A sermon preached at St. Mary’s, Iffley by Graham Low on 31st March 2024

Mark’s account of the empty tomb at one level is not good news at all. Like any empty space that was once occupied, it simply and harshly is a statement that something is missing, perhaps stolen, or perhaps lost. A normal human response to such emptiness is that something is very wrong. The sudden and harsh endpoint of Mark’s fast-moving gospel can leave us with this feeling. The women are alarmed, sized with terror, fleeing, and yet amazed. They wait through the sabbath before coming to anoint the body, to touch it with love, as they grieve. And now the body has gone. Anyone who grieves the death of someone they have loved, but does not know where the body is, faces one of the darkest places in the whole spectrum of human emotional experience. That is how these women must have felt.
Following the story of Jesus from Palm Sunday through the Triduum, through Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday we know deep down that there was a tomb in which lay a deeply mutilated body. If we follow Mark’s account we are not taken to the joy of the resurrection without confronting the void in which faith is given an extreme test. Mark still tests us with the perplexity of the empty tomb, just as the fleeing women were tested. Perhaps we should not be surprised since his portrayal of the disciples has been of perplexity from the beginning. The women do not realise that they are witnesses to a critical turning point in history and theology, a moment of Kairos, rather than a chronological moment. It is the appointed time in the purpose of God. It is a moment when the time is fulfilled, as we read in Mark 1.15, when Jesus said the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near: repent and believe in the good news.
Two words of Marks’ account always strike me: terror and amazement. If we are in a state of terror the whole orchestra of our hormonal system is working flat out with our brains. Everything is geared to find an immediate way forward, a way beyond. The past has no place now. If we are amazed by something we focus intently upon it, aware that new light has shone, aware that something completely extraordinary is before our eyes and our minds. Something new and transforming happens when we are amazed. Terror and amazement point us immediately to the entirely natural response of being afraid. But beyond them we can begin to see and hear the meaning of Easter, first for the women who are told to go and tell the disciples what has happened. The Easter gospel ends in a wide open place, a new creation, in which we are invited to inhabit through faith. There are pages yet to be written in the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in your heart and mine.
Terror and bewilderment are not opposites of faith. Faith in God empowers us to dare to lose what is holding us back from finding our deepest meaning in Jesus Christ. It has been said that at its heart Christian faith is about the opening up of opportunities for humanity.
We can rest in not having all the answers. Perfectly happy endings are for fairy tales. Gospel endings are wide open with hope that Christ is risen, in light and in glory. And we are there too.
May we have an Easter life filled with grace and glory. And may we hope for the transfiguring by love that will make us a healed and forgiven community of the resurrection. Amen.