Too Good to Be True?
Mark 16:1-8
Tony’s Overview Video
How to Use
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- Read the Bible Lesson by Tony Cartledge in this month’s issue of the Nurturing Faith Journal
- Watch Tony’s Video for this session
- Select either the Adult or Youth teaching guide and follow the directions
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Key Verse: Mark 16:8 –
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.
What would you say is the most important day in the history of the world? It wasn’t the day any particular president was elected, any bill was signed, any invention was created, or any discovery was made. Christians can argue that no other day can compare to the first Easter, the day Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
We are well aware that our broader culture gives more attention to Christmas, though Christ’s birth is often lost amid the holiday trappings. Even Easter can be obscured by cheerful bunnies and colorful eggs, but the memory of Christ’s resurrection refuses to be veiled. Jesus did not remain in the tomb, and the significance of his resurrection can’t be found in a basket, no matter how hard we try to turn boiled eggs into a symbol of rebirth.
We come to Easter – and to church on Easter – from different places in life, and with different motivations. But how we come is not as important as how we leave. Today’s lesson challenges us to consider what direction we will follow as we move on from Easter.
An early morning (vv. 1-3)
The four gospels often relate things differently, and the Easter story is no exception. [DD] There is much that they remember in different ways, but on one matter they all agree: it was women, not men, who discovered the empty tomb. The eleven remaining male disciples were in hiding. Other believers were doing their best to appear inconspicuous, scrupulously avoiding the tomb where Jesus was buried, going out of their way to keep from drawing any attention to themselves. After all, Roman soldiers were posted at the tomb to provide security – the same Roman soldiers who sometimes crucified people.
But women coming to care for the body would not be perceived as a threat, and their love for Jesus went beyond the fear of soldiers. So, they had bought the appropriate spices, presumably purchased on the previous evening, after the Sabbath ended at sundown (v. 1). It was a hard thing to do, working with a dead body that might already smell bad and certainly no longer looked like the image burned into their memories.
They would have come sooner, but Jesus had been crucified on a Friday afternoon, and the Sabbath began at sundown, and the law prevented anyone from doing work on the Sabbath, even caring for the dead. So it was that they waited through the Sabbath, and then rose while it was yet dark on the first day of the week, and filled their arms with aromatic plants or ointments commonly used to anoint the dead and to mask the odor of decay.
There were three women, as Mark tells the story: Mary, the mother of James, and Mary Magdalene, and Salome. [DD] We can imagine them walking quietly through the early dark, stumbling occasionally, whispering among themselves, wondering how they would manage to move the large round stone that sealed off the tomb (vv. 2-3). Like a large mill wheel on edge, the stone would have fit into a gutter that was carved for it in the hillside, so it could be rolled sideways from the small entrance to the tomb. The stone was designed to be movable, but generally by several men. Still, the women were certain they would find a way, or else they would not have come.
An empty tomb (vv. 4-8)
We know what they found, however: as the first fingers of sunlight streamed into the garden, they came to the tomb, where the stone had already been rolled to the side (v. 4). The shadowy entrance to the tomb was unguarded and uncovered. The women knew that no one friendly to Jesus could have gotten there before them. What did this mean? Had the Romans moved his body? Had grave robbers looted the tomb in search of jewels or gold?
Within the tomb, they found “a young man dressed in a white robe” (v. 5). [DD] Mark doesn’t call him an angel, but he doesn’t deny it, either. The man was apparently no one the women knew, and they would have known everybody on earth who was close to Jesus.
It’s hard to imagine how the women’s minds must have raced as they stood there, dumbfounded. When the young man spoke, it was at once the most wonderful and the most frightening thing he could have told them: “Do not be alarmed,” he said, “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him” (v. 6).
The speaker’s words form the core of the early credo that Jesus was crucified and buried, but raised again. In traditional Easter morning greetings, we often exclaim to each other “He is risen!” responding with “He is risen indeed!” Mark was careful, however, to use the passive form of the verb – “he has been raised” – emphasizing the power and the work of God, who raised Jesus from the dead.
The young man instructed the women to go and tell the disciples – and Peter, to emphasize that the one who denied Jesus still had business with him – that Jesus was going ahead of them into Galilee, where they would see him (v. 7).
