Sermonette: The story isn't over yet; it's just beginning

This messenger tells the women, “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” (Mark 16:6). Then he gives them an order. “Go,” he says. “Tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you” (Mark 16:7).

If Mark wanted to shock his readers with an abrupt ending, the story could have stopped right here, at the announcement of the resurrection. Yet, Mark gives us one more verse. He tells us that the women are terrified, and they run away, telling no one anything of what they have just seen. And that’s the end of the story, according to Mark.

Or is it? Maybe Mark is telling us this story isn’t over yet. The title he gave the whole book, after all, is “the beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” (1:1)

Two ideas thread through Mark’s gospel: (1) those who are closest to Jesus often don’t grasp that he is the Son of God, and (2) those who do understand who Jesus is aren’t reliable witnesses (demons, a Roman centurion and so on).

We might expect the disciples to miss the point of the resurrection. But who are the unreliable witnesses who do get it and who do share the story that Jesus is alive? Well, that would be you and me, the least reliable witnesses of all. It’s our place to tell the rest of the story, because that story doesn’t end at the empty tomb. It’s just getting started.

What do you get when death is dead? Life. Friends, this is why Christ died for you, so that you could experience the kind of life that puts anxiety and fear to rest. It’s the life that begins now, and never dies. Eternal life. Abundant life. Life in Christ.