Resurrection and assurance
Reflection on a reading from today's Church of England Lectionary. 8 October 2021. Mark 16: 1 - 8
This is the last section of the Gospel of Mark which was written by Mark himself and ends abruptly at verse 8. The style of the remainder of the chapter shows that it was written by someone else in the second century.
The passage itself shows that the three women we saw yesterday, Mary Magdalene, Salome and Mary the mother of James went back to the tomb at dawn on the day after the Sabbath. They had bought spices and wanted to put them on the body of Jesus. They worried how they would move the large stone from the doorway of the tomb but when they arrived they found it had been rolled away. On going in they did not see Jesus but a young man dressed in white sitting to their right. Naturally they were frightened but the man told them not to be. He said that Jesus had risen, gone to Galilee and that they were to tell the disciples to meet him there. Terrified, the women fled. Mark says that because of this they told no one.
Here, Mark's own account ends. Why it does so we don't know. Was he taken ill, arrested or disillusioned at that time? But we then hear about him again in Acts, one of the books written by Luke, when Mark became a helper to Paul and Barnabas on their mission journeys.
Christians believe that as Jesus was resurrected and the stone rolled away from the tomb, we receive his assurance that neither will the grave hold us, that we too will be resurrected and go to be with him, just as he assured the disciples that he would meet with them in Galilee.