Now What? (Sermon for Easter Sunrise)

Mark 16:1-8

Of course, it would be the women who would be at the tomb, those faithful followers of Jesus who were often overlooked in the Gospels, but played key, behind the scenes roles in providing hospitality for Jesus and his followers.  After Jesus was arrested, the guys flaked out – Judas had already betrayed him, Peter denied knowing him – three times! – and almost everyone else ran for the hills – though John’s gospel says that the disciple whom Jesus loved, identified with John himself, had been with the mother of Jesus at the cross.  But it was the women who, at the crucifixion, stood off at a distance, watching.  And it was the women who were coming on the first day of the week, after that awful Friday, to anoint the body of Jesus, which had hurriedly been prepared for burial, wrapped in a cloth, and laid in the tomb by Joseph of Arimathea after being taken down at the cross.  We’re given three names – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome.  They wanted to do what they could to provide care for the remains of the teacher who had meant so much to them.

They were going to anoint the body, but they knew that between them and the body was a large rock sealing the tomb.  Joseph of Arimathea had rolled it in front of the tomb.  Their immediate concern was simple:  could three women roll a huge stone away from the tomb?  Beyond that, they had larger concerns, which could be summed up in two words:  “Now what?”  Following and providing for Jesus and his followers had been such a large part in their lives.  Now he was gone.  Now what?  At least in the back of their minds, they had to be asking themselves, “Where do we go from here?”

So they arrive at the tomb.  And they receive their first surprise of the morning – the stone has been rolled away.  What to do about that stone had been their immediate worry, and I’m sure they were grateful for its removal.  But mixed with the relief had to be some anxiety:  what would they find inside?  Might animals have come into the cave and feasted on the remains?  Had somebody stolen the body?

So, with some trepidation, they peer into the tomb, then walk in.  Thank goodness, they found no animals had entered the tomb.  On the other hand, they didn’t find Jesus’ body either.  They did find a young man in a white robe, who told them, “Don’t be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has been raised; he is not here.  Look, here is the place where they laid him.  But go, tell his disciples that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”  Basically the women freaked out, and ran out of the tomb, and out of fear they said nothing to anyone.

In that moment, the moment of the freaked-out women running out of the tomb, Mark’s gospel ends.  True, many Bibles have some other verses following this, but these are thought to have been added onto the original text by later writers who basically didn’t like where Mark ended the story.  Unlike the other Gospels, Mark doesn’t tell us about any appearance of the Risen Christ.   The original text of Mark’s gospel, with its description of freaked-out women running in terror and silence, leaves us with the obvious question, which later writers tried to resolve with their added endings:  Now what? where do we go from here?  Where do we go from here?

That’s exactly the question Mark leaves us, the very question Mark wants us to ask – now what?  Where do we go from here?  While the women may have asked this question on the way to the tomb, their question actually just got a lot harder to answer.  Had they found the lifeless body of Jesus, the steps ahead could be predicted:  they would have cried, they would have anointed the body, they’d have cried some more, they’d likely have shared stories – “Remember when Jesus said…..”  “Remember when Jesus did…..”  They’d have mourned.  They’d have grieved.  But eventually, they’d have gotten on with their lives, gone back to what their lives had been before a tornado named Jesus of Nazareth swept into their lives and swept them off their feet.

They didn’t find a dead Jesus, but a Risen Christ – a Risen Christ who has left the tomb – a Risen Christ who’s on the loose, who’s still at large, as the police would put it.  The young man in the white robe had told the women to tell the guys to look for Jesus in Galilee – but when they find Jesus, what will they find?  Will Jesus be angry with his disciples for abandoning him.  It’s striking  that Jesus said, “Go tell my disciples and Peter….”  Peter gets an odd shout out of sorts….was it because Peter had always been part of the inner circle of the disciples, the “rock” on which Jesus would build his church?  Or because Peter denied Jesus three times, and needed reassurance that Jesus still wanted to see him? 

