The Shorter Ending

This afternoon, I attended a funeral of the wife of one of my ministry colleagues and the man who shared the message in the service focused on the last chapter of Mark, which I happened to read this morning.  He spoke to one of the things that I have felt for a long time about the ending of Mark (which has three endings btw - kind of like the LOTR movies).  It is likely that the original sharing of Mark’s Gospel ended with verse 8.  So after the women find the stone rolled away, they get a message from a person (angel) there that Jesus has been raised and then there’s this verse...

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.

The other endings of Mark wrap up the story a lot more nicely.  There’s a commissioning, an encounter with Jesus, references to other appearances, etc.  I’m not saying those things didn’t happen but I love this ending because it just so fits the reality of life.  There are moments of amazement and there are moments of fear.  There are moments like this sunrise I saw Sunday morning...

...and then there are ones like this from the same place this morning.

And then if I went out to that same place tomorrow morning, it (based on the forecast) would be fully cloudy and grey.

As my friend Lisa shares so often, it’s all in there.  So as was experienced in the funeral today, there was a lot of grief and a lot of tears, but there was also laughter and joy in the stories shared and the hope that was proclaimed.

So, I’m ok with ending this Gospel with the shorter ending because it feels pretty honest.  And after all, if I was one of those women at the tomb and I left it I might react in the exactly the same way - fear and amazement!