through.  We had real parades – parades that began all the way back at the High School, went downtown, and all the way back down National.  It was way longer than the little three block sashay that now counts as a parade.  And we didn’t march in jeans and a tshirt.  We wore band uniforms.  Do you even know what a band uniform is?

Our uniforms were purple and gold.  The material was a 16-ply canvas lined with gunny sack.  They were stiff and hot and they didn’t fit.  And we wore hats.  Tall hats modeled for some reason on hats worn by British guards.  Purple and yellow hats impossible to balance on your head.  With a plastic chin strap designed to pinch the soft area under your chin.

I know I’m not alone.  We’ve all had to wear something that didn’t fit or wasn’t comfortable or looked ridiculous.

Belonging to a church feels, to some people, like wearing an outfit that doesn’t work.  They imagine other people, religious types, who are perfectly at home in all the singing and praying.  Perfectly comfortable with all the things you’re asked to believe and do.  But to them the whole project of a life of regular worship feels alienating.  Church, and faith, and life with God, and all the expectations that come along with that – doesn’t reflect who they want to become.  It fails to capture their imagination or their desire.  It feels like wearing white jeans and a strawberry western shirt.

This feeling of discomfort or alienation probably may not be the only thing going on.  It’s also true that the life of faith lived with other people is difficult and demanding.  It’s a life that calls us to open ourselves to one another’s needs.  To bear one another’s burdens.  To share our resources of time, money, and energy.  We’re taught to forgive those who hurt us.  And love those who don’t deserve it.  This is difficult work.  And some people don’t want to be bothered with it.

But the Bible stories about an empty tomb aren’t just a problem for those who aren’t here.  They’re a problem for some of us as well.  And our worries range from the mild: I suppose it could have happened but it doesn’t seem all that plausible.  To the more strident: I’m pretty sure nothing of the sort happened, so I guess we’re all playing a polite game.

So you might think that my job as a pastor is to make the resurrection of Jesus more reasonable, more believable.  You might expect me to try to convince you that resurrection makes sense.  This won’t be the first time I’ve disappointed you, of course.  But I don’t plan to do any such thing.  In fact, I’d like to do the opposite.  I’d like to use the time I have to suggest that Jesus’ resurrection is stranger than you ever imagined. 

The problem with Easter and resurrection is that it feels like we can only bring half of ourselves to the party.  All the joy and the festivity and celebration about how God has fixed everything by raising up the crucified Jesus – it might resonate with part of us, with part of our experience, but not with all of it.  We don’t like being told how to feel.  None of us wants to be told that everything is fine, when we know that everything isn’t.

What we need is a story that can gather up all of who we are and what we experience and hold it together in some kind of wholeness.

And this is where the strangeness of Mark’s gospel might give us some hope.  Mark’s gospel isn’t really about joy.  Don’t get me wrong.  There is joy available to us in opening ourselves to God.  But Mark’s resurrection story isn’t directly about joy.

Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James, and Salome were women who had traveled with Jesus during his ministry and cared for his needs.  They loved him.  They believed in him.  They wanted the new world he promised.  But on Friday afternoon they watched him die.  And they grieved not only the death of their friend but, just as importantly, the death of their own hopes and dreams.  They followed behind and watched where his body was laid in the tomb.

From Friday sundown to Saturday sundown was the Jewish Sabbath.  There was to be no work, no cooking, no preparations, and certainly no shopping.  The male disciples were nowhere to be found.  They fled, scared to death they’d get crucified too if they hung around.  So these women who loved Jesus and served him made plans to properly bury him.  Saturday evening they went to the market to buy spices.  And early on Sunday they made their way back to the tomb.

On their way to the tomb they realize that in all their grieving and planning they had neglected one thing – the enormous boulder that sealed the entryway to the tomb. 

They arrive at the tomb and see that the very large stone was already rolled away.  This is the first hint that is not just a story about death, grief and loss – but also a story which involves the living God.

They enter the tomb expecting to find Jesus’ dead body laying wrapped in burial cloths.  They expect to unwrap it, to steel themselves against the decay and stench, to pack it with spices and rewrap it.  But none of that happens.  Instead, they are greeted – and frightened – by a young man dressed in a white robe.

“Don’t be alarmed,” the man in white says.  “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified.”  You are looking for what you know.  You are looking for what’s familiar.  You came here with no idea that God has plans to pivot the world in a new direction.