Mark doesn’t give us an account of Jesus’ appearance to the disciples, but the other Gospels tell us that the resurrected Jesus was – different somehow – from their memories of Jesus of Nazareth.  John’s gospel tells us that Mary didn’t recognize Jesus, but thought he was the gardener – it wasn’t until Jesus spoke Mary’s name that Mary recognized who was speaking to her.  Luke’s gospel tell us that two disciples on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognize Jesus, even though he’d walked with them for several miles; it was only when they sat down and Jesus  broke the bread that they recognized him.   John also tells us about an encounter Jesus had with the Risen Christ while they were fishing, and it took some time to recognize him.  Matthew tells us that on the Mount of Ascension, as Jesus was about to leave them, there was doubt among the disciples.    So Jesus was back, back from the dead, and yet Jesus was somehow different from their memories of him.

Like the women at the tomb, like the disciples who received the message to go to Galilee, Jesus goes ahead of us, and calls us to meet him there.  Like the disciples, we don’t know what to expect when we get there.  We may find it hard to discern where Jesus is – where Jesus is acting in our lives, where Jesus is acting in our congregations, where Jesus is acting in our communities of Bridesburg and Port Richmond, where Jesus is acting in our country and our world.  Even when Jesus is in action, like the disciples, we may find it hard to recognize Jesus at work.   We in the church cherish our traditions, cherish those places where Jesus has met us in the past.  We give thanks for those holy places and holy moments.  But we cannot stay there, any more than Jesus wanted the women to remain at the empty tomb – as the old hymn says, “I’d stay in the garden with him, though the night around me be falling,  But he bids me go….”  But he bids me go .  I visited the Holy Land in February 2015 – Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem – and in Jerusalem I saw the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built over what are supposed to be the place where Jesus was crucified and laid in the tomb.  I was among many pilgrims who touched and pressed part of my body against a slab where the body of Jesus was said to have been laid out after being taken down from the cross, who crawled into a crawl space under the altar to the place where the cross of Christ was set up.   It was the trip of a lifetime, with holy places and many moments I’ll never forget.  A few of my photos are in the bulletin insert.  But this church is also called, among the local people, “The Resurrection Church” – because Jesus’ body is no longer there.  I was there in early February 2015 and I can attest – no dead body of Jesus there.  Indeed, if I want to experience Christ, see Christ at work, I don’t have to go to the Holy Land.  We sang, “I come to the garden alone…..”, remembering Mary’s encounter with Jesus in the garden….but if I want to meet Jesus, I don’t have to travel to the Garden of Gethsemane.  Plenty of holy work, plenty of God’s work is happening right here in the ‘Burg and in Port Richmond, and maybe someday someone will have such a powerful experience of God right here that they’ll write a song, “I came into Bridesburg alone, where the dew was still on the green grass.”    The Holy Land is where Jesus taught and healed and ministered two thousand years ago.  The Holy Land is where Jesus was.  But Bridesburg and Port Richmond are where Jesus is now, where Jesus is going ahead of us, where Jesus wishes to meet us.  For us, if we know where to look and how to look, Bridesburg and Port Richmond can be holy ground – because Jesus is here.

Where do we go from here?  The women came to the tomb expecting to mourn a tragic death, and ended up being frightened half out of their wits by words about new life.  That’s how it is for us sometimes.  We find ourselves in what seems to be a hopeless situation – a family member stuck in an addiction, a marriage that’s failing or a family relationship that’s strained or broken, an inability to hold a job.  And after being beaten down enough times, we come to figure that “that’s just the way life is.”  And we go through the stages of grief – denial, bargaining, anger, depression…..and maybe reach acceptance.  But what if acceptance of hopelessness isn’t where we’re meant to end up?  What if God is still in the resurrection business?  What if, on the other side of the Good Fridays in our lives, God has an Easter sunrise planned?  Will we have eyes to see?  And how will we respond? – especially if our family member, or we ourselves, begin making constructive changes in their lives?  Will we be ready to deal with the new and improved version of our family member, or of us? How will we respond to resurrection?

Alleluia, the Lord has risen; he has risen indeed, Alleluia!  The Risen Christ goes ahead of us, inviting us to meet him where he is at work.  May we have eyes to see the Risen Christ at work, ears to hear his call, feet to meet him there, and hands to love and serve those to whom God calls us to minister.  Amen.