What can be said this Easter in the face of our collective suffering? What is the good news in the midst of mounting deaths across the globe? This is the tension we’ve anticipated over the last couple weeks. Even if we’ve not voiced it, our souls cry out, “Can we wait to celebrate Easter? What if we allow ourselves to linger in the darkness that we’ve been thrown into? It just doesn’t feel like Easter.” These days, there are more questions than answers. More uncertainty. More suffering. More death.
Living in the tension is really hard as we all come face to face with death in so many forms.
Confession. I went-off on a loved one this week for digging up my strawberry plants. Yep. Strawberry plants. While this seems absolutely silly in hindsight, it hit me that I couldn’t handle more death...even of something as ordinary and insignificant as a plant. We are living in a world that is coming face-to-face with death - and for so many people - on a daily basis. It doesn’t take much to trigger our grief.
We feel that grief deep in our being as we observe Holy Week. We will never be the same. On Good Friday we remember that Jesus died. What everyone hoped for - a Messiah to deliver the people from bondage, sin, and death - was put to death. Rosemary Haughton in The Passionate God, says, “The deepest poverty is the lack of God, and only a poor God could be vulnerable enough to share that, a God who had ‘emptied himself’ and became ‘obedient even to death’, as the poor have to be, who die young at the will of others.”
The global pandemic demands that we all honestly face our deepest poverty, most profoundly experienced in our false selves that are masters at constantly attempting to self-signify, self-validate (see Richard Rohr’s daily meditation from Tuesday, April 7th), and save ourselves.
This Easter, what does it look like for God to save us?
Here we are. We have come to the end of the Gospel of Mark. It’s the end of the beginning of the gospel - the already, but not yet. And while we live in the “not yet” a lot these days, we also know that the end of the passion narrative reveals death and darkness do not have the final word. Systems of power (yes, even the Church) are turned upside down with the resurrection of Jesus. That’s pretty evident these days! It’s also just the beginning, because life in Christ is generative. God is always saving us all...from ourselves.
This is good news: the gospel - the good news - never ends. Every bit of who we are is being redeemed through the long day’s journey into night. Christ is with us! In our grief, in our suffering, Easter comes.
Let’s consider how the resurrection narrative might speak good news to us this Easter.
For a couple of reasons, let’s sit with the shorter ending of Mark’s Gospel (16.1-8). First, it’s not clear if the longer version is really authenticated as it echoes much of Matthew (which was written later and became widely popular) and patched together with pieces from Luke and other sources. More so, it gives us the opportunity to sit in the tension of the unknown, which requires faith. As Hebrews 11.1 reminds us, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Taking your time, read Mark 16.1-8. Now, re-read it. What do you notice in this familiar story?
Unpacking the text a bit, we consider the Jewish sabbath, which ends Saturday, patterning life and preparing the people of God for the week ahead. While the women would have observed the sacred festival by abstaining from work, they were prepared. Consider this: they have prepared for the moment ahead, doing all they know to do. Having bought spices to anoint Jesus’ body, there’s no doubt in their mind that Jesus died. And on the first day of the week - Sunday - the women head to the tomb. They are ready. Even in their readiness, they go in faith, asking one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” As a quick note, Mark’s gospel account is the only one to mention this conversation among the women. Also, it was typical for small grave stones to require on the order of twenty men to roll such stones away. Even a full Roman guard of sixteen would not have sufficed. This was a major task for which the women seemed underprepared. Or were they?
This is an all too familiar scenario. Time and time again, we walk by faith and witness others doing the same - one moment, one day at a time. Living in poverty - of any kind - and in the midst of profound suffering, we realize the truth that we are not in control and have no choice but to rely on God’s provision for our very lives. Sure, we do our part, but we live in complete reliance on the Spirit to provide every need. The same is true for these women, who in faith, head to the tomb. They don’t even seem taken aback that the stone had been rolled away! When we walk by faith, such miracles are expected. Entering the tomb and encountering the angel of the Lord sitting in a place of authority (on the right side), they were alarmed as they heard the words, “He has been raised; he is not here.”
Receiving this oral proclamation of the triumph over death, they are invited to believe the good news even before seeing the risen One.
The women are then charged to go tell the disciples that Jesus is going ahead of them to Galilee, perhaps signaling a new beginning for those who had denied Jesus. Could it be true? Is Jesus alive? Is Christ really with us? Fleeing from the tomb they become a bit paralyzed by what they experienced and they remain silent. Maybe because they had no words to describe what they’d seen and heard. Maybe they didn’t think anyone would believe them (culturally, the testimony of women was already considered weak). Whatever the case, all that had been commanded of them to proclaim does get told. I can only imagine that their facial expressions and bodies conveyed a clear message to those they encountered!
There was no hiding the good news. Jesus himself sent out the proclamation of eternal salvation. The end of verse eight (the stopping point for the shorter ending of Mark’s narrative) leaves much to wonder about. But we can see where the story is headed.
Ready or not, Easter is here.
The good news cannot be contained. Death does not have the final word. The most horrible thing we can imagine - death - stares us in the face. And as we walk by faith - even with terror and amazement - we realize there is no life without death and no death without life.
We can both linger in the darkness and celebrate Easter!
The tension has always been there as we live the already, but not yet that is the Kingdom of God. We just experience it more profoundly these days. The good news is that when we come to the end, we find the beginning. Christ saves us from ourselves, claiming us as God’s beloved.
Hear the invitation to believe. Will you choose to walk by faith today, and every day, toward the assurance of things hoped for, in the conviction of things not seen?
Through us, Christ is present in this world which desperately longs to be pulled out of the deepest of poverty. Through us, Jesus proclaims salvation - the good news - to all creation.
Now go ahead and read Mark 16.9-20 (or come back to it later this week). What do you hear Jesus saying to you?
We belong to the family of God. Our lives - and dare I say, even our deaths - tell a story that is true for all, not just some: The One who became obedient, even to the point of death, is with us. The good news never ends.
Christ is risen!
(by Melissa Millis)