He had followed Jesus from afar. He was a secret disciple. He had never quite nailed his colours to the mast, because he was afraid of the consequences. It was dangerous to be seen in public with Jesus. Everyone knew that authorities were seeking a pretext to kill him. So Joseph kept a low profile to save his skin… until Jesus died – when Joseph put his head above the parapet and donated his own tomb.
I love to imagine a conversation between one of the religious leaders and Joseph of Arimathea. ‘Tell me Joseph, why have you given up your own tomb, carved into the rock with such expert craftsmanship, to this common rascal, this Jesus of Nazareth?’ And I love to picture Joseph shrugging his shoulders and saying, ‘Well, the thing is, he was just borrowing it for the weekend!’
A few years ago Kathie and I went to see a film by David Lynch, for which the critical reviews were very positive. ‘A masterpiece! Wonderful! Lynch at the height of his powers!’ We were so excited to see it and not at all surprised that there was a long queue outside the cinema. Let me tell you it was a total disappointment! Mulholland Drive remains, to this day, the most bizarre, the most absurd, the most pretentious film that I have ever seen. It was experimentally weird to the point of being completely unfathomable. The plot, or plots, were incoherent, the dialogue was random, the roles were blurred and interchangeable, and the ending was ambiguous. We had to ask each other when the titles came up ‘Do you think that’s the end?’
Have you seen a film like that? Or read a book perhaps that ends just suspended in mid air? Well, there’s a book like that in the Bible, and it is called the Gospel of Mark. The ending for Mark’s gospel says literally, in v8, ‘They ran out and fled from the tomb, bewildered and upset. They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid of...’
No one knows why Mark’s gospel ends so abruptly. Most Bibles have a footnote explaining that the best manuscripts do not contain the v9-20. So several endings are offered to tidy it up.
Why do the oldest manuscripts end in mid-sentence? Was Mark just finishing his gospel when the police burst in and arrested him? Was the edge of his scroll burned and lost in the great fire in Rome? Did the original ending offend someone in the early church – Peter or John – who tore it off to save face? We will never know. But we do know that the early Christians tried repeatedly to put some order into the ending to make it more coherent. Someone rounded the story off with what they knew from the other Gospels, and Acts, undoubtedly confirmed by their own experiences and their observations of the early church.
So far from being suspect and doubtful, v9-20 are the best confirmation possible that signs and wonders regularly accompanied the message of the apostles in the first century.
Just like in the gospels, before the passion, where as much space is given to Jesus’ healings as his teaching, the postscript of Mark shows clearly that signs and wonders were, with the proclamation of the gospel, a twin expression of authentic Christianity – and should be for us.
I see Mark 16.9-20 as a bit like a DVD bonus section. I like those ‘Making Of’ features - they add something extra to the film for me. They complement and amplify a film even if they aren’t part of the original work.
But the first half of this chapter, the oldest part (the bit we read earlier) describes, like the other three gospels, the electrifying events of that first Easter Sunday.
Three disoriented women head to a tomb at dawn to embalm a body; something forbidden by Jewish law on the Friday night because the Sabbath had already begun at sunset. It is only on the way that it dawns on the women that the small matter of moving the great stone in front of the tomb is going to be an issue for them. All you ladies will relate to their dilemma: ‘Oh, no! Who will help us move the stone? There’s no way any man will be up at this hour!’
Shock number one: They arrive at the tomb and see that the huge millstone has already been rolled back, and the entrance is open. That’s odd! They enter the tomb expecting to find the corpse already decomposing and starting to smell, lying there and covered with a sheet, ready for embalming.
Shock number two: They see a young man sitting down. No wonder Mark says that they ‘were seized with fear.’ In fact, the language that Mark employs to describe the emotion and the helplessness of women is very expressive. ‘Alarmed’, ‘trembling’, ‘bewildered’, ‘they said nothing’, ‘afraid.’
Efforts have been made to try and recast the accounts of the resurrection as myth or fable, as if it doesn’t really matter. “Oh,” people say, “but it doesn’t really matter if Jesus really rose physically or bodily from the dead. What matters is that he lives in our hearts as a kind of inspiration for living a good life.” A bishop of this diocese famously expressed such a view, in the 1980s, ridiculing the notion of a literal resurrection.
