“As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. . . . But go, tell his disciples.” . . . Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.” Mark 16:5-8

Mark leaves us hanging in his Gospel. **Or actually, a missing fragment of the original leaves us in the midst of a sentence. Just as Mark is telling us that the women of that first Easter, say nothing to anyone, for they were afraid – we lose why and what and who they were afraid of.

But, we don’t have to wonder about ourselves. We know what we are afraid of. I suspect that we aren’t so different than those first frightened witnesses of the resurrection. Fear keeps us silent. Fear of recognizing the presence of Christ in our lives. Fear that people will think we’re off balanced, it we take our faith too seriously and begin to allow the risen Christ to alter the way we live and move in the world. Fear, that this Jesus might ask something that is uncomfortable of us.

Barbara Brown Taylor writes,* “They were scared . . . for as wrecked as they were by Jesus’ death, they knew how to behave in the face of death. You view the body, you seal the tomb, and you go back to the house to eat fried chicken with the neighbors. You accept the finality of what has happened and you get on with your life, diminished as it is. But when the tomb is empty and the body is gone? They were scared . . . for they didn’t know how to behave in the face of death’s undoing.”

A risen Christ disrupts our settled world. If it’s true that Christ is risen, then everything he said about how to live and be in the world takes on a greater power. Whether the words are ones of challenge or words of hope, they are significant. If Jesus said it and is resurrected, this is something to stake our lives on.

While other writers tried to fill in the gaps in Mark’s gospel, still  the gospel  leaves us unintentionally hanging. Telling us that after hearing Jesus was risen, the women who came to care for his body, leave the tomb in terror, trembling, bewildered, so frightened they tell no one what they had seen or heard.

Maybe that is the gift of Mark’s abrupt ending. Each of us is left to work out our own ending in the story,  choosing  whether or not  to live the words of Jesus, and the hope of resurrection in our world. The ending is found in how we love and care and celebrate Christ’s risen presence among us now.

Devotions for Ash Wednesday through Easter came be found here.

*Brown Taylor, Barbara. Always A Guest: Speaking of Faith Far From Home (p. 197). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.

** Scholars disagree on whether Mark intended to end his gospel at Mark 16:8 or if there was more to the manuscript.   The earliest known copy of the gospel, ends the sentence in an awkward place, as if  part of the sentence is missing.  Writers concerned the gospel ended too abruptly, added other endings to it, from what they had heard about the resurrection.