Isaiah 25: 6-9 Psalm 118: 1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15: 1-11 Mark 16: 1-8
How many of you would know what I’m talking about if I asked you this question: Who shot J.R.? In one of the most famous cliffhangers of all time, the second season of the television show “Dallas” ended with the despicable villan/ oil baron/ womanizer/and all around nasty guy, J.R. Ewing, being shot. But whether he lived or died, and who pulled the trigger hung over us for the entire summer of 1980, back in the days when a season of a TV show actually lasted for about the same amount of time as the school year. For months, we speculated….was it his wife, Sue Ellen? Was it his brother Bobby? Was it his mistress? Was it one of the many business partners he had cheated? And the media picked up on it too. There were bumper stickers and T-shirts either asking the question “Who Shot J.R.?” or claiming to answer it: “I shot J.R.” or “A Democrat shot J.R.” This now famous episode of Dallas was the first to introduce the idea of a cliffhanger as the ending to a season of a television show.
What makes a cliffhanger, well, a cliff hanger, is that it leaves us wanting to know more. Tell us who. Explain why. Say what happened. And this is also what we have in the account of the resurrection story from Mark’s Gospel today.
Mark’s account of the resurrection is the oldest one we have. And in it we experience the story through three women, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome. They had gone to buy spices to anoint Jesus’ body, after all when they arrived in Jerusalem they had not known that it was going to end like this. They did not bring spices with them for embalming and anointing a body. They had come for Passover. They had come to be with Jesus and to share with him in his ministry. He was their teacher. He was their friend. And yet, we know that they were there on that terrible day; they watched Jesus die.
So, with spices purchased they go to the tomb wondering….who will roll the stone away for us from the tomb. Mark notes that it was a very large stone. Mark wants us to know this. He writes it earlier, when he describes the way Joseph of Arimathea places the body of Jesus in the tomb and seals the it with a very large stone. And it is mentioned here again, in this account of the women.
How often do we, too, wonder about very large obstacles in our own lives, about very large stones if you will? How often do we think that it is not even worth trying because the stone is just….so….large. How often do we give up before we have even gotten started?
And yet, they moved ahead, these three women. Not knowing what they would do about the stone, only that something would have to be done in order for them to anoint Jesus’ body. And arriving at the tomb they find that the stone has already been removed. But they don’t have the time to dwell on that because there is a young man, or perhaps an angel, depending on who is telling the story, there in the tomb, telling them that Jesus, their friend and teacher, the one they saw die on the cross, is alive and has gone on ahead of them to Galilee. He has been raised! He’s not here! Go tell Peter and the other disciples that he’ll meet you in Galilee!
Remember, these women had no idea what was happening. They had not read any resurrection accounts. They had simply come to anoint a body that they were sure would be there. They didn’t ask one another “What will we do if his body isn’t there?” They only wondered who would roll away the very large stone. So, of course, as Mark notes, of course, they fled from the tomb, seized by terror and amazement. Who wouldn’t leave there as fast as their feet would carry them?
And, then, we get what is perhaps the very first cliffhanger. “And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
And we are left wanting more. Wait! Where is the body? Is he dead or alive? Who’s the guy in the tomb? Do the women go to Galilee? Who rolled away the stone?
The most ancient of authorities conclude the entire Gospel of Mark with this cliffhanging verse. “so 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.” End of story.
It is worth noting, in case you go home and get out your Bibles this very afternoon, and check out Mark’s Gospel, that there are two other alternate endings offered. The first is called a shorter ending, because it is, well shorter.
The other ending is longer, and was certainly added later. It offers a much more satisfactory ending to the story.
After all, who among us wants an Easter story to end with a cliffhanger? Who among us wants the story to end with loving followers of Christ, witnesses to his death, and the first to hear of his resurrection running away in fear and not telling anyone?
But perhaps this is just the ending we need to hear. Because this ending, this response of these women, is so very close to our own response to an encounter with news that Jesus lives.
We live in a time in history when people are more well educated than perhaps ever before. We have managed to cure many diseases, travel to space, and explain a great many things that up until now had remained a mystery. But there is, simply put, no logical or intellectual way to explain to you how it is that Jesus died and rose again. And so we have a great tendency not to say anything to anyone about it.
Oh, I am certainly able to tell you about the political environment that led to the crucifixion of Christ. Of how Jesus infused hope of liberation and freedom to an oppressed population, which threatened the occupying power and its priestly collaborators.
And I am able to tell you, medically, how it was that he died. I can explain, at least with some accuracy, how one dies of asphyxiation when one hangs on a cross and is eventually unable to draw breath into ones own lungs.
And I am able to offer and debate many different atonement theories…in other word, exactly how did Jesus’ death atone for our sins?
But I suspect that this is not what draws you into church today. Assuming that you have come for some reason other than you wanted to please your mama or you heard about the secret recipe of our pancakes….I suspect that we have all come here today because we want to know why this matters. Why does it matter to us, in the 21st century, that the stone…the large stone…was rolled away? And what difference does it make in our lives, that Jesus died and was raised from the dead?
The women there on that first Easter, although they were filled with terror and amazement, eventually did tell someone that Jesus had risen, because the story has lived for many centuries. Eventually they must have overcome their mute fear and shared this story, that Christ, although they knew he was dead….they had seen it with their own eyes….now was alive.
And the story matters to us because it Is the very basis for our faith. It is what sets us apart from other faith traditions who also acknowledge the life of Jesus of Nazareth as significant and call him prophet and teacher. We believe that because Jesus died and rose on the third day, we have been set free from all that holds us captive. We no longer have to wonder about whether our own lives will be cliffhangers. They are not. We have been claimed, redeemed, and bought with the price of the very life of Jesus. And because he lives, we know that we will also live, joyfully and faithfully in this life….and in the life to come.
Sisters and brothers, this is news that is too good to keep to ourselves. The women there that morning, couldn’t do it…despite their terror! And neither can we.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Thanks be to God! Amen!
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