CONGRATULATIONS!! We have made it through the first of our New Testament books! Today you will read, or have read Mark 16, the final chapter in Marks Gospel. This chapter has been a concern for me for over 30 years. Not any great earth shaking problems, just a historic disagreement on how the gospel ends.
If you read the footnotes in most Bibles you will get a fairly good read on the different options and opinions on how the writer of Mark ended the gospel. I have read and re-read the endings and substituted all of the options in different orders and combinations and I have come to the conclusion that it just doesn't matter. At least it doesn't matter much to me. What does matter very much is that Jesus who was crucified and died has risen from the dead! Now that changes everything for me.
As I read the 16th chapter I notice that the women are again setting the standard for faithfulness - they arrive first thing Sunday morning to anoint Jesus' dead body and finish caring for him. The young man or angel in the tomb tells them to "go, tell his disciples and Peter" that he has gone ahead of them to Galilee. I wonder why Peter is separated here from the disciples. Could it be his denials of Jesus? or perhaps an elevated status?
If there is some confusion in the accounts of that resurrection morning I completely understand. I can only imagine that they all must have been in a mixed mess of grief and shock and fear and hope. How could anything make sense on a day like this. It is hard for us to understand with almost 2000 years and all of our traditions and preconceived ideas to insulate us and buffer us from the actual raw emotions. For these women and men, they had walked with Jesus, they had loved him and been loved by him, they watched him as he was beaten and crucified and some of them watched him die! How could they possibly know how to process the events of that first Resurrection Sunday?
About Me
- Pastor Bill
- I am a committed follower of Jesus Christ, a happy husband, father and grandfather!
3 comments:
I agree completely that the most important fact in Mark 16 is that we serve a risen Savior. I do think however, that versus 9-20 can become problematic if a believer starts looking for signs as proof, or using signs as a foundation for faith, rather than trusting in Christ alone.
Hi Darlynne,
I couldn't agree more. Sometimes we act like the resurrection is not enough and of course, it is! The church has always had extreme elements within and outside its walls. Sad that we rarely see people taking the servant texts literally and out do eachother in that area, instead we practice handling snakes!
I think I prefer the shorter ending myself. It seems like as Darlynne says, the rest of the verses can seem to descend into a bunch of "and here's the proof" verses - to me that just detracts because it seems like trying to hard. But I guess they were probably there in response to people who were looking for just such proof.
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