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Charles Dickens opens his immortal Christmas Carol
with these arresting words: "Marley was dead, to begin with.
There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial
was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker and the
chief mourner. Scrooge signed it … Old Marley was a dead as
a door-nail."

So, too, was Jesus. They saw Him die, they saw Him
buried. His body was wrapped tightly in long strips of cloth,
and covered with some 75 lbs of spices. A large stone was rolled
over the tomb entrance; the imperial seal bearing the signature
of Pontius Pilate fastened it. And to prevent Jesus’ disciples
interfering in any way, the tomb was securely guarded.

But the event Jesus foretold, and the authorities
dreaded, happened. Jesus was seen alive – by many people, in many
places, over a period of six weeks.

Before we look at Mark’s narrative, we ought to look
briefly at two problems: #Why do the resurrection stories in the
NT differ from one another? #Why wasn’t Mk 16:9+ part of the original
gospel?

It’s difficult to harmonise the Resurrection accounts
of all four gospels and Paul (1 Co.15:5-7). But at least it proves
that there was no collaboration between witnesses. They didn’t
attempt to iron out their differences (which you’d have expected
if the stories were false). Luke mentions two men at the tomb,
Mark only one. (Perhaps Mark, writing in haste, only includes
the spokesman of the two). John certainly had close contact with
witness Mary Magdalene (20:11-18); Peter may have left out many
of those details because they were not relevant to his particular
preaching – although it’s surprising he didn’t tell Mark about
his own experience at the empty tomb (Jn 20:1-10), and his later
meeting with the risen Lord (Jn 21:7). Overall, the agreements
far outweigh the differences. No one attempted to describe the
Resurrection itself – no one witnessed it. Three elements are
common to all four gospels – the empty tomb, the announcement
of the Resurrection to the women (those men would not have chosen
those women if they were inventing this story!), and the disciples’
meeting with the risen Lord.

Mark almost certainly finished his gospel at 16:8
– or, if he personally wrote any more, it’s lost. Did he die as
a martyr before he had a chance to finish? Did the last part get
torn off? We don’t know. The language and style of 16:9+ are very
different from the rest of Mark’s writing. So some other writers
attempted to "round off" the story, very early in the
church’s history, and although these attempts are not in our best,
early manuscripts, they were widely accepted as reliable. Meanwhile
….

1. HE LIVES It’s a fact. All the old swoon theories,
hallucination theories, hypotheses about the authorities or the
disciples stealing the body – they’re more difficult to believe
than the simple stories told by these witnesses. They were changed
people – changed dramatically! Why? How? How was the Christian
church born, if there was no resurrection? One thing is certain,
says Barclay – if Jesus had not risen from the dead we would never
have heard of Him. The women’s attitude was that they were coming
to pay the last tribute to a dead body. The disciples’ attitude
was that everything had finished in tragedy. But within a few
days something happened to change these sad and despairing men
and women into people radiant with joy and flaming with courage
…

Listen to these modern witnesses: Konrad Adenaur,
a politician (Chancellor of Germany) – "If Jesus Christ is
alive, then there is hope for the world … The resurrection of
Christ is one of the best-attested facts of history." Sir
Leslie Herron (ex-chief justice of NSW): "I challenge (you)
to disprove the resurrection of Jesus Christ … I am confident
that the verdict will be ‘true beyond reasonable doubt’."
Edwin Judge (professor of ancient history, Macquarie University),
when asked "What would you expect your students to reply
to the question ‘Did Jesus Christ rise from the dead?’" said
that in general he thought "that as impartial students of
ancient history, they would conclude that Jesus’ tomb was discovered
empty and that no successful explanation was found to destroy
that which was put forward by the apostles."

Mark 16 begins with the darkest day in human history
– the "black Saturday" when Jesus lay in the tomb. It’s
a day that must have haunted Jesus’ friends all their lives. Their
hopes were shattered, their dreams broken, their spirits wounded
and bitterly desolate. Someone has called our generation "Saturday’s
children" – there’s so much despair and disillusionment around.
Millions of people don’t look forward to weekends, their world
is so hopeless and meaningless.

The women were worried about that big stone – too
heavy for them to move. If you visit the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem
you’ll see a narrow grooved platform at the front of it. A large
circular stone – as big as a cart-wheel – was used to block the
entrance. But when the women came they saw that the tomb was open.
Something remarkable had happened! The angel identifies the very
same person they were looking for – Jesus of Nazareth. His identity
was unmistakable. "He has risen" – yes, you’ve come
to the right grave. "He is not here" – He’s not just
a spirit: His was a bodily resurrection. "He’s going to Galilee"
– a specific geographical spot. (Ancient and modern sects have
sometimes denied Jesus’ physical resurrection). "You will
see Him, just as He told you" – His prophetic word is actually
fulfilled.

