Faith Whispers, A Reflection on Mark 16:1-8
Resurrection stories come in two types appearance stories and empty tomb stories. In appearance stories Jesus appears, is seen, can be felt, eats, and speaks with his Disciples. The other stories are empty tomb stories. They are quiet stories. Awe-filled stories where people are left speechless. There are loud stories of resurrection and there are quiet stories of resurrection. The apostle Paul gives only loud stories of resurrection. Matthew, Luke and John give loud and quiet stories of resurrection. Mark gives only a quiet story of resurrection.
Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James, and Salome walked in silence. There was no conversation shared between them that we know of. They knew, without saying, where they were going, what they were doing. Just as soon as the law of God allowed, they would be at the tomb where they had placed Jesus and they would anoint his body. The only question they voiced was one filled with the greatest degree of irony. “Who will move the stone for us? It is indeed very heavy.” We who have read this story and the other resurrection stories, who know that Jesus lives we witnesses to the resurrection want to shout, “It’s already been rolled away! It’s already been rolled away! You won’t find him in the tomb.” Shhhh. Not so loud. This is not John or Matthew, for crying out loud, this is Mark. And Mark doesn’t shout the resurrection. He whispers.
If you look up Mark 16:1-8 in your physical Bibles (I'm not sure what the various online versions will say) you will see a curious note following verse 8. The most ancient manuscripts of Mark conclude the gospel here. The earliest copies of Mark we have and I believe the original form of Mark, concludes at verse eight. He concludes with a whisper. It ends with:
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. Mark 16:8
It actually ends with a preposition, "gar" in Greek. It ends and the word "for." To be fair to them, we know that at some point they had to say something to someone. After all, Mark had to hear their story in order to tell their story. The accounts of the Resurrection differ in the details given. Rather than strain to make the details fit together, I wonder if we might be able to read each one with an eye to the way the biblical writers employed .
Could it be that Mark wanted to cause a question to whisper up within us. "If they aren’t going to talk about resurrection, who is?" And "How are we supposed to speak about this?" When things need to be said, when messages need to be delivered, we want someone to get a loud speaker, to raise their voice and shout it. Truth be told, I'm among those who believe we need to learn to speak the Gospel more loudly and more clearly. But, I also believe in responding to the text in front of you. Let it speak where it speaks. Let it be silent where it is silent. And to come at questions of faith with reverence, fear and trembling, and a healthy dose of silence.
Social media has given us multiple venues to shout our answers at one another, create sarcastic memes that put others in their place, construct strawmen versions of our theological adversaries and gleefully knock them down. I fear that in the process, we've come to a place where the fragility and wonder and mystery of the Christian faith has been lost.
The late Disciples New Testament Scholar and Preaching Professor, Fred Craddock, liked quote Soren Kierkegaard as saying, "Somethings are true when whispered and false when shouted." I've looked for that quotation in context and have yet to find it. I’m not sure what Kierkegaard meant, but I think I might have some clues about Craddock. Craddock operated within a religious system of certain. Answers were given before questions were asked. Craddock read scripture and taught others to read scripture in such a way as to silence the answers that seemed to resonate loudly within our religious contexts.
I used to think the goal of Easter preaching was to shout the resurrection so loudly, and so poetically that people would shout it with you. I still believe there's a time and place for that. But, some of us have been shouted down and shouted out. Many people are going to hear more shouting. They may just hear the whispers.