Oh, but it matters a lot!
I don’t care if an angel from heaven tells you that the resurrection is just symbolic - if Jesus is not truly risen, bodily, from the dead, then the Christian faith is a fiction, a fantasy, a folly and a fraud.
If Jesus is not raised, the church is no better than a scandalous snake oil racket.
If Jesus is not raised, you are wasting your Sunday unnecessarily, and you are throwing your hard earned money away by putting it in the offering.
If Jesus is not raised, you are sadly deluded and grievously misled.
If Jesus is not raised, I have completely wasted my career and my life.
On the other hand, if the resurrection of Jesus really happened, then his teaching, his life, his miracles and his saving death are confirmed as true. If the resurrection of Jesus really happened then life after death becomes plausible. If the resurrection of Jesus really happened then Jesus is alive today and God really exists. If the resurrection of Jesus really happened then Christianity stands as the only true faith there is - if Jesus is truly risen.
The good news is that the circumstantial and investigative evidence for the resurrection is extremely sound. Consider the following six points.
1. The resurrection of the suffering Messiah had already been prophesied in Isaiah 53 centuries before the birth of Jesus.
2. On several occasions Jesus had himself predicted his own resurrection while teaching his disciples – who just didn’t get it until it actually happened.
3. According to many witnesses, the tomb was empty but there was a shroud. Why would someone steal the body, but leave the burial cloth? If the Jewish authorities or Roman guards had moved the body, why did they not exhume it to put an end to the excited proclamation that Jesus was alive? This public preaching was annoying for them. But they were powerless to stop it because they could not produce the body.
4. The eleven surviving disciples, without exception, were completely transformed individuals and the resurrection was at the heart of their message. These people had fled like cowards when Jesus was arrested. What happened to them? Only something totally out of the ordinary, like a resurrection, stands as an adequate explanation.
5. Many eyewitnesses, over 500 people, saw Jesus alive after his death. They saw him moving, they heard that his voice was genuine. Paul wrote about this in 1 Corinthians 15. “If you don’t believe me,” he said, “go and ask someone who saw him; most of the 500 or so eye witnesses are still alive and they’ll tell you it’s true.”
If I said to you that my Uncle Reg really existed, you might or might not believe me. I could show you a photograph of him, but you might say it could be a picture of anyone. OK. If I said to you that I know a handful of people who knew him, you could say that I set them up to deceive you. But if I told you that I could call about five hundred people who knew him, who spoke with him, who ate and drank with him, who worked with him on his farm - and that you could meet them for yourself if you want - you would have to conclude that what I was saying was true. That is the standard of evidence we have for the resurrection of Christ.
6. Millions of men and women today testify to the power of the living Christ that has transformed their lives. Jesus has changed my life.
So the resurrection of Jesus Christ stands up to examination because it is historically attested and because it still affects people’s experience. Has Jesus changed your life? If not, is it time you let him do so?
Let me finish with this thought. Everyone knows where Jesus was at the time of his arrest; in the garden of Gethsemane, just outside Jerusalem. Everyone knows where Jesus was at the time of his resurrection, three days later, again in a garden near Golgotha, where tombs carved into the cliff were located. For Friday and Sunday his location is clear. But what about on Saturday? Where was Jesus then?
That’s a question that the Bishop of Sheffield asked some school children a few years ago. “Where was Jesus on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday?” Silence ... Then a girl got up to give a quite breathtaking answer. “I think he was deep in hell, looking for Judas, his lost friend.”
I don’t know if that answer is entirely theologically correct. The Bible doesn’t say it quite like that. The first letter of Peter does say that he was in Hades, where he preached to the spirits in prison...
But I think that little girl’s answer shows a true appreciation of the scope of the love of Jesus.
He is the Good Shepherd who goes off in search of the lost sheep.
He is the Saviour who forgives and restores the nastiest, the vilest, the most fallen. It is he who saves completely every sinner who turns humbly to him.
He is the Healer who raises up the sick, who renews the strength of the weary, who gives hope to the hopeless and binds up to the brokenhearted.
He is the one we meet in Holy Communion. Come as you are.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Hallelujah!
Sermon preached at Saint Mary's Long Newton, Easter Day 8th April 2012
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