THE UNFOLDING STORY

*One Sunday morning two brothers were playing in their back yard. When suddenly from the hedge separating their yard from the neighbors came a frantic rustling and thrashing. Out from the hedge came the boy’s dog Spot. Spot was ferociously shaking back and forth the obviously limp body of a black and white lop-eared rabbit.
The brothers were immediately upset. They knew the rabbit belonged to their widowed neighbor Mrs. Clausen who lived next door. They also knew there was nothing to do but tell their Dad what had happened.  But Dad would fix the problem. He could fix anything from screen doors to washing machines.
After informing their father of the dilemma, he quietly said, “It’ll be alright boys-  do just what I tell you.” He said, take the little fellow and hose him off real good, towel him down and brush him real well. Stick him back in his cage.
When Mrs. Clausen comes home from church and she’ll find him, she’ll be upset but she’ll figure he just died a natural death. Oh, and be sure tie up the dog.
Well, the brothers did just as they were told. Then they waited in the bushes with a good vantage point to see the cage. Sure enough, Mrs. Clausen came home and came out the back door of her house just as their father had promised and headed to her rabbit cages.
All of a sudden she started screaming and shrieking, crying and yelling, and asking God all sorts of questions out loud!
At this commotion the boy’s father came running from next door, pleading with Mrs. Clausen to stop and tell him what was wrong. Finally she calmed down a little and pointing to the dead rabbit in the cage said, in between sniffs and sobs, “I buried that lop-eared rabbit three days ago!”

*The Easter story is a startling story! As the evangelist Mark tells it, when the women went to the tomb that first Easter morning to care for their friend’s dead body what they found was instead an open tomb, and where Jesus’ dead body should have been - an angel with an incredible message.

*The story was not over, God’s story was not over, they were to go home to Galilee and the risen Jesus would meet them there. God’s story had more to unfold!

*On that first Easter morning the three women had come to the tomb looking for a dead body, not unlike how Mrs. Clausen expected an empty cage. In their minds the story was over. Jesus’ life and ministry was now a complete story.
-What they found was something completely different. They discovered an unfinished story. Jesus’ story was not over, but remained unfinished.
-In Jesus’ resurrection God has turned the page and now the story continues.
-God’s story continues to unfold in the eternal life of the risen Christ!

*Each of the four Gospels tells the Easter story differently. Mark’s account of Easter morning tells us that the same group of women who had faithfully stood by and watched Jesus’ tragic and painful death on the cross came to the tomb to care for his dead body.
-The two Mary’s and Salome have mournfully come to the tomb expecting to finish out a complete story by anointing Jesus’ body with burial oils. All the while worried about how they would roll the tomb open!
-For them, Jesus was dead. The story was over. They had watched him die.
-Instead, they arrive at an open tomb! The stone has been rolled away.

*At the tomb they discover an angel. He is there to tell them a story; a message. In fact it is the most important message of Mark’s entire Gospel story. It is the message that everything else is built on. It is the very heart and center of the Gospel.
“HE HAS BEEN RAISED, HE IS NOT HERE!”

1.    The page has been turned. This message turns what had been a tragic and horribly sad story into a story of unparalleled joy! God’s story is not over, but will continue to unfold!
2.    Jesus cannot be found among the dead. He is among the living! He is free of the tomb.
3.    The women are looking in the wrong place for Jesus. They came looking for him in the tomb, but he is out and in the world! The stone symbolizing death has been rolled away and he is free!
4.    It is interesting to take note that in this one moment of time, in this one brief scene Mark encapsulates just how frustrating our search for the historical Jesus really is. Searching for history we are searching for something that is complete and done. History is static and unchanging. It is what it is. YET JESUS IS NOT HISTORY. HE IS NOT CONTAINED IN THE TOMB.
5.    The angel’s words reveal that for the women, and for the disciples, and for us today, to see Jesus, TO FIND JESUS, we are called to look forward – not behind.
6.    The angel tells the women that they are to instruct Peter and the other disciples to go to Galilee. The risen Jesus will meet them there!

*For us to truly hear the meaning of how Mark’s account of Easter appears we need to understand something about the text of the Gospel itself.
•    In the oldest existing manuscripts of this Gospel we have it ends with verse 8.
•    This means the Gospel ends without a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus.
•    It simply ends with the angel’s message and the women’s reaction, which is not a positive one. They react in fear, and as verse 8 reads, “and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
•    Most scholars agree, the remaining verses 9-20 are likely later additions that serve to bring Mark’s Gospel to a close in a way that is more like the other three Gospels.

*So, then, accepting the text as Mark in all likelihood first presented it, the angel’s message to the women literally leaps off the page and is a message to us as the reader of the Gospel as well. It tells us we will not find Jesus in history. We will not find him in a tomb; a story complete and finished; neat and tidy like a novel or a movie.
1.    Jesus’ message to the women is to meet him in Galilee.
2.    It is important for us to know that the three women and all of the disciples were all from Galilee – not from Jerusalem. Galilee was home. So, in a larger sense the message is for them to return home.
3.    Now, for most readers of the Gospel, and even for Mark’s original congregation we are not from Galilee. So hearing this message - what can it mean for us?
4.    It means that the risen Christ will meet us not in a tomb, but at home. He will meet us where we live.
5.    Easter means the resurrected Jesus is free to meet us every day in our regular lives doing the things we do everyday.

*On this Easter morning the question Mark’s text presents us with is this: Where is Galilee for us and are we looking for Jesus there?
•    Where do we look for the risen Christ?
•    Do we look for him in our relationships at home, at school, at work?
•    Do we look for him in our social lives in relationships with others?

*The Good News of Easter is that the risen Jesus has promised to meet us, wherever our Galilee may be. Are we open to meeting him?

*We need to admit how challenging it is to look for him; to really be open to meeting him in our individual Galilees. Mark certainly knew it was a challenge. That is why he ended verse 8 the way he did, “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
•    It takes courage and faith to live in God’s unfolding story it is not for the faint hearted!
•    To meet the risen Christ means we choose to live in God’s constantly unfolding story!
•    It means we place our trust and our faith in the one who has been raised.
•    It means we live out each day trusting that God will turn the page, and carry us forward.

*Or, we can end the story, as did the evangelist Mark, in fear and terror, and tell no one because we are afraid!

*Let us live in God’s unfolding story, and seek to meet the risen Christ in our Galilee, trusting in him to carry us ever forward! So may it be for us. Amen.

Reverend Marc V. Mason
Easter 2009
April 12, 2009
Trinity Presbyterian Church
Travelers Rest, SC