Mark 16:8 “. . . they were afraid.”
Scholars of the New Testament generally prefer to study each Gospel account of the resurrection independently so that the unique emphasis of each Gospel writer receives the full recognition it deserves. By working with one account the reader can get insights that may be missed when the action of the passages are harmonized. (Still, I have always appreciated harmonies and typically preached them. You’ll find one recommended below.)
Mark’s record of the resurrection taken alone especially challenges the reader because it is so sparse. When one realizes that the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament do not contain verses 9-20 the material becomes even briefer. The reader is left with just eight verses. Matthew, with twenty-four verses, devotes three times as much material to the resurrection account as Mark. Luke and John each give more than fifty verses to the resurrection.
To follow the scholarly canon of interpretation so that one reads Mark without reference to the other Gospels does create a unique picture. In fact, Mark’s account of the resurrection reports a response from the first witnesses to the empty tomb that seems the very opposite of what one would expect.
With love for Jesus and a desire to honor him in his death Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome all came to the tomb Sunday morning after the crucifixion to anoint Jesus’ body. In addition to the grief they must have felt they were concerned about the stone that had been rolled in front of the tomb. They worried about how they would move that stone to have access to the body.
Of course, the stone had been rolled away and when they looked in the tomb they saw a young man. Their first response was “alarm.” (v. 5) So, in addition to the grief we assume they felt, and the worry they expressed about the large stone in front of the tomb, they now saw a figure in the tomb that caused them to feel alarm.
The young man--messenger of God, angel--sought to comfort them. He said, “Don’t be alarmed.” (v. 6) He gave them the good news that Jesus had been raised from the dead and charged them with the responsibility of telling the disciples that Jesus would see them.
The text says that these three women were “trembling and bewildered.” They “fled” from the tomb. “They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.” (v. 8)
So, all the reactions of these first witnesses are the opposite of the ones we generally associate with Easter. They felt grief; worry, alarm; they trembled; they were bewildered; they were afraid. They fled, and they said nothing. Mark’s singular contribution to the resurrection account creates disequilibrium. There is something frightening in this Gospel account.
To apply Mark’s message we would do best to consider how the resurrection caused fear to the first witnesses and appropriately causes a disturbance in our lives, too. In fact, a too easy embrace of the account of Easter could trivialize the message that the New Testament intends to communicate. The resurrection creates fear of the Lord or the terror of holiness. (Think of Isaiah chapter six.) The resurrection requires reverence.
The resurrection stands against every effort to reduce Jesus. He does not fit in any of the categories that historians typically use. He is more than a teacher, more than a prophet, more than a healer, more than a distributor of food to the multitudes. He is more than an upset to the religious and political establishment.
The three women described by Mark give us a witness that we do well to receive. They felt reverence. Before we speak of Jesus we, too, want to feel that reverence. We want all of our reductions of Jesus challenged. We want to be quiet, to say nothing, until we can yield before him in reverence, acknowledge his holiness, his otherness, his Lordship.
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Harmonization of the Easter Accounts. For those who would like to read a serious effort at harmonization of the Easter accounts, take a look at Easter Enigma by John Wenham. The subtitle of this book is “Are the Resurrection Accounts in Conflict?” Wenham answers, “no!” Published by Zondervan in 1984 it’s an old book but helpful as it enables us to read the four accounts of the resurrection as one narrative.
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