The RSVP is Ours

EASTER SUNDAY

Mark’s Gospel is its own epistemology

…it is a way of coming to know

And that way is by story

 

The lectionary gives us Mark 16:1-7 
as our Gospel text this Easter
…verse 7:

But go and tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going before you to Galilee, there you will see him, as he told you.’

But it is the next line that most scholars believe to be the real ending of Mark:

Then they went out and fled from the tomb, seized with trembling and bewilderment.  They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

It makes us uncomfortable

We like nice, neat, clean and wrapped up endings*

Not so for Mark

If we had the sensibility,

the eyes and ears and imagination,

of a first century storytelling audience,

we would not be uncomfortable. 

We would have heard this Gospel told in one sitting. 

Mark’s storytelling techniques

would have been inviting us into the story

from the beginning,

asking us to identify with characters,

and conflicts,

and places. 

The story has been an invitation from the get go, 

building and building in intensity

culminating in 9:8...

Decision time!  

Will we stay in fear like the disciples and then the women?  Will we remember those experiences of real freedom that Jesus offered? 

No sugar-coating the truth…it will be utterly demanding.

But come.

You are invited.

The teller was herself/himself

evidence that those first witnesses

made their way back to Galilee

where they encountered the risen Lord and

experienced what ‘new life in Christ’ would mean

When we ‘clean up’ the ending

When we give in to the urge to make it all neat and tidy

The RSVP to Mark’s invitation is drained of its urgency

the demand for an RSVP is pushed aside

But it is ours to make

Everyday…the RSVP is ours to make

*which is why the tradition couldn’t help itself, adding 16:9-20…earliest manuscript evidence supports the original ending at Mark 16:8