From Our Sins and Fears Release Us

From Our Sins and Fears Release Us

Mark 16:1-8

            Mark’s account of the resurrection is the least complete, least fulfilling, and most unsettling of all the gospel writers.  There’s no meeting between Jesus and the women on their return from the tomb.  No beautiful story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene in the garden.  No doubting Thomas.  No journey to Emmaus.

            Mark tells us that the women arrive at the tomb, see that the stone has been rolled away, enter the tomb and find a young man in a white robe.  Although Mark is cautious here, the identification of the robe as white is a sure indication that they are looking at an angel.  If we want further proof, the young man says, “Do not be alarmed,” something angels always say to humans—and rightly so.  Wouldn’t you be alarmed if you entered a room and saw an angel?  I’d wonder what I’d done wrong.

            The young man/angel tells the women to go and tell the disciples that Jesus has risen, and he will meet them in Galilee.  And here’s what’s so unfulfilling and disturbing:  Mark says the women, “went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

            Later—much later—other writers, feeling the incompleteness of Mark’s ending, added twelve verses they had taken from some other source.  These verses make the ending more satisfying, perhaps, but less accurate to Mark’s version of Easter morning. 

            Fear paralyzes.  It makes us do strange things.  We forget what we’re supposed to be doing.  We don’t fulfill our responsibilities.  We tremble.  Our insides churn.  We do nothing.

            Is fear sin?  Perhaps that’s going too far, but fear keeps us from doing what we know is right, what we know we should do—and that’s pretty close to a definition of sin.  Fear may not be sin, but it makes it more possible for us to sin.

            Thomas Troeger captures this in his poem, Crucified Savior.

                                Crucified Savior,

                        when we sing of Calvary

                        we hear a hammer pounding nails,

                        we see a reddened sky,

                        and we shudder to remember

                        your uncompromising words,

                        Take up your cross and follow me.

                        Then with the psalmist we wonder:

                        Where can we flee from your presence?

                        Where can we hide

                        from your demanding spirit,

                        from the strenuous work of love,

                        from the severities of doing justice

                        in a brutal world?

                        Risen Lord,

                        Forgive our betrayal,

                        our running away,

                        our lack of courage,

                        our failure of nerve.

                        infuse us with a passionate faith

                        until we seek no other glory

                        than what lies past Calvary’s hill

                        and our living and our dying

                        and our rising by your will.

                                                                        Amen.

            Mitzi Minor says that Mark left the ending incomplete because it is up to us to finish the story.  We are the ones who must conquer our fears.  We are the ones who must tell others about the risen Christ.  We cannot give in to the sins of not taking up our cross, of not doing justice, of not loving.  For surely these are the sins that keep us from completing the story.  These are the sins that cause us to tremble when we should be boldly following the angel’s instructions.