"THE STONE HAD BEEN ROLLED BACK!" Death
is no longer a locked-up abysmal cavern. Death is no longer a
fearful, mysterious enemy. "Death is dead, not He!"
The stone was not rolled away to let the Lord out, but to let
the disciples in! God rolled away the stone, not that His Son
might rise, but that we might know that He has risen! "Then
where is He?" asks Procula, Pilate’s wife in John Masefield’s
drama The Trial of Jesus. The soldier’s response, "Let loose
in the world, lady, where neither Roman nor Jew can stop His truth!"

2. HE CARES In general, the Easter-event tells us
that God cares for His creation. He loves eternally, and individually.
What God makes, He loves, and what He loves, He loves everlastingly.
After all He’d done for lost and miserable sinners, they’d responded
by maligning, torturing, persecuting and finally crucifying His
Son as if He were a criminal. Jesus’ friends deserted Him, and
denied Him. If you had done all this – honestly, now, what would
your retaliation have been? Call down destruction on this kind
of world? Declare these people as utterly beyond hope? Shake the
dust off your feet, and let them go to the hell they deserve?
I still have trouble believing Jesus’ reaction to it all: He actually
came back to this same kind of world, to start all over again!
What a Saviour! What amazing grace!

"Give this message to His disciples, including
Peter!" Especially Peter! Heartbroken, ashamed, desparing
… How could he ever live with himself again? To save Peter from
self-contempt and self-hatred … "tell Peter". That’s
what Christ is still doing, because of Easter: He’s picking up
despairing people and helping them to stand.

3. HE COMMANDS In these last verses, added to Mark,
note the emphases. First, there is an emphasis on believing. The
events recorded in Mark are not intended for relaxed fireside
reading. They are written so that we might believe. In the story
of the resuscitation (not resurrection) of Lazarus in John 11,
"believing" is used in two senses. Jesus said "Whoever
believes in Me will live, even though he dies" (11:25). Then
He asked Martha: "Do you believe this?" It’s very important
to distinguish between two kinds of believing here. Each has a
different object. In the first statement, the object of faith
is Himself, in the second, it’s a doctrine (about the future resurrection).
Now it’s important to believe orthodox Christian doctrines (no
one should have the audacity to improve on what Jesus and the
apostles have handed down to us!), but it’s far more important
to believe in Jesus! To believe in the first sense but not the
second may even be demonic, James tells us (2:19). Here, in Mark,
the disciples had problems with both sorts of believing. They
wouldn’t believe the story told by those who had seen Jesus; and
so they couldn’t move onto the next step of believing in Jesus
Himself. No wonder Jesus "scolded" them.

Second, there is an emphasis on preaching. Note that
"going" is not emphatic here, preaching is. In both
Mt and Mk the "great commission" ought to read: "As
you go into all the world (that is taken for granted) preach the
good news to everyone". Our Lord takes it for granted that
His church will have a missionary zeal! And what’s the good news?
Simply that Jesus has died and risen again. Our three basic "existential"
needs are met in the risen Christ. We can know we are loved –
He died for us. We can know we are forgiven – He died for our
sins. We can know we have eternal life – He rose again to give
us life. (Note: baptism (16:16) is the appropriate outward expression
of an inward faith. Condemnation, it must be stressed, is for
those who do not believe; while baptism is the proper accompaniment
of belief in Christ, lack of it does not lead to condemnation,
otherwise we would be guilty of espousing a new legalism. Of course,
it goes without saying that baptism without faith has no saving
power either).

Third, Jesus talks about miracles. A miracle is something
which "creates faith". An unbiassed reading of the NT
encourages us to believe that miracles were quite "normal"
occurrences in those days. That wasn’t always so: in the OT, as
C S Lewis puts it, they happen usually around the great "ganglions
of spiritual history" – the Exodus-event, and the times of
Elijah and Elisha. If Jeremiah or Isaiah had "expected a
miracle a day", for example, they might have been disappointed.
However, as Lewis says again, "the mind which asks for a
non-miraculous Christianity is a mind in process of relapsing
from Christianity into mere ‘religion’. God is at work in wonderful
ways in various parts of the world today. All the miraculous powers
Jesus mentions here have been happening at various times throughout
apostolic and later Christian history. Some Christians have an
unhealthy preoccupation with the miraculous. Others have the opposite
problem: their God – and their faith – aren’t big enough to "do
signs and wonders" in our day.

Our joyous affirmation is that Jesus is alive! We
join our hearts and voices with those ancient Christians whose
Easter salutation was: "He is risen, indeed!" He’s alive
today – amongst us – still with "His ancient power",
the same yesterday, today, and forever. Alleluia!