I once wrote an essay for my New Testament tutor at University and when it was returned, it contained one comment, scrawled in red ink:

Is there a page missing in your essay?

Obviously he had decided that my treatment of the subject was rather brief and that I could, perhaps, had done rather more to develop the theme.  Is there a page missing? is a good question to ask St. Mark about the end of his Gospel.  What we heard this morning is the conclusion of St. Mark’s Gospel and it ends rather curiously, not with the Risen Christ appearing to His followers – as Matthew, Luke and John do.  We don’t meet him at all.  What we meet is three rather terrified women who, upon finding the Tomb empty except for a young man in a white robe. (This is one of the biblical descriptions of an angel).  He tells them that Jesus has risen and  invites them to see the place where he had been laid.  He then delivers his message and so becomes the herald of the resurrection.  Instead of joy, however, at this stupendous news that the Resurrection of their beloved Jesus has taken place as he said it would, they fled from the tomb because they were afraid.

What sort of Easter proclamation is this?  Not one, it seems, that satisfied the early Church because by the second century additional endings had been added, which include a number of resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples.  These have nothing to do with Mark who most certainly didn’t write them and good translations of the Bible include them only as a postscript.  We are left then wondering why Mark chose to end his Gospel in this way and also what we are to make of it as an Easter message to the Church. 

On the first point there is a view that there was an extra bit which somehow  got detached from the rest of the manuscript – that there was indeed a page missing but biblical scholars now believe that Mark chose to end where he did because he had no need to go further.  Mark had no need to go further because the Church community to whom he was writing was already living out the Easter faith.  They knew that Jesus had risen from the dead.  What they wanted from Mark was the faith story of our Lord’s ministry, his teaching and particularly the story of His Passion and Death.

When Mark wrote his Gospel – the earliest of the 4 to be written down - the Christian Church had been in existence for a little more than 30 years. Up until then, the stories about Jesus had circulated by word of mouth but as the first believers began to die off the second generation of Christians wanted a definitive written record that could be handed on to the Church to come - of which, of course, we are part of a long line of believers.

The Easter story is well covered by the other 3 Gospel accounts, which have substantial Resurrection appearances of Jesus and our knowledge of the Easter events is based not just on one account but four. We look at all 4 to get the full picture.

Gospel is a singular  word meaning Good News or more specifically as Mark himself announced at the beginning of his account – The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God,  or to give it its fullest meaning – The Good News of the Kingdom of God and of salvation through Christ.  This reminds us that the Gospels are not biographies of Jesus but rather 4 faith documents which taken together move us to live out this salvation both personally and as a Church community – we are all of us caught up in the building up of God’s Kingdom here and now and also we are on a journey to its fulfilment in our lives after our death – when we shall be finally and completely Risen with Christ.

Even so,  on its own, Mark’s ending is very powerful .

If we go in our minds eye for a moment with the women to the Tomb of Jesus that first Easter morning, what feelings might we have.  Like them we would know that our Lord’s body was hastily buried and it was important to do the decent thing and, because he is our friend, the most loving thing.  When someone dies the most loving thing is to prepare their body for burial – anointing with spices and oil.  That had not been possible with Jesus so it has to be put right.

There is a problem, of course, which is that the stone sealing the tomb is large. Who will move it?  We might be a little concerned that this practicality hasn’t been thought through but actually it adds to the authenticity of the story.  Any who have been through the grieving process know that we don’t always think straight and we do things without thinking practically about them.  In the event, the problem is solved. The stone is rolled away but that in itself is a bit perplexing.  How did it happen? 

The women actually seem unconcerned about that and rush straight in to be greeted by the angel, the young man in white.  Not surprisingly the women are alarmed.  A more accurate translation is that they were astonished or amazed.  The meaning here is one of surprise and wonder and awe.  This was so totally unexpected.  Angels seem to know that when human beings encounter them we need reassurance. Don’t be astonished he said, and then he reveals his message.  If the women were surprised before, what he had to tell them was even more astonishing.

