A Sermon preached at St David’s Uniting Church, Pontypridd at Easter 2024

The end of Mark’s Gospel is very mysterious. In most of the old manuscripts the book finishes at chapter 15, verse 8 with the words: "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." Some Greek scholars think this is not even a finished sentence. The last word is gar (for), a word that does not normally end a sentence: the grammar seems to demand it should say what they were afraid of. The rest of the chapter was added at some stage, or perhaps in several stages, by people who thought the story ought to be finished. But the way they finished it was by adding brief summaries of stories in the other Gospels.

Why does the book end in this strange way? Perhaps the last page book was accidentally lost. Perhaps the book never got finished: maybe the writer died. Or did the writer deliberately finish it in that way? Whatever the explanation, I feel there is something very significant and symbolic about the way Mark's Gospel ends. The resurrection is a mysterious, disturbing, and unfinished story.

The way we understand it is still an unfinished story. People still discuss the question: what really happened? The stories contradict each other. How many women went to the tomb, and who were they? The four Gospels all differ on that.  And what did they see? An angel? A young man in a white robe? Two men in dazzling clothes? Or, as in John's Gospel, two angels who conveyed no message at all but just asked Mary Magdalene why she was weeping? Paul, summarising the resurrection message in 1 Corinthians 15, doesn't mention the women or the empty tomb at all.

Then there is the much bigger discrepancy about what happened afterwards. Matthew and Mark say the disciples were to go to Galilee: Matthew says they went to a certain mountain in Galilee, and Jesus gave them his farewell message there. Luke says he appeared to them in and around Jerusalem and gave his farewell message before ascending from the Mount of Olives, specifically telling them to stay in Jerusalem. John says he appeared to them twice in Jerusalem and some time later in Galilee.

There are other puzzles too. Why did they sometimes not recognise Jesus? Luke tells us that two of them walked and talked with them without knowing who he was. In Matthew's Gospel it says that "some doubted". In John it says: "None of the disciples dared ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord." What an odd thing to say!

So, was it a real bodily resurrection, or was it a spiritual one? Were the appearances visions? Or did the disciples from time to time have a life-changing encounter and realise on looking back that they had met the risen Jesus? The history tells us that something very big must have happened to change the disciples so drastically. The science tells us that vital parts of the body begin to decompose as soon as death takes place, and it's just impossible for a dead body to come back to life after three days. In previous generations the story of a bodily resurrection helped people to believe that Jesus was the Son of God: for our modern scientific minds, it puts a problem in the way.

I am torn about it. If the story of the resurrection is spiritual and symbolic, that doesn't in any way affect my faith in Jesus and in the love of God. But I have no wish to pour cold water on anyone else’s faith. And in any case, if God really is God, all things are possible. Our God is a God of surprises. So I prefer to just think of the resurrection as a glorious mystery, a story we will never finish thinking about and trying to work out its meaning.

In other senses too it is an unfinished story. Our faith tells us we will share the resurrection. For us, death is not the end but beyond it there is everlasting life. The resurrection is a promise waiting to be fulfilled. It is also still an ongoing process in our life and in the world. When someone who is in despair begins to find hope, when hurt people find healing, when those who have lost a loved one find there is still love in the world, when enemies find a way of forgiveness and reconciliation, when someone whose life is in a mess finds a second chance and a new life, when a seemingly dead end situation is resolved and transformed... resurrection is happening all the time.

Where is the body now? The Creed says that Jesus ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God. With our present-day knowledge of the universe, where is this heaven? But the New Testament writers already had a different way of answering that question: we are the Body of Christ. That's where the body is now. In the words of St Teresa of Avila: "Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours; yours are the eyes with which he looks with compassion on this world, yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body.

It is our job, and our privilege, to carry on the unfinished story.