Here we are. Here we are. Easter Sunday!
You know, I’ve been thinking about something this past week.
I’ve been thinking about endings.
How a good ending can really wrap things up in a nice pretty little box, you know. Whether it be a film or a book, we like nice endings, ones that make sense, endings that bring about resolution to the story, it feels complete…any version of “and they all lived happily ever after.” Right? Or, any version of the bad guy lost, the good guy won…and all is right in the world.
Turn the TV off, put the book back on the shelf, and move on…
And it got me thinking…you know…I think that’s what we all want on Easter Sunday. A nice ending. I mean why wouldn’t we!?! All of us, in one way or another, have made our way through Lent – gave up chocolate, or gave up social media, or gave up cussing, or high fructose corn syrup, or we took on something – a devotional practice, or journaling, or exercising, or whatever…Now…it’s over and we can all go back to being chocolate frenzied, carb guzzling, foul-mouthed, tech-addicted, gym lackeys, and everything will be absolutely fine and we’ll have no problems at all. Right? (Probably not)
Also…also…we’ve just gone through Holy Week. We entered the Passion Narrative, witnessed the betrayal, the suffering, the crucifixion of Jesus…BUT today…today…we celebrate the resurrection. AND if the resurrection isn’t a resolution, if it isn’t a nice-clean ending…then what is it?? But…did you notice? Did anyone pick up on it?
Did you hear the ending of the gospel of Mark? Look down at your bulletin if you need to…Read the last THREE WORDS….
“…they Were AFRAID…”
That’s how it ends! Not just a piece of it…NO! That’s how the whole gospel ends…The earliest gospel, mind you, the one that all the other gospels looked to and borrowed from…That’s how it ends! Now some time in the second century some guys tacked on another 10 verses to the end to sure things up with Matthew and Luke’s accounts…but the original, earliest recorded gospel ends with no clear resolution, no closure, no Jesus – he’s just out there somewhere…just disciples fleeing “for terror and amazement had seized them…and they said nothing to anyone…and they were afraid.”
HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE! What a strange ending. What is going on? Where’s the preacher’s word in that? The stone may have been rolled away, but now I got to squeeze blood from it. That’s what I was thinking this week….Then, you know, something clicked. And I remembered another ending…from a story and film…that reminds me of Mark’s ending here.
I love Cormac McCarthy books…I haven’t read all of them, but I’ve read a lot of them. One of them, adapted into one of my favorite movies - No Country for Old Men. (By a show of hands, who’s seen or read No Country for Old Men.) So, I decided I just had watch it again this week – in preparation for Easter – I don’t know…it made sense to me.
I’m not going to attempt to summarize it here…but just in case you’re not familiar – I want to introduce you to the character of Sheriff Ed Tom Bell…a Texas lawman on the verge of retirement, both his father and grandfather were keepers of the peace. But he has anything but peace himself…he’s restless, feels overwhelmed and not up to the task of confronting the increasing forces of darkness in the world. By the end of the story, the last scene, we see a recently retired Ed Tom Bell sitting across the breakfast table with his wife. She asks how he slept. He tells her he dreamed. “Anything interesting?” she replies…And here, Ed Tom describes a dream about his father, which are the very last words of the story.
… it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin through the mountains of a night. Goin through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin. Never said nothin. He just rode on past and he had this blanket wrapped around him and he had his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. About the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up.
No closure (in the way we typically desire) No resolution (in the way we typically want)
That’s the end. But…not really, right? Because…all that ending really does, is make us go back into the story from the beginning, to understand it in-light of this dream about his father. I mean, there is real, sinister, darkness prowling the stage of this man’s world…but he dreamed his father rode on ahead, carrying fire, and is waiting for him. And, I think, you can go back through that story and see sparks of fire in the surrounding dark…
Which tells us something…it tells us, the end of the text…is not always the end of the story.
And that’s what’s going on in this ending of Mark’s gospel…the text ends, but not the story. It doesn’t leave us hanging on the edge of a cliff so much as standing at the entrance of a mountain pass.
It also does something else…I think it reveals something on the nature of resurrection. Which, let’s just say…is not an easy word…I mean even half-way through the gospel of Mark some of the disciples are coming down the mountain with Jesus and it says, “And they held fast to his word, but discussed among themselves… ‘What is the meaning of resurrection??” And by the end of Mark’s story, it doesn’t seem any clearer to them…full of questions, terror, and amazement…left with no Jesus…and just an invitation to go follow him.
I don’t know about you…but Mark’s ending…resonates more with my life.
I mean…sure the other gospel’s endings are nice, with a post-resurrection Jesus walking through walls, and talking to his friends, revealing himself on roads in and out of Emmaus, and cookin’ them breakfast on the shore-line…But Mark’s ending – that’s the one I know more – that’s more like my life…
…the silence of God, the absence of what I think might convince me to have faith, unanswered questions, a restless combination of fear and amazement, and just this invitation to follow…
An invitation to follow…especially when we’ve reached the end of a text in our lives….something that’s been typed out in dark, bold, foreboding letters…and we’re convinced…we’re just utterly convinced, that the end of the text must mean the end of our story. But, it’s not…. …..it’s not….
In those moments, the gospel of Mark reminds us…resurrection isn’t just a proclamation….it’s an invitation…to keep following…even if it’s into some hard country…
Mark reminds us, the resurrected life – in which we’re called to live and love like Jesus,
…well it’s no country for old men.
“He’s gone ahead,” – the gospel says, “he’s there…waiting for you.”
Almost like someone rode ahead of us through some mountain pass in the night…carrying a light…and maybe…there’s something inside us that’s trying to tell us he’s out there, making a fire in all that dark and cold…and whenever we get there…he’ll be there too.
Amen.