What Would You Get Up Early For?

The Resurrection of Our Lord – March 31, 2024

Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Mark 16:1-8

And that is it – Mark ends his Gospel, it seems, in the middle of the story with the women running away afraid and amazed and did not tell anyone. This ending has bothered every generation of Christian since Mark wrote his Gospel. Some early Christians tried to fix this problem by adding an ending. There are several and a variety of combinations of those endings. If you look in any Bible they will give you the other endings and some of the different combinations of those endings. There are also many explanations for this ending. None of them to my satisfaction. I believe that Mark ended his Gospel in this way to express the same emotion that every newly baptized Christian in the early church felt – amazed that God had accepted them and fearful of how the world would receive them. They may also have been afraid to tell others what had happened. This event at the tomb was the end of the story of Jesus, in a sense, and the beginning of the story of Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Salome, Peter, the disciples, you, and me. It was the beginning of the Church. 

But that is getting ahead of myself here. These women got up early in the morning and went to the tomb. They did not go joyfully. They did not have any expectations of excitement. What they expected was an unpleasant task that had to be done. They were going to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body so that he would have a proper burial since he had been placed into the tomb in haste. Remember there was to be no work on the Sabbath and Jesus had died on Friday. But these women got up at the crack of dawn to anoint Jesus’ body. That seems like a task that just might keep you in bed – dreading the work and smell and ridicule that it entailed. They woke at the crack of dawn to anoint  Jesus’ body because it was the earliest time that they could. They went because Jesus had changed their lives. He had treated them as equals, allowed them to sit at his feet and learn from him. He was the true revolutionary. He came to save everyone. Today we will see that saving work eight times with the baptisms of Ryder, Legend, Damon, Cameron, Ahmir, Axxel, Julian, and Avant. And there just might well be a bit of fear and amazement for them today. There should be for us as well. Think about it, we who are so unworthy of receiving God’s love have been made God’s children, brothers and sisters to Jesus. Not because we deserve it but because God loved us so much that God gave God’s son to die for us so that we can become what God desires of us.

I do not know if you all got up at the crack of dawn for this. But I do know that your task for today is not a difficult one like the first women at the tomb. But it is one like theirs’ because Jesus meets you here in these waters and in this meal. Come, come from you tired and sad lives and enter into the glorious kingdom of God.

Christ is risen, alleluia!