WHERE DOES IT END?

A Sermon by Bill McDonald from Mark 16:1-20

May 4, 2008

Mark 16

¹When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. ²And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. ³They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” ⁴When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. ⁵As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. ⁶But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; 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. ⁷But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” ⁸So 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.

The Shorter Ending of Mark

[[And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterward Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.]]

The Longer Ending of Mark

⁹[[Now after he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. ¹⁰She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping. ¹¹But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.

¹²After this he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. ¹³And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.

¹⁴Later he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were sitting at the table; and he upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. ¹⁵And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. ¹⁶The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned. ¹⁷And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; ¹⁸they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

¹⁹So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. ²⁰And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.]]

So what were Mark’s last words? Last words are very important because they describe what was going on in the mind of the speaker. For example, here are some famous last words.

“What does this button do?”

“Pull the pin and count to what?”

“No, these are the good kind of mushrooms.”

“Are you sure the power is off?”

“So, you’re a cannibal….”

“I wonder where the mother bear is?”

“Alright, let it down slowly.”

And the most famous of all: “Watch this!”

The last completely accepted words of Mark are in verse 8: “for they were afraid.” But even then we have a problem because the Greek word, ephobounto, literally translates as “They were afraid of….” Mark was cut off in mid-sentence. Why? Did Mark die or fall deathly ill at that moment? Certainly he never came back to finish his gospel. Or are we simply missing a page? Was the original scroll damaged? Or was the ending to Mark’s gospel deliberately destroyed because he was painting the disciples in a bad light as non-believers. Perhaps that didn’t sit well with a church that came to revere the apostles. Something is missing in Mark.

Perhaps this shakes up a little bit those of us who have to have a perfect Bible in order to have a strong faith. Sure, we would like for the Bible to be an inerrant, complete, word-for-word dictation from God. But this gospel alone tells us that that isn’t so. L.L. Pinkerton back in the mid-1800s wrote, “The dear Gospels are mere fragmentary memoirs.” So we see here. Mark ends with the disciples being of afraid of…what? And the early church tried to answer that question by making up a few endings.

But the last ending, found in most “later” ancient manuscripts, strikes a chord of truth. And isn’t that really what the Bible, the Word of God, promises? Not inerrancy but truth. So what truth does this added ending add to our hearts on this Ascension Sunday? “¹⁹So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. ²⁰And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.”

Mark’s revised gospel ends with Jesus at the right hand of God. Whatever else might be true about Jesus, this certainly is. Jesus is a reflection of God, an earthly mirror that enables us to see heavenly glory, a flesh and blood version of what is intangible, divine spirit. You come out of Austin, Texas, on Hwy 183 into the hill country with its scenes of mesquite groves, barbed wire, prickly pear cactus and small towns. At Goldthwaite you pick up Hwy 84 through Brownwood continuing past the dusty ranches and craggy rocks. But just after passing through the tiny town of Santa Anna, the road takes a sharp bend to the right and sweeping out below and in front of you is the vast panorama of West Texas, mountains and mesas scores of miles away but clearly visible, storms raging in complete view down in measureless valleys, miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles, as far as you can see in every direction. You want to pull off on the gravel shoulder and gape. You want to grab your camera but the picture is so massive you don’t even know where to point the lens. It takes your breath as you try in vain to take it in. That expansive vista symbolizes for me the task of trying to see God. God’s brilliance, God’s all-encompassing presence, God’s limitless power make any understanding of God futile for the human mind. But Jesus takes all that glory and focuses it down to human proportions. Jesus makes it possible for us to understand God, to see God. Look at this man from Nazareth; this is what God is like. So, yes, when I look for God, Jesus is what I see. I like this ending.

Secondly, this ending has the disciples going out and proclaiming the good news everywhere. We don’t know what they were afraid of, maybe persecution, maybe afraid of alienating their friends and families, maybe they were afraid of failure, afraid they couldn’t live up to Jesus’ courage and wisdom, but whatever it was, they got past it. Or else no ending would have been written for us and we would not be sitting here today. The later church wrote a new ending because they knew more of the story than Mark did when he was writing this. They had seen firsthand what the once-frightened disciples had accomplished. After his resurrection, Jesus walked the earth for about 40 days in resurrected form with his disciples, training them, teaching them. Then he ascended into heaven, the end of his earthly ministry. Then a few days later the Holy Spirit settled upon the disciples on what we call Pentecost and their frightened nerves were steeled, their silent tongues began to speak and their ministry began. And, the story goes, they proclaimed the good news about Jesus everywhere. That sounds like a great ending. Can we write the same one for our lives?

Thirdly, and I almost overlooked this vital point, “the Lord worked with them!” We may be celebrating Jesus’ ascension into heaven, but Jesus is still working with us! Are you swinging a hammer at the Habitat site? The echo you hear is Jesus—right beside you. Are you taking some soup to a sick neighbor? Jesus holds the door for you. Are you trying to put into words for a troubled friend what your faith means to you? Jesus stands beside you feeding you thoughts and images. Are we responsible for turning this sick planet into God’s kingdom? Yes, as long as you include Jesus in that “we.” The ascension means that Jesus is alive and active with us. It tells us that we are to be alive and active for him.

Finally, the part of this ending that makes us scratch our heads a little. It says that the Lord “confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.” Verses 17 & 18 had spoken of certain signs, but we tend to read quickly past these embarrassing, Pentecostal type signs. “¹⁷And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; ¹⁸they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” Wendy Bagwill was a gospel singer back in the 1970s. He and his band played one evening at a little church deep up some holler in eastern Kentucky. It wasn’t long before the church members drug out some boxes. Wendy’s eyes got big as the worshippers drew huge snakes from the boxes. They handled rattlesnakes and copperheads, passing them around to the faithful. The band was having trouble staying on the song what with watching those snakes. The final straw came when the snakes were placed on the floor to crawl among the flock. Wendy turned to his bass payer and asked, “Whar’s the back door?” The bassman replied, “They ain’t no back door!” And Wendy said, “Reckon where do they want one?”

But maybe these signs aren’t so outrageous after all. “Using my name they will cast out demons.” Are we not called to cast out the demons of war, pestilence and poverty? To rid our cities of disease both in body and soul? Isn’t every peace accord signed a proclaiming of Christ’s kingship? Plenty of demons to work on. “They will speak in new tongues.” And we already do. Innovations in worship are new tongues proclaiming Christ as Lord. The Bible has dozens of translations in English and has been translated into hundreds of languages and dialects. We are using new technologies to speak the timeless message. Christ is confirming the message by accompanying signs. We may not pick up snakes in our hands or drink poison without harm, but we are conquering our other fears, daring to be bold for Christ, unafraid now of peer pressure or insecurity or of condemnation by authorities. And that’s a sign that Christ is with us! And we have laid our hands on the sick not by magic but by medicine and charity as hospitals and clinics have sprung up across our land and throughout the whole world by the efforts of concerned committed Christians. From Nepal a surgeon, a missionary sponsored by our denomination, writes of a boy with deformed legs who crawled for four days to reach his remote hospital. After several surgeries and a long recovery at the hospital, the boy walked home. Every step he took was a sign, a confirmation of the message of love brought to us by a man called Jesus.

So where does it end? Perhaps this last ending to the gospel of Mark was a remembered version of the original, passed down through oral tradition and finally written down and inserted. Where does it end? The truth is…it doesn’t end. By the power of Christ it will never end.