Mark 16:1-8
(Acts 10:34-43)

A group of us were sitting in the Round Room a couple of weeks ago learning about prayer together. On the video that was guiding us appeared a long-time professor from Duke Divinity School, whom I was a bit surprised to see. He’s known for being somewhat feisty, cantankerous, angry, controversial, confrontational – not the kind of theologian who comes to mind when the topic is prayer. But, there he was, and he told us how a colleague of his thinks of prayer. He says, “Prayer is loosening God onto the world. “ Loosening God onto the world, releasing God, freeing what is divine to descend upon all that is not. The professor said, “And, sometimes I think to myself, ‘Oh [expletive,] I’m not so sure I want to do that.’”

The implication was that inviting God into the picture can be a pretty frightful endeavor. You might want to think twice before invoking that kind of power to intrude upon these lives we’ve made for ourselves. Do we really want that kind of disruption?

I remember, in the most healing experience of my life, I had the very same reaction. I was hurting and broken and felt so lost and stuck in my lostness. And, I was working with a prayer partner who asked me to think back over the recent events of my life and place myself there in whatever scene seemed to rise to the surface. And so, there I was feeling the intensity of my situation when she said, “There’s a knock at the door. Go ahead and open it.” I did. “It’s Jesus,” she said. And I blurted out, “Not you! You’re the last person I want to see right now.”

I had no doubt that he would offer some holy, heavenly advice, which I would fail to live up to.   I had no doubt that what was easy for him would be impossible for me, and I really didn’t need the added pressure of bending to his will while my life spiraled around me. Thankfully, what I thought about Jesus didn’t seem to bother him much at all. He wasn’t dissuaded. Into the room he came (and, honestly, it changed my life.)

Were you surprised by Mark’s Easter story? It is usually not the preferred passage for Easter Sunday. John’s version is much more popular. In John’s version Mary is sobbing at the tomb. She’s convinced that they have taken his body away, when the man whom she thinks to be the gardener calls her by name, “Mary,” and her eyes are opened, and she sees that it’s Jesus, and her hope is fulfilled, his resurrection has happened, and her grief is gone! Easter is upon us!

Mark’s version is quite different, isn’t it? The stone is rolled away and inside the tomb there’s a man in white, presumably an angel, who says, (as angels almost always do) “Do not be afraid.” But, they do fear. In fact, fear overcomes them. “He is risen and will meet you in Galilee just as he said. Go and tell the disciples the news.” But, they don’t go. They are amazed and terrified, seized and overcome. They flee from that place and they tell no one about what has happened.

“For they were afraid.” That’s how the earliest version of Mark’s gospel comes to an end. There’s nothing more. Nothing about getting over that fear and moving to a better place. There’s nothing about how the disciples learned where to meet Jesus. There’s nothing about how the gospel spread. There’s resurrection, and there’s fear, and there’s silence.

Early scribes didn’t think this was a suitable way to end the story. Later, two more appropriate endings were added. But, I like Mark’s original version. It preserves some mystery. Just as death has no hold on Christ, neither ultimately do our words and our stories. This story of resurrection will be completed by God. This story of life and salvation is in Christ’s hands, and Christ won’t be put off by the fear and silence. The message won’t end because the woman can’t tell it. A holy and eternal savior has been loosened on the world! Do we really get that? Do we really understand what has happened? Fear and silence may actually be the only rational response to what God has done.

Everything has been turned upside down. Certainly, it was for those early friends and followers of Jesus. Resurrection meant that what he said was true. All those messages of grace and mercy, they were the actual will of God. Resurrection meant that the God he embodied was the God there is. It meant that the hope he gave them could be counted upon and the love he gave them could never die. It meant that the meaning of their lives was grounded in grace. It meant that their very beings were tied to the determined will of a savior who would always be with them. It meant that power belonged to God, and no longer could the powers that be determine one’s value and purpose. It meant the toppling of false boundaries and labels; it meant there’s no longer “Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free” as the Apostle Paul said it. All are one in Jesus. Jesus is in all. The holy one of God is risen for us and within us and that informs everything about us. We aren’t who we thought we are; we aren’t our own; we are God’s because this God will never leave us.

I’ve been reading excerpts of Thomas Merton’s writings and I recently came across an epiphany that he records from a busy shopping center at the corner of Fourth and Walnut St. in Louisville, KY. He writes, “I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I was theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers… The sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud…. It was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed.” But, he goes on to tell us that visions of truth like this can’t really be explained. After all, “There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”[i]

I think we are accustomed to thinking that God does something for us. God grants us things, perhaps does us favors if we ask often enough. We may be accustomed to thinking that way because it is less disruptive. Our lives aren’t disturbed either way. Either way we’re still setting the terms. The scarier act, of course, is to let God set the terms. It is to accept a God who does something, not so much for us, but to us and within us. It is to accept a God who shapes us and conforms us to God’s love. It is to let God tell God’s resurrection story within us, and ultimately – if we dare it – to shine within us like the sun.

[i] From “Essential Writings,” pages 90-92.