Resurrection of Our Lord; Easter Sunday B
Text: Mark 16:1-8
Sermon by Rev. Robert Klonowski
Faith Lutheran Church, Homewood, IL
April 4, 2021
Go Back to Galilee
We are reading in this lectionary year from the Gospel of Mark, which means two things. One is that we’re getting the abbreviated version; Mark is by far the shortest Gospel, so every one of the stories is short, to the point, no frills. And two, that means that every week you have to listen to your preacher Bob Klonowski complain that we are getting the abbreviated version. Am I preaching this year out of the Gospel of Mark? Feels like I’m preaching out of the Reader’s Digest version of the Gospel.
And today, Easter Sunday, is absolutely the worst example of this. How in the world can it be that we get an Easter Sunday Gospel lesson in which the risen Lord … doesn’t even appear? Did you notice that? It’s Easter Sunday!; don’t you think that on Easter Sunday Jesus should, you know, show up? It’s one thing that Mark writes his Gospel with no frills; it’s another thing altogether that Marks writes his resurrection story with no Jesus.
This is bad; I mean, think of the Easter stories in the other Gospels. Easter is supposed to have post-resurrection appearances; joyful seaside lunch-on-the-beach with our Lord; those scenes of reconciliation and forgiveness with Thomas; the garden embraces of the risen Lord with Mary; and, of course, the excited shout of the disciples: “He is risen!”
But in Mark we get none of that. All we get, is frightened women, running out of a cemetery, in silence. That’s no way to run a resurrection!
But you know what I think, once I get over my indignant self? I think Mark was trying to show us a different kind of Easter joy, a different way of Easter faith. I come to that last verse and think about the unfinished ending, wondering how the Jesus story can end in silent fear and wondering where we go from here, and suddenly the memory of the last voice I heard breaks the silence. “Go, and tell his disciples,” the young man at the empty tomb said. “He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” He is not here. He is there!
“Go tell his disciples.” And who are his disciples? Yeah, there’s Peter and James and John and Andrew; yeah, yeah, but also you! You are a disciple, too!
And where is this Galilee? Well, it’s north of Jerusalem, yeah, yeah; but it’s also located in the opening chapter of Mark: “Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the Good News of God.” In other words, you are to understand, dear reader, that this story is not over. So you go ahead and leave the empty tomb now and go back to Galilee and read it again. Like the disciples, you did not understand this story the first time. Now that you have been to the Cross, and now that you have whistled past the graveyard this morning, go back to Galilee and read it again.
And what do we see when we read the Gospel of Mark again, this time with post-Resurrection eyes? We see Jesus healing and teaching and casting out demons, but always being misunderstood, even by those closest to him. In other words, Mark is telling us that the saving action of God in this world is always a matter of divine mystery, ambiguous and paradoxical and not easily accessible to the wisdom of this world. God’s ways are much too big to be like our ways. To put it in the words of St. Paul, since the world does not know God through wisdom, God decided to save through the foolishness of our proclamation.
Reading Mark with post-Resurrection eyes, we see Jesus breaking through into human life as one who is powerful, but also as one – he says it again and again – who will suffer and die. In other words we see a God whose power is a strange, suffering power. Were you expecting the Gospel to end today with a Resurrection appearance? We go back to Galilee, and the second time around every story in the Gospel of Mark is a post-Resurrection appearance. What we see is a God who surprises us at every turn in the road, a God whose power, is expressed finally in weakness.
Did you tune in to the Easter Sunday service today, hoping to have an experience of the Resurrected Jesus? Like the women who went to the tomb, you’re looking for Jesus in all the wrong places. He is not here. He has gone on ahead of you back to Galilee, back home, back to all of the old stomping grounds.
There you will find him, back home, in all of the old stomping grounds. You will find him in all the places where he has healed you from time to time. And you will find him, where you learned something once upon a time that came straight from him. And you will find him, at those places in your life where on occasion you have seen demons cast out, nothing less. Your Galilee is Olive Road and Martin Avenue, Cherry Creek Plaza and Churchill School, Izaak Walton and Dolphin Lake and Halsted Street. Don’t be looking skyward; this is a God who came downward, to every plain old Galilee you have in your life, who then ennobled your home place and your work place and your every place with the mysterious suffering power that can turn the twisted brokenness of this world into something that can live again.
And right there, is the Resurrection you’ve been looking for, at the place where what you thought was dead can be blessed by God this Easter morning, and can live again.
You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified? He has been raised; he is not here! Go, for he is going before you into Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.