Can you put yourself in the women’s sandals, just for a moment, and imagine what such news would be like? Could even Jesus rise from the dead and start walking around as before? As Mark tells the story, you can almost hear the women screaming at the thought, fighting to see who can get out of the tomb first, dropping their spices and running away as fast as their legs could carry them.
The angel had told them to tell the others, and Matthew says the women ran in great joy and immediately told the disciples what they had seen and heard (28:8). Luke agrees that they ran back and told the good news, but says the disciples didn’t believe them, though Peter went to check out their story (23:9-12). John affirms that Mary Magdalene ran back to tell Peter and “the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved” (20:2).
Mark’s story, however, is sharply different: he says “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” (v. 8).
And that is the end of Mark’s gospel, in the earliest form that we have it. Verses 9-20 were a later addition, as were another, shorter ending found in some manuscripts. (See The Hardest Question online for more).
An unfinished story
The ending of Mark’s gospel leaves the reader hanging. Some scholars believe he intended it that way, while others argue that Mark would have continued the story, but the original ending has been lost. However Mark’s gospel ends, the other gospels affirm that the women got over their fear and did not remain quiet, or even afraid. They did in fact tell the good news and in so doing they became the first preachers, the first evangelists, the first to proclaim the gospel story of the risen lord.
Well-meaning scribes in the second or third century could not bear the unfinished nature of Mark’s gospel, and so they added various endings to it, but it may be that the most effective telling of the Easter story is one that has no ending, one that is unfinished.
Mark draws us a haunting picture of someone who is first confronted with the truth that the teacher they follow is not a dead martyr, but a living Lord. The women came looking for Jesus, only to find that he was already out in Galilee, looking for them. They came expecting to find a dead master but discovered that Jesus would not remain just a sweet memory.
The shock of finding Jesus gone and hearing that “he has been raised” was scary news. For a time, the women were stupefied. There was no way they could calmly explain it. The only thing they could do was run screaming into the early dawn with hearts pounding and minds uncertain. What do you do with a crucified lord who lives?
Maybe, then, maybe Mark’s gospel provides the most realistic story of all, and the one we most need to hear. We may desire to hold on to Easter as the bedrock of our faith, but Mark’s gospel won’t fill us with certainty and assurance. If we show up on Easter to get a booster shot of orderly and systematic religion, we won’t find it in Mark.
What Jesus offers on Easter is not calm assurance but dumbfounded wonder, not warm comfort but a chilling challenge, not sleepy-headed certainty but an open-ended future.
That, in fact, is the whole point of the story. The tomb is empty. Christ has been raised. As long as there are people to hear the gospel story, the story remains unfinished. In a way, those later scribes who added their own endings to Mark’s gospel were doing precisely what we are called to do. We have to finish the story. We have to go forward into whatever Galilee lies before us and trust that Jesus will meet us there, will walk with us there, will lead us there.
If we are honest, we must acknowledge that it’s more than a little frightening to imagine a life that is always open to the future, serving a lord who will neither stay dead nor within the boxes we create for him.
What are we supposed to do with such a story as this? That’s a question each person has to answer. As we confront the reality of the risen Christ, we have to write our own Easter story. It’s time we started.
Adult Teaching Resources
Download the PDF of teaching resources for this lesson.
This PDF contains the Teaching Guide, Digging Deeper, and Hardest Question pages.
Read Scripture online: Mark 16:1-8
Youth Teaching Resources
Parent Prep
Our students are continually writing their own story. The supporting actors may come and go, the scenes may change, and there may be twists and turns along the way, but their stories are continually being written by them. It is their story. You are not the author of this story or are you the main character. So many parents try and insert themselves into the stories of their students to take on a main role, and just like when you are reading a story and can tell when the author is pushing a character on you, your students’ story is the same way. Allow your student to write their own story. Be a player in their story, but don’t be the main character. Offer grammatical edits when the story is out of whack, but allow them to continue to write it. If you push yourself on them, they will write you out of their story.
Additional Links/Resources
Read Scripture online: Mark 16:1-8
Download the PDF for youth teaching resources using the button below. This PDF contains the Teaching Guide for this lesson:
Video
Encourage youth to check out this video ahead of the lesson.
“Opening Scene” from The Princess Bride
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