The words spoken by the man in white come to us in short little sentences, as if the news is so overwhelming that we need it in small bits.

“He has risen!”

“He is not here.”

“See the place where they laid him.”

If this resurrection story were written in the style of Victorian novels like Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights, we would now be treated to six or seven pages of detailed writing about the interior lives and emotional responses of the women.  We would be offered a lengthy and dallying foray into their psychological states, their questions, doubts, dreams, worries, and which gown they planned wearing to the next ball.  We would be told exactly what they were thinking. 

But this resurrection story isn’t written by a Victorian novelist.  What we get instead are pointed directions to the women from the man in white.  “But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee.  There you will see him, just as he told you.’” 

This is where Mark’s gospel story gets strange.  The ending we expect is that the women faithfully listen to the man in white, go and tell the disciples and Peter the good news, and head back home full of joy, excited to see the risen Jesus.

But we would be wrong.  They did nothing like that.  They did the opposite of that.  The man in white said “Don’t be alarmed.”  But they left the tomb “trembling and bewildered.”  They were told to go find Peter and the others and pass along the good news.  They did nothing of the sort.  They fled the tomb, scared to death, and didn’t say a word to anyone.  The end.

No one has ever liked this ending.  You can see in your pew bible on p. 942 that some of our later manuscripts of the gospel show that a shorter and a longer ending were added.  The other gospels we have – Matthew, Luke, and John – all go out of their way to revise Mark by adding an ending where the women do what they’re told and the risen Jesus appears to his followers.

Mark’s gospel doesn’t end by telling us to be joyful.  The gospel ends in expectancy and anticipation, but there are no resurrection appearances.  “He is going before you . . . there you will see him.”  We do not know when and where we will encounter him.  Only that he is risen and we cannot escape the reality of his new life and ours.

What happened to these women was overwhelming, thunderous, seismic.  Yes, this is good news.  But it comes to us with a richness that we cannot immediately digest.  We are not told what to do with it.  We are not told how we should feel or how we should respond.  We are told that the tomb is empty.  That God has raised up the crucified Jesus.  And it’s perfectly sensible to flee in fear until we can gather our wits and decide what to do with Jesus’ call to follow him into a way of life characterized by forgiveness, mercy, healing, compassion, lowliness, and sharing.

Several months back our family planned a trip to St. Louis over Spring Break.  We invited two couples we know from college to meet us there.  Not long after we’d made these plans, our friend Heather became very sick and was hospitalized, diagnosed with Leukemia.  She began chemo treatments and was very sick.  So we changed our plans.  Their family couldn’t come to St. Louis.  So we went to see them in Springfield, IL.  

We weren’t even sure if she’d be strong enough to see us.  Her white count had been so compromised that she had very limited visitors.  But our other friends made stuff for chili frito pie.  And we took it over to their house.  And all the kids jumped on the trampoline in the back yard.  And we got to spend the evening with Heather.  It wasn’t the fun time we had planned for St. Louis.  It was better.  It was laughter and grief and love all wrapped up in one complex evening.

That’s life.  Joy and tears.  Laughter and hardship.  Singing and being silent.  It all comes together.  And the good news is that the resurrection does not require that we cut any of that out.  It doesn’t block some parts of who you are.  Everything and all of it are called into the new world begun at that empty tomb.

I’ve told you before about our pre-kid trip to Europe in 1999.  But I don’t think I told you about our visit to the gorgeous Trevi Fountain in Rome.  We had been traveling in Europe for over a week.  We had eaten croissants and pizza and pasta and gelato.  And I hate to admit this but after awhile you kind of miss the foods you’re used to.    

I cannot express to you my joy when, upon my arrival, I discovered that right next to the Trevi Fountain, glittering in orange and pink letters was a sign that read, “Dunkin Donuts.”  There is a Dunkin Donuts on every other block in New England where we lived.  And there is nothing that soothes my soul like a medium hazelnut coffee and a chocolate glazed donut.  And there I was in an unfamiliar place, but a missing part of my life was offered back to me at just the right time.

The women fled the tomb because they realized that God had raised up Jesus.  And that this would make everything different from now on.  And that this risen Jesus calls all of who we are into the new world of God’s love.  Joy, yes there’s joy.  But there’s lots else besides.  And you get to bring it all in with you.  All of who you are, all of where you’ve been, all of what you’ve experienced, is welcomed into the new world of resurrection.