Mark 16:1-8

Easter or Assured – Year B
5 April 2015
Mark 16:1-8

It has been awhile since I have posted a comment here. My time has been preoccupied with getting my next book of lectionary comments out: Wrestling Year C: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience.

Here is a comment for the Mark gospel option from Wrestling Year B.

     Mary, Mary, and Salome, now representing the discipleship narrative once held by John, James, and Peter, were practical to wait until Sunday dawn to go to a tomb. Tombs are dark enough in daylight and to do so in the dark would add difficulty to difficulty. They were not practical in their uncertainty about being able to get in when they got there. Where was Martha who would have organized this expedition so they would know they could enter when they arrived?     

     Well, it turned out the spirit of Martha had been on duty after all—the door was open and they walked right in.    

     I suppose they might have known that things were already falling apart in their orderly world when the stone had been moved. It doesn’t begin to sink in, though, until they enter to find another transfigured figure who transfixed them with words unimagined—“Jesus ain’t here; he’s on the way to Galilee. Tell those behind you that Jesus has gone on ahead of you” (sort of a John the Baptizer reprise).    

     Well, what now? Our question about the stone sure had a response we weren’t looking for. Now there are too many more questions suddenly swirling within. We can’t even talk to one another yet. 

     When practical and fiercely caring women go quiet, look out—gestation is taking place and birth will come in its own time.    

     What questions are taking root in you? What has surprised you into silence that it might become you? [Note: Remember to read the phrase, “become you” in several ways.] Eventually you will “go ahead” too, so enjoy the growth going on now and the going ahead will be more joyous.

Blessings on all the preparations you have been doing since the surprise of Christmas (Life/Blessed Body) to prepare for a surprise of Easter (Assurance of New Life) by attending to all the large and small surprises between.