New Life Begins in the Dark
When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But 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. But 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.” 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. ~Mark 16:1–8 NRSV
For weeks now I’ve been trying to wrap my head around Easter 2020. With no church pancake breakfast or egg hunt, no bowties or gigantic bonnets, no people in the pews, I’ve been asking myself, “What does Easter look like this year?”
We certainly won’t forget this one, will we? You watching from home. Us in an empty sanctuary on what should be our largest Sunday of the year. I know that the “church” is people, not a building and that Jesus didn’t need any fanfare in order to rise that Sunday morning, but this is still a different kind of Easter for us, isn’t it? We’ll likely never forget it.
Most years my go-to scripture on Easter Sunday is John’s version of resurrection story. That one’s my favorite. That version has Mary Magdalene weeping outside of the tomb and mistaking Jesus for a gardener until he reveals himself. When Mary realizes that Jesus is alive, she runs toward him, but he tells her not to touch him. He knows that, if she does, she won’t ever want to let go, and he’s got important work for her to do. Jesus commissions Mary as first apostle when he instructs her to go tell the disciples that he’s alive.
But this winter and spring we’ve been reading Mark’s gospel, not John’s, and it turns out that Mark’s resurrection story is quite fitting for Easter 2020.
Mark’s telling of the story is only eight verses long. In it, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and a woman named Salome travel to Jesus’ tomb at dawn so that they can anoint his body with spices in order to prepare it for burial. On their way, the women wonder aloud how they’ll roll away the heavy stone in front of tomb. Then they look up and discover that the stone has somehow already been rolled away.
When the women step into the tomb, much to their surprise, they don’t find Jesus’ lifeless body. Instead, they encounter a mysterious seemingly alive man dressed all in white. Naturally, they’re surprised and alarmed. When the man speaks to the women, he begins by saying what angels always say to humans when they make appearances in the Bible, “Do not be afraid.” As though be told not to be afraid has ever made anyone less afraid. This angel goes on to tell the women that they came looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He says of Jesus, “He is gone. He has risen. See the place where his body was laid.” The angel then instructs the women to go tell the disciples that Jesus will meet them in Galilee just as he told them he would.
Startled, the women back out of tomb. Then they run away. But they don’t run to the disciples, nor do they deliver the message that the man instructed them to share. Instead, Mark tells us that the very same women, the only people who had the courage to stay with Jesus as he died, now flee and tell no one about the resurrection because they are “terrified & astonished”. So the gospel that opens with the proclamation, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God” closes with fear and silence.
In Mark, the resurrection story is unfinished. There’s no excitement or joy, no assurance that the disciples are ever going to hear the good news that their beloved Jesus is alive. Jesus doesn’t even make an appearance. There’s no closure, nothing close to a grand finale. It seems that the desire for happy endings isn’t unique for us today. Twice scribes and interpreters have tacked on additional endings to Mark’s Gospel in effort to try and tie up the loose ends.
This year I’m finding myself really connecting with Mark’s unpolished resurrection story. It seems pretty true to real life, doesn’t it? People are scattered and afraid. Holed up inside because there is risk in going outside. Plenty of questions are left unanswered, and no one really knows what comes next. There are holes that can only be filled with faith.
Mark’s resurrection story may not be perfectly packaged with a nice little literary bow, but it still gives us reason to hope. You see, the tomb is empty, and the women have heard the message. Everything that Jesus told disciples would happen (his suffering and death; Judas’ betrayal; Peter’s denials; their abandonment of their rabbi) all of it did happen, so we have every reason to hope that Jesus does meet his friends in Galilee just as he told them he would.
So here we are walking in faith in an unfinished story. Clinging to hope even as world is dark and scary. Trusting that the worst thing is never the last thing. It’s Easter.
In her phenomenal book Learning to Walk in the Dark, Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us that the darkness is precisely where new life takes root. She writes, “Resurrection is always announced with Easter lilies, the sound of trumpeters, bright streaming light. But it did not happen that way. If it happened in a cave [a tomb], it happened in complete silence, in absolute darkness, with the smell of damp stone and dug earth in the air… new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.”
So despite the loose ends & questions that remain unanswered, we trust that resurrection is taking place even now in our present darkness. We’re slowing down. We’re realizing our addiction to productivity. Polluted skies are clearing, and turtles are nesting on beaches again. We’re realizing that professions we’ve taken for granted are necessary for communal well-being. Our churches are running out of money, and, if there’s any chance for them to survive, they have to focus on something richer than programming because people can’t physically be together right now. We’re being confronted with racial and economic disparities in ways we can’t ignore, and we see that these disparities can literally mean difference between life and death. We’re re-discovering the reality that we belong to each other & that we have a responsibility to take care of one another.
It’s Easter. How might we be being reborn? Yes, it feels like much of what we hold dear is in the tomb, but new life begins in the dark. Our story is unfinished. Perhaps something new is beginning. Yes, we’re terrified. But what happens next just might astonish and amaze us.
