Easter thoughts

‘They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid’: so ended the Gospel reading on Sunday. Was that the original ending to Mark’s Gospel?  The presence of verses 9 to 20 in the Received Text (as translated in the Authorised Version) shows that is was felt to be inadequate. Many commentators assume that Mark had originally included some mention of the appearance of the Risen Christ.

Yet there is something really powerful in the final verse as we have it in the best texts, even if it is not the best literary Greek. It highlights the awesome nature of the women’s experience and makes it clear that nobody was expecting to find an empty tomb.  The Resurrection of Jesus was not some kind of projected wishful thinking; the women were overwhelmed and unsure of the significance of what they discovered.

It is easy for us to trivialise the Easter event. We know it happened, and we can fall into the habit of treating it as the obvious outcome. Jesus was the Son of God; of course he rose from the dead. But there is no ‘of course’. Jesus died, and the natural outcome of death is the end of activity, the decay of the body. But the tomb in which Jesus was laid was empty, and soon the women and the disciples would experience the unthinkable – not a resuscitated Jesus, but a triumphant and transformed Jesus, who still bore the wounds of his suffering and yet transcended the limitations of physical nature.

Easter does not wipe out the negativity and darkness of the Cross – he is still wounded and scarred. But despite that – perhaps because if that – he has overcome; resurrection has happened and the new order of God’s kingdom is already breaking into this world and enabling us to have a new experience of the love and glory of God.

Of course the women were afraid and disconcerted. So would we have been – and so should we be, if we really grasp the message and the meaning. Failure and death do not have the last word; the powers that be, with their attempts to impose their power and domination, do not have the last word.  Indeed there is no ‘last word’, only the Word of God who suffers defeat and depowers the powers. Christ is risen, and so there is hope. 

I like these words of Melito of Sardis (from the Catholic Office of Readings for Easter Monday):

Though Lord, he became man; he suffered for those who were suffering, he was bound for the captive, judged for the condemned, buried for the one who was buried; he rose from the dead and cried out: ‘Who shall contend with me?... I have freed the condemned, brought the dead to life, raised up the buried.’

The resurrection declares that there is hope for those who are broken and overwhelmed; there is light for those who are in the valley of darkness. The challenge we face is whether we will be bold to share this hope and light, or whether, like the women, we will fail to tell anyone through fear.