The Fear of Easter

Mark 15: 42 – 16: 8


Darkness. It always follows the day. The sun sets slow behind the horizon and the light of day is replaced with twisting shadows and the concealing darkness of night.  Darkness always follows the day.

The Sabbath had ended at sunset.  It was now early morning.  Still dark.  Three women went out into the darkness to purchase aromatic oils for the anointing of the body of Jesus, the one they had thought to be the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one of God. Mary of Magdala, Mary the Mother of James, and Salome donned their cloaks and gathered their purses and went out into that darkness. And even though the moon was full and stars filled the sky, the streets were draped in obscuring shadows. Strains of conversation and shots of laughter drifted out of windows as they hurried the city.

The events of the past weeks and months and years played over and again in their minds as they walked those gloomy streets. There had been so much conflict in the life of this one who preached peace. So much strife. And all for what? A criminal’s death. Made an example of what happens to those who stir up trouble. So much conflict. So much pain.

He struggled his whole life. He struggled against evil. He struggled against misunderstanding. He struggled against those who would misunderstand his mission. His three years of teaching were filled with one confrontation after another, his final week a blur of angry shouts, and it all ended with his brutal and violent death.

“You [God] will keep him in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.” So said the prophet Isaiah (26:3) Is this peace. Is this Shalom?  His life and death were painful toil; is this perfect peace?

After Jesus' death, Joseph of Arimathea went boldly before Pilate to request the body. It was customary for the bodies of crucified criminals to hang on the cross until decay set in – as a gruesome example to others. Their bodies, or what was left of them, were then flung to the ground to be devoured by vultures and wil dogs.  Pilate was surprised to hear that Jesus had expired so quickly. Death did not come swiftly to those on the cross, but when the centurion confirmed that Jesus was indeed dead, Pilate gave the body to Joseph who laid it in a tomb and rolled a large stone over the entrance.

There, the body of Jesus lay wrapped in a linen shroud. A prisoner to death. Shackled by the grave.

In the darkness the women entered the garden to find the tomb, and the body of Jesus. But they hadn’t thought this through.  As they passed some of the other tombs they realized they would be unable to anoint the body – for they would not beable to roll away the large stone that sealed the tomb's entrance.

Who will roll it away for us? They asked each other. They walked on through the darkness; their eyes downcast, their hearts broken.

Perhaps they could have asked the disciples, but those men had all fled the scene. They were faithful to follow Jesus during his life, but were unable to come to terms with his death. They abandoned their fallen leader.

As the women rounded the final bend of the garden path their feet slowed to a stop. And very slowly they looked up.

The stone. The very large stone had been rolled away. Someone had already rolled the stone away from the entrance of the grave. In fear the women ran inside the tomb – not noticing that the sun had begun to rise.

Inside the cavern they found the unexpected. Instead of the dead and wrapped corpse of of thier murdered teacher, they found a young man dressed in white.


“Stop being afraid,” he said, “there is no need for amazement.
You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth; who was crucified.
He is risen… He is not here!
Look, See! Here is the place where they laid his body.
But you must go and tell his disciples
          and Peter
he is going ahead of you to Galilee, that is where you will see him.”

Turning, they stumbled up out of the tomb, pushing and shoving, trembling and shaking, and  they ran away. And they said nothing to anyone, because they were terrified.

And that’s where Mark stopped writing his gospel. The verses that follow (9-20) are not found in the earliest and most reliable manuscripts of the good news of Mark, but were rather, later additions, possibly by someone uncomfortable with the abrupt ending – “they were afraid” (in Greek - ephobounto gar)

Some good news, right?   Jesus leads a life of conflict and confrontation.  He is killed.  And he is abandoned by all of his followers.  How is this gospel?  How is this good news?

Mark’s audience knew terror, and they knew fear. They lived in a time of increasing conflict between governments, increasing conflict between religions, increasing violence, and increasing death.  The final brief sentence of Mark “For they were afraid…” is a summery of the very emotional context that produced the writing of Mark’s gospel.

Perhaps they were tempted to abandon the faith. Perhaps some already had. They lived in terror. They lived in fear. They lived in darkness.

If the original readers were startled by Marks’ abrupt ending, and his lack of resurrection stories, perhaps it is because they were meant to be terrified. But they would have also known that the ending at verse 8 was not really the end of the story.  Perhaps Mark didn't feel the need to write the ending because he counted on the knowledge of his readers to complete  the story.

But mark’s startling conclusion (or lack of a conclusion) demands a reaction from us. If the “un-ending” of verse 8 bothers us - if the failure of Jesus' closest friends and disciples and the terrified silence of the women disturbs us, it’s because we are to supposed to be disturbed by it.

Silence is inappropriate
Silence is inexcusable.

We no longer need to cringe under the tyrannical rule of death and violence and fear. We are free. Christ was raised up out of the darkness of the grave so that we too, may be raised up from the dead – raised up to eternal life with God the Father, the Creator of all that exists. We cannot be silent about this.

Our focus has often been like that of the women who went through the darkness to the tomb that morning. We have too long focused on the cross, on the death, instead of the resurrection. In our Salvation Army song book we have twice as many songs about the suffering and death and bloody cross as we do the victory of the empty tomb. Have we run away in silence and fear?
The miracle didn’t happen at the cross. Jesus died there, as humans have the habit of doing.
The miracle came on that third day when God raised a dead lifeless body up out of the grave into an everlasting life – breaking the bonds of death, the grave, and sin forever.

We have hope. We are to live in that hope. We are to live knowing that death is not the end, that evil is not the ultimate power. Even though the world around us may be living in the darkness of fear and violence and death and destruction – we who share in Christ's resurrection are to live in hope. Hope should be behind everything we do as Christians.

“In the cross he showed us how we are to bear suffering, in his resurrection he showed us what we are to hope for.” -Saint Augustine

But he rose from the dead
and mounted up the heights of heaven
when the lord had clothed himself with humanity
and had suffered for the sake of the sufferer

and had been bound for the sake of the imprisoned

and had been judged for the sake of the condemned

and buried for the sake of the one who was buried

he rose up from the dead

and cried with a loud voice:

Who is he that contends with me?

Let him stand in opposition to me.

I set the condemned man free

I gave the dead man life

I raised up the one who had been entombed

who is my opponent?

I, he says, am the Christ

I am the one who has destroyed death

and triumphed over the enemy
and trampled Hades underfoot
and bound the strong one

and carried off man to the heights of heaven

I, he says, am the Christ!
          -Melito of Sardis 195 A.D.