THE NEED FOR A HAPPY ENDING
SCRIPTURE
We feel uncomfortable with unhappy endings. There is no more surprisingly unhappy ending,
or perhaps I should say unsatisfying ending, than the resurrection story in
Mark. It ends not with an appearance by Jesus
but by the women who had come to tend to the body fleeing “from the tomb, for
terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they
were afraid.”
What kind of overcoming of death is that? The empty tomb didn’t symbolize a wonderful
release from death, but rather a confusing confrontation with an ending that
was unexpected and unwanted.
All the ancient manuscripts end with that abrupt ending to the gospel of
Mark. It made some ancients so
uncomfortable that they tacked on the rest of what you see in your Bible today,
verses 9-20, just to round out the story.
I’m quite comfortable with the story as it ends. As a matter of fact, it seems to me to be
more consistent with the way life flows.
There is a wonderful story told by Howard Thurman in his book Disciplines of the Spirit. Dr. Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at
Everybody in the family had made their summer plans. But just before Thurman and his wife were
ready to leave for speaking engagements, they received word that a companion
who lived with their aged grandmother in another town had died. Someone would have to go and be with
grandmother during the summer.
The family met and talked it over.
Thurman’s commitments could not be postponed. It was decided the daughters would take their
turns and care for the grandmother until the parents returned from their
conferences.
When this decision was reached, the youngest daughter rushed from the
table and ran up the stairs weeping. The
door slammed. Thurman followed her up
the stairs, knocked at the door, and found her stretched across the bed,
weeping. He spoke these words to her:
“I didn’t come up here to urge you to stop crying. I came to explain to you why I think you are
crying. I don’t think you’re crying
because you don’t want to go away for the rest of the summer and miss the fun
with your friends. You’re crying because
for the first time in your life the family is asking you to carry your end of
the stick as a family member. Something
inside you knows that when you get on the train tomorrow, one part of your life
will be behind you forever. You’ll never
again be quite as carefree and unaccountable as you were before.”
We all want to remain children.
We all yearn for those days when we were free from responsibility.
The resurrection story in Mark required, per the young man in the tomb, that
the women “go tell the disciples and Peter that he’s going ahead of you to
In other words, “grow up.” Jesus
doesn’t hang around empty tombs or places of death. He goes to places where there is ministry to
be done, places where people live and laugh, grieve and cry, hurt and hunger.
We are called to meet Jesus in those places where he may be found in the
lives of people around us. The young man
in the tomb may as well have said, “Meet Jesus in
The disciples and those around Jesus were used to being led, guided by
his words, being led here and there, following him on his rounds. Now he was asking them to meet him where they
had first met him, in
This sounded like work, not the coming of a glorious kingdom after the
pain and humiliation of the cross, and then the surprising and dramatic empty
tomb. This sounded like the return to
work. Where was the glory in that? Where were the triumphant processions, the
crowds hailing the one that had overcome death?
Where was the happy ending in going into
That is what the resurrection is all about. It is not about the glamour of parades and
applauding crowds or of waiting until your ship comes in. As the slogan on the T-shirt says, “If your
ship hasn’t come in, SWIM OUT TO IT!”
That is more in the spirit of Jesus’ ministry. Look around you and see where you can bring
new life out of death. Look and see the
tombs around you in which people are trapped.
Help them roll those stones away that keep them inside. Be a loving and living presence to people who
can only see the dark side of life because they feel unloved. Take comfort in the unquenchable,
unconquerable love of God you see in the resurrection and change your
life.
Go to your own
Good advice comes from Jamie Weisman, M.D., in the book As I Live and Breathe: Notes of a Patient-Doctor, where it is
said, “The trickiest part of living is pretending that you don’t know how the
story ends… The cure for the fear of dying is living.”
We really don’t know how the story will end, for God has many more
surprising things to teach us, just as those women when they finally stopped
fleeing grew up to realize that they had seen the surprising ending that God
had planned all along. Happy Easter!
Sermon preached by Reverend