Put yourself in their place. they come expecting to anoint a body for burial and they find that not only is the body gone but a supernatural being tells them, in a rather matter-of-fact way that he has risen from the dead.  Not only that but he has gone to Galilee and will wait for them there.  They are to gather the disciples and set off to meet him.  Now that is not an everyday occurrence and if you were them what would you feel?  I bet you would be both bewildered and a bit scared.

As they fled they would be keen to put some distance between themselves and what happened – again, making this an authentic story.  Think about how you react to something fearful.  As you get further away, fear subsides and your mind starts to try and make sense of what has happened. Fear becomes less threatening when it is rationalized.

What we can safely presume is that they didn’t stay fearful for long.  You can imagine that fear would be replaced with wonder as it slowly dawned on them what had really happened.  Their beloved Jesus whom they had followed in his ministry and who had been so cruelly taken from them  was not dead as they thought but alive – and alive is a very special way.  They had heard Jesus talk of rising from the dead on the Third Day and whilst the events of Good Friday had driven that from their thoughts now it all began to fit into place.  As the penny began to drop the fear would turn into first, excitement, and then joy.  We can say this because we have the other 3 Gospel accounts which show just this reaction once the stupendous and miraculous of our Lord’s Resurrection was understood.

Mark’s curious ending leaves us, perhaps, wanting to know more, but it really is very powerful.  A stone rolled away, an empty tomb, an angelic messenger giving news of the resurrection.  What more is needed?

What more is needed is that we believe its truth and live it out in our own lives.  This  is the real challenge to us this Easter day.  Too often Christians behave like the women initially did – afraid to tell the Easter story and particularly, afraid to show that it makes any real difference to our lives.

There was once a recent convert to Christianity who met an unbelieving friend who challenged him about his new faith.

“So you have been converted to Christ” he exclaimed.

“Yes I have.”

“Then you must know a great deal about him. Tell me what country he was born in.”

“I don’t know.”

“What was his age when he died?”

“I don’t know.”

“How many sermons did he preach?”

“I don’t know”

His friend was very scornful.

“You certainly know very little for a man who has been converted to Christ!”

“You are right. I am ashamed of how little I know about him but this much I do know. Three years ago I was a drunkard. I was in debt. My family was falling to pieces. My wife and children would dread my return home each evening. But now, I have given up drink; we are out of debt; ours is now a happy home. All this Christ has done for me. This much I know of him!”

For this man, Resurrection was real because the Risen Christ had changed his life. He no longer walked in darkness and his life had a new purpose.  This is Resurrection.  The real proof of it isn’t whether we can locate an empty tomb somewhere near Jerusalem, nor whether it is a theological and historical miracle.  The real proof is whether it can change our lives in such a way that we become the living proof of its truth.

We can hang around the empty tomb all day but we won’t find Jesus there. He has already moved on to claim lives with his undying, undestroyed love.  Amongst those lives are our own.  The challenge is whether we are living proof of the Resurrection by the way we live our lives – by the way we allow the Risen Christ to shape those lives and by the way we respond in thankfulness to our Lord’s great love for us – a love that was not destroyed on Calvary because it was there that God proved his love for us – and a love which because of the resurrection is always with us and, hopefully, within us.

The meaning of the empty tomb is clear if you let your faith grasp hold of it.  God is God.  He is God in Jesus Christ, Risen and glorified.  He is God in complete charge of our lives.  He is God who loves and cares, gives and transforms.  You cannot seal Him up in a tomb – whether near Jerusalem or in your own hearts.  He will simply burst out and His love will transform all that it encounters – even our own stubborn lives.

 But we have let him do that.  We have to believe He can.  He can roll away the stone of doubt, uncertainty, feint-hearted belief, dryness and lack of love  from your lives.  He can turn you around to face Him and His unconditional love for you - and if you believe that, the results will be explosive.

As explosive as the resurrection itself.

You may well become the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ for others.   Wouldn’t that be amazing?