Test Driving Theology

Christ is risen!  Christ is risen indeed!

I’m guessing that most of you are familiar with the story of Jesus’ resurrection.  After his death, Jesus was put into a tomb, and a giant stone was rolled in front of the entrance.  Three days later, disciples go to the tomb, but find that it has been opened and Jesus is not there.  

A man the disciples assume is a gardener appears and asks why they are sad.  Mary tells the stranger the story, and he says to her “Mary,” and she suddenly recognizes Jesus. She kneels down at Jesus’ feet, and he tells her to go tell the disciples what she has seen.  She returns to her friends and tells them “I have seen the Lord.”  Later, Jesus appears to the disciples, individually and in groups.

It is a good story, isn’t it?  A great one…I really believe that it is the greatest, most important story ever told. In fact, the resurrection is the central hub of our faith.  Everything else we believe revolves around this one story…this one truth:  Jesus lives!  There is only one problem.  The story, as I just described it, is not the same scripture story that I just read a few minutes ago. 

The story I just recounted for you comes from the Gospel books of Matthew, Luke and mostly from John.  

But our reading for today, it comes from the Gospel of Mark.  It also tells the Easter story, but in a verydifferent way…and some might say, in a much less satisfying way.  

In Mark’s version, it is Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, and Salome who come to the tomb.  As they walk, they wonder how they are going to get the tomb opened.  But when they arrive, they see that it is already opened, and a young man in a white robe, presumably an angel, is sitting by the stone.  

The man says, “Don’t be alarmed,” (because I’m guessing they were).  “You’re looking for Jesus.  He’s not here.  He has been raised from the dead.”  And sure enough, the tomb is empty.  

The man in the white robe says “Go and tell Jesus’ disciples that he is going on ahead of you to Galilee.  You will see him there.”  

But the disciples don’t do this.  Instead, they run, and flee the tomb.  The Gospel of Mark says “for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

And that’s the end of the story.  Right there.  It just ends. 

Now, if you look, you’ll see that there are eleven more verses in the Gospel of Mark after this sudden ending.  But scholars are certain that these verses were added to the Gospel later by other writers because Mark’s ending was so abrupt and so inconsistent with the other Gospels.  But the actual ending to book of Mark was right here….with the 3 disciples running away…in terror.

This is not a great ending. It’s a uncomfortably weird ending.  It feels over, but only half done.  

And humans…we don’t like things that are incomplete, do we?  We don’t like endings that don’t resolve themselves.

So, why did Mark end this way? Mark was a good writer.  His words, his phrasing was beautiful.  Why would he leave us hanging like this?

Well, I have a theory.

I’ve talked before about Franz Liszt, who was a composer of classical music. He was a notorious night owl.  He worked, writing his music, late into the night.  And he never like getting up in the morning.  So, to get him out of bed in the morning, his very clever wife would go to the downstairs piano and would play the first seven notes of a scale, like this:   Do re mi fa so la ti… and then she’d go back in the kitchen to finish cooking breakfast.  Franz would try to ignore it; he’d toss and turn in bed.  But finally, in frustration and anger, he would climb out of bed, throw on his robe, stumble down the stairs, make his way to the piano and play the last note: “do!”  

I think that’s what our Gospel writer, Mark, was doing here I think he was telling the story of Easter with the ending left off, so that just like Franz Liszt, his readers would have to tumble out of bed on Easter morning and finish the story.  If these disciples wouldn’t or couldn’t tell anyone Christ is risen, then somebody would have to do it.  And that somebody…it is you.  

You see, one of the fundamental truths of the resurrection is that Jesus came out of the tomb for the sake of all whom he loved, past, present, and future.  The resurrection wasn’t simply an historical event.  The resurrection is not past tense.  It is present tense.  The resurrection was…and is an act of grace.  It is an act of grace…for you.

Jesus wasn’t at the tomb that Easter morning because he was already on his way to find those who needed him.  He was looking for the disciples.  He was looking for the lost.  He was looking for Jews and Gentiles. He was going to enter their lives…into their hearts…into their very being, with a love so powerful that it would transform them; a love so powerful that people would become who God created them to be.  Jesus was looking for you, and for me.

You may have heard of the author, Anne Lamott.  

In her book Traveling Mercies, Anne recounts the moment that the idea of resurrection became real to her. 

Things were not going well in Anne’s life: She was addicted to cocaine and alcohol, she was involved in multiple affairs, she experienced powerful grief from helplessly watching her best friend die of cancer. While this was all going on, Anne would periodically visit a small church that was in her neighborhood. She would sit in the back row and listen to the singing and then she’d leave before the sermon. “My life felt empty.  It felt incomplete.  It felt over, but yet only half-done.”

In her book, she wrote about the night that she hit rock bottom. She was in her apartment.  She was drunk and high.  She was emotionally exhausted, and she was sick.  Finally, she collapsed on her bed, smoked a cigarette, and fell asleep.

She wrote that “after a while, as I lay there, I became aware of a presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone. The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there.  But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus; I was certain.

I felt him watching over me with patience and love.

Finally, I fell asleep, and in the morning, he was gone.

The experience spooked me badly, but I thought it was just a hallucination, born of fear and self-loathing and booze. But then everywhere I went, I had this feeling, like Jesus’ presence was with me.  It was like a little cat that was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever.  And I couldn’t have that.

One week later, when I went back to church, I was so hung over that I couldn’t stand up for the songs.  This time I stayed for the through the end.  The last song was so deep and raw and pretty that I could not escape it. It was as if the people singing were both weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices were holding me…rocking me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling and it washed over me.

I began to cry and left before the benediction, and I raced home and felt that presence…that little cat, what I had hoped was a figment of my imagination, still there, running along at my heels.  I opened the door to my apartment, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and thought to myself “I surrender.” I took a long deep breath and said aloud, ‘All right. You can come in.’ This was my beautiful moment of conversion. It was the moment of my resurrection…when my story was made whole…it was made complete.”

Friends, the Gospel writer, Mark didn’t finish the story of the resurrection, because what Jesus does within our lives, the love and Grace that Jesus brings; that is really the conclusion of the story.  

Following his resurrection, Jesus entered the lives, and the hearts of those who he encountered.

In the same way, as people who follow Jesus, the Holy Spirit enters into our lives, into our hearts, and changes us.  

Your task then is to become the one who lives out and then tells your story.  It is up to you to share the experience of love and grace that you live with every day.  It is up to you to tell of the resurrection.  

You are the conclusion of Mark’s Gospel.  Jesus is the Good News, but through his love, you get to become Good News for those you meet, encounter and serve.  That is your call.

Live your life as one who has received this incredible gift.  Live your life as one who has been changed by love.  And live your life recognizing that the resurrected Jesus has walked in the door, and that he wants you to experience and then share the grace, the love, the peace and the hope, that only comes from him.

Christ is risen!  Christ is risen indeed!

Alleluia!

Amen.