Easter Sunday

We call ourselves Easter people.
We say He is Risen.
We love the pomp and circumstance of the Easter service.
For a while, a few hours, we truly immerse ourselves in the promise of the resurrection.
But what happens when we wake up on Monday morning? Do we still feel hope?
Let’s be honest: It’s hard to hold onto the belief. A few people will share their doubts openly, but I bet it’s on many people’s minds.

Resurrection just doesn’t feel relevant to our daily lives.
Where is the resurrection in politics, violence, and war?
Where is the resurrection in daily chores, raising families, and earning enough to survive?
Where is the resurrection in illness, crisis, and tragedy?
How do we hold onto hope in a fractured world?

Mark seems to be asking the same questions as the narrative abruptly ends with today’s reading. In fact, Mark’s story of the resurrection feels incomplete. Where’s the Risen Lord? Why do the women leave afraid? What happens next?

Did you know that the last line is cut off so abruptly that it’s not even a complete sentence? It just ends in the middle of a prepositional phrase.

So much is left hanging that later manuscript writers attempted to fill the gap with an alternate ending.

But the differences in language style make it clear that the same person didn’t write it.
The original author, Mark, intentionally leaves us hanging in suspense.

But why?

The short answer: Jesus is not here. He’s out there. The answers are not in the grave; they are in the world.

The women come to the grave to find Jesus, despite the fact he repeatedly told his disciples that he would not be there - that in three days, he would be raised. But they have been unable to see this truth throughout their journeys with Jesus.

Anyone who has lost a dear loved one knows the haze of grief in the days around death. There are so many things that must be done, and so many things that can no longer be done with our loved one gone.

You do what you can, but the stress of grief makes our memory unreliable. Some people completely shut down; others do what must be done, one step at a time.

Here, the women, lost in their fractured world, move on autopilot as they approach the tomb, intending to anoint and prepare the body. They aren’t looking for resurrection. They are looking for a body in a tomb.

The initial shock of seeing an empty tomb is the very real response one would have in this situation. Throw a shot of adrenaline into the already murky emotions of tragic grief, and you’ve got a recipe for a fight or flight response.

They fled, terrified and amazed.

Only when they calm down enough to contemplate what they’ve seen and heard, do they start to wonder and talk to the other disciples.

Maybe they didn’t tell anyone immediately, but we know they shared the story eventually because otherwise, Mark wouldn’t have been able to retell it. Only after the resurrection do the disciples begin to understand Jesus’s message. In fact, the whole message given to the women points back to Jesus’s life and ministry...

“He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.”

Back to Galilee, where it all began, back to Jesus’s teachings.

We will not find evidence of the resurrection at the tomb because this is not where Jesus served. Through his life, his ministry, and his teachings, Jesus teaches us how to walk in the way of love. Jesus is not at the tomb, he is out in the world, leading us into the world to do the work God has given us to do.

The end of Mark is abrupt because it is not the end of the story. God continues to work in the world, creating, redeeming, and transforming.

The message of the resurrection is not relevant at the tomb because the point is not that Jesus rose from the dead. The point is that God is so wondrously powerful that even when humanity rejected and killed Jesus, God overcame death.

The story did not end with Jesus’s death.

Likewise, in our daily lives, we will not find evidence of resurrection at the tomb. We will find
resurrection when people act with divine love.
Proclaiming God’s justice despite resistance.
Welcoming the stranger despite the risks.
Loving their neighbor despite differences.
Serving the community, serving each other, and serving God.

We see resurrection in the acts of the police and city workers who stopped traffic on the Francis Scott Key bridge.
We see resurrection in the struggle for peace and the work of agencies that support the victims of political violence, regardless of whether they are Jewish or Palestinian, Russian or Ukrainian.
We see resurrection when a young LGBTQ person finds acceptance in the hug of a stranger after experiencing rejection from their family.

We see resurrection in the hands that feed the needy and the hearts that yearn for shelter for the homeless. When we are struggling, we might find resurrection in the connection of an empathetic friend or the connection with God’s Creation in nature.

We find the resurrection in those who walk with us in grief and celebration.
The resurrected Christ is not in the tomb. The resurrected Christ is in the eyes of everyone we meet. He is not here. He has gone ahead. He is all around us. Do not dwell on the tomb, but follow God back out into the world. Mark’s Gospel reminds us that this is not the end of the story; it’s the beginning. And we are invited to write the next chapter in our lives.
As heirs of God’s eternal love, we continue the story when we follow the way of Jesus.

The Rev. Mercedes Clements