MARK 16
Read Mark 16:1-20
The heart of the Christian faith is that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. But he did not stay dead, he was raised up by God the Father and he lives today. Because he led a sinless life, death could not hold him. When we look back at Genesis we see that Adam brought death upon himself because he disobeyed God; he sinned. Paul reminds us that ‘the wages of sin is death’ (Romans 6:23). But the good news is that ‘the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord’, because of Jesus, his life and his death on the cross.
Mark notes that a group of women acquaintances of Jesus went to anoint his body. Despite Jesus telling his followers several times that he would be raised up this didn’t seem to have sunk in. It took an empty tomb and an angel with an explanation before they realised what had happened. The women were told by the angel to go and tell the disciples what had happened. Interestingly, in that culture, the testimony of women was held to be unreliable and was discounted in a court of law. Yet it was by the testimony of women that the news of the resurrection was first spread. This emphasised the fact that it is not the status of the witness that matters but the truth to which they testify. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is good news for everybody and everybody is entitled to spread that good news whatever their status in the eyes of society.
The final section of Mark’s gospel from Verse 9 to the end is often not considered to be authentic. Experts say that the style of writing of this passage is different to the rest of the gospel. It was perhaps written by Christians later who thought that the gospel should end on a positive note rather than with the disciples being afraid because they didn’t understand what was going on. Even if it was written by someone other than Mark, this section is consistent with the rest of Mark’s gospel and with the other three gospels. This section highlights several post resurrection appearances by Jesus to his followers to give credence to the story. It is as if the writer is saying, ‘You have just read the story of the resurrection of Jesus. If you don’t believe me, look at all these people who saw him after he was crucified and died. Go and talk to them about it’. All through Mark’s gospel we have had the sense that what we are being told is the authentic version written by someone who knows – the funny little scene of a young man losing his cloak and running off naked when Jesus was arrested (14:51) helps this sense of authenticity. Another theme that runs through Mark’s gospel is faith, or rather, lack of it, and that appears again when we read of Jesus appearing to the eleven disciples; ‘He rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen’ (v14).
Jesus was about to join his Father in heaven, but before he went he gave a charge to his disciples (both then and now), ‘Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not will be condemned’. (vv15-16).