Sermon - The Rev. Leah D. Schade
Reformation Lutheran Church, Media, PA
April 15, 2006
“An Ordinary Easter”
Texts:  Mark 16:1-8

On Tuesday of this week we had a Council meeting here at church, and it was my turn to do a bible study for the group.  With Easter coming up, I printed out all four versions of the Resurrection story side by side on a piece of paper and had the group compare and contrast the different accounts.  It was an interesting exercise, because it revealed just how much the gospels differ from each other in their versions of the story. 

For example, did you know that the gospel of John has no angel in his story?  But  Matthew and Mark and Luke do have angels.  Matthew and Luke portray them as bright and glorious figures with dramatic words and impressive appearances.  Matthew’s angel descends from heaven, heralded by an earthquake, and rolls back the stone while the women watch.  Luke actually has two angels, who appear suddenly in the tomb with the women to tell them that Jesus has risen, just as he said he would.

But Mark’s angel is . . . well, let’s just say his angel is less than impressive.  The text tells us that the women go into the tomb and find only a young man there dressed in white.  No dazzling light.  No earth-shattering drama.  Just an ordinary young man in ordinary clothes with simple words:  “Do not be afraid.  Jesus is risen.  He is not here.  Go and tell his disciples what has happened and that he has gone ahead of them to Galilee, where he will meet them.”

But the really stunning thing about Mark’s account of the Resurrection is how it ends.  It says that the women were amazed and terrified, and fled from the tomb,  and that they told . . . no one. 

That’s it.  Talk about anti-climatic.  Notice this is not the gospel we read from on Easter morning.  That’s a service that needs a big ending!  The other gospels have Jesus meeting the women themselves, and the disciples, eating meals with them, allowing them to see his dramatic ascension into heaven.  Those are the stories we like to hear as we breathe in the lilies and feel our hearts pumping  with the sounds of brass, timpani, and full choirs.

But that’s not what we get with Mark.  Mark’s ending is very confusing and discomforting.  In fact, it was so jarring to the early editors of the text that they decided to add some extra verses.  They tack on both a short and long ending, like a DVD with deleted scenes - a Hollywood ending, if you will.  They tack on Jesus appearing to the women and to the disciples, and then ascending into heaven.

But almost all scholars agree that this was not the original writer’s intention.  Many believe that he meant to end it just that abruptly.  What could he have intended by such an ending?  I mean, obviously the writer of Mark was no literary slouch.  His whole gospel is very well-written -- a tightly-woven narrative with definite structure, discernable themes and carefully thought-out plot lines.  So this ending could not have been an accident. 

And it’s not.  Remember again what the angel says to them women:  tell the disciples to go back to Galilee and meet Jesus there.  What is the significance of this?  Well, if we go back to the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, back to the very first chapter, we read these words in verse 9:  “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.”  That’s how we first meet Jesus.  After his baptism, he begins his ministry in Galilee, “proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.”

The writer of Mark is telling us - go back to the beginning of the story and read it again, in light of the crucifixion and resurrection.  Go back and meet Jesus in Galilee.  

Notice that Galilee is not some place famous and geographically significant in the big scheme of things.  It’s not a big city like Rome or Jerusalem.  It was like the angel was telling them to go to some backwater county somewhere between Podunk and Smallsville.  It was so .  . . ordinary.  Just an ordinary place with ordinary people.  And it’s just an ordinary young man in ordinary clothes giving the women these instructions.  Are you sensing a theme here?

You know, I like this Easter Vigil service the way I like the Christmas Day service we have every year.  Christmas Eve is the big day with the three services packed with people and lots of decorations and beautiful music.  But it’s Christmas Day, when most people are at home with their presents, and only a few of us gather at church to celebrate the actual holiday, that I find myself most able to worship and experience the true meaning of Christ’s birth.

And that’s the way I feel about this service.  Tomorrow is the big day with the three services packed with people and lots of decorations and beautiful music.  But it’s tonight, the Saturday Vigil, when most people are at home making preparations with their Easter dinners and hiding the eggs for the little ones, and only a few of us are gathered here at church to celebrate the holiday, that I find myself most able to worship and experience the true meaning of Christ’s resurrection. 

Tomorrow is an extraordinary day.  But today is an ordinary day.  It’s just an ordinary Easter for ordinary people like you and me.  But it’s in the details of the ordinary where we find the risen Christ. 

It’s in the ordinary circumstances of life where Jesus meets the disciples and carries out his ministry.  He meets them at work, as they’re hauling in fish and doing paper work as IRS workers.  He enters into the painful ordinariness of people’s lives - in the places where they are sick and diseased, where they are consumed by demons of addicition, where they are mourning just another ordinary statistic of another ordinary death in the endless chain of human suffering.

You know how it is when you lose someone very close to you.  Death takes them away . . . “and your grief is most intense in the ordinary little things in life.  You go down to breakfast and suddenly become aware that a seat at the table is vacant.  You see something funny on television and say, “I’ll have to tell her about this.”  But then you remember that she has gone, slipped into death.  You pick up the phone to ask him about some business deal, only to recall that he died last month.  It is the ordinary, little ways that you miss them the most.” (Willimon, p. 19).

I think that maybe what Mark is trying to tell us here is that we need to go back to the ordinary, because that is where we will find Jesus .  Jesus enters into the ordinariness of our lives, the ordinariness of our deaths and our grief, and changes it, transforms it into something completely unexpected and new.  Like driving down Rose Tree Road and seeing the marshy area by Ridley Creek that was brown and decaying all winter suddenly bursting with a dazzling carpet of tiny yellow flowers that bring cheer and wonder to your heart.

Like walking out past the flower pot you left go last fall until it withered into a tangled mass of dead foliage, and noticing with amazement that there is green pushing up through the soil, reaching up past the death that lies there, determined to seek life once again.

God has brilliantly designed nature to echo the Resurrection theme with glorious, mulitcolored reminders that come to us without fail, year after year, decade after decade.  And when you see the first buds on the trees, see the little crocuses popping up all over the yard, hear the birds chirping their return, it is a symphony that makes our trumpets and timpanis and decorations pale in comparison.

When spring arrives, it’s all people can talk about.  These are ordinary things that are happening.  We see it every year.  Yet we can’t help but mention it in line at the grocery store, bring a loved one to the window to look and see, bend down with our little one and gaze at the miracle that is even newer to them.  We can’t help but tell people about the beauty of this ordinary spring.

And maybe that’s the other reason Mark ended his gospel the way he did.  We need to tell the good news!  We need to talk about it to our friends and neighbors, with our loved ones, with our little ones.  When we understand the message of the Resurrection, we can’t help but tell people about the beauty of this ordinary and extraordinary event.  Go to Galilee - go back to your homes and your businesses and your schools and your graveyards - and you will find Jesus there.  Amen.


Source:  Willimon, William H., “Easter into the Ordinary”, Pulpit Resource, Vol. 31, No. 2, Year B, April, May, June 2003.