The Anglican Parish of Banyule

Sermon preached by Peta Sherlock
Sunday April 20th – Easter Day 2003
at St Andrew's Rosanna

We are in the Year of Mark for most of 2003 and it is a good year to be in, we are reading Mark's Gospel, and so last Sunday we read in church the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Mark, and this week, we read the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Mark.

Last week, if you were listening carefully, you would have heard one of the distinctives of Mark's Gospel, about a young man who was in the garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was arrested, and who ran away naked when the guards apparently tried to grab him. The word for "young man" is a particular Greek noun, and today the same word appears in the resurrection account, when the women find a young man sitting at the tomb. (Matthew has angels, Luke has two men, John has sightings of Jesus himself, but Mark has this one young man clothed in white.) It is a fair guess that it is the same young man as the one who lost his clothes a day or two ago: who he is exactly, we don't know, but it could well be Mark, John Mark, the young man who some years later travelled round the Mediterranean with St Paul. If you know THAT story, Paul reckoned that Mark was a failure as a missionary, so he sent him home and refused to work with him again. It was the good and kind Barnabas, the encouraging one, who took Mark under his wing. We can make another scholarly kind of guess that this man wrote the gospel with his name. So here is the young man who lost his clothes in the garden of Gethsemane, in the garden of the resurrection, fully clothed again in white, probably John Mark the failed missionary.

I tell you that story because Mark's gospel is full of slow, dimwitted, faithless, betraying, denying disciples. AND JESUS STILL LOVES THEM AND CALLS THEM TO FOLLOW HIM AND CARRY OUT HIS WORK. I was a missionary once, years ago, went to Taiwan with my husband and children and got quite depressed with the culture shock and had to come home after 6 months. A failed missionary. There's lots of us about but we don't talk about it much because it is embarrassing and it doesn't have much of that ring of victorious Christian living about it. But the experience taught me that what I do is not all that important in God's scheme of things: it is God's grace that matters.

So let's look at the story of Mark's resurrection. Women come to the tomb to anoint the body, wondering how to move the stone. But the stone is moved. How, we are never told. And it seems that the question in their minds about the stone is immediately replaced by so many others thoughts, they never come back to their original question.

And the tomb is empty. How, we are never told. There is no witness to exactly what happened. But there is a young man dressed in his Sunday best, telling the women that Jesus, who was crucified, is risen. They are invited to see the empty tomb. Then they are given instructions to tell the men and Peter to go to Galilee. So the women ran from the tomb and went and told the disciples what they had seen and what they had been told???? NO. 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.

So there you have Mark's resurrection. Matthew, Luke and John have sightings of Jesus. Mark has only an empty tomb, an anonymous young man (who is probably the failed missionary, John Mark as a young lad), and women who are so scared they run away and don't pass on the message of the resurrection to anyone.

And that, good people who have gathered at St Andrew's Rosanna this Easter Day 2003, that is the gospel, the good news according to St Mark. It's not much of a resurrection is it? Empty tomb, scared and silent women as witnesses. It is such a poor version of the resurrection that later scribes came along and tried to help by lifting bits from other gospels and inserting them at the end. But the real, the original Mark's gospel ends with fear and silence.

BUT IT IS GOOD NEWS. Because the gospel somehow got out! The good news was somehow made known. Someone among the frightened ones and the failures must have let something slip. And in the end Mark's gospel reminds us that it is not how we perform as disciples that really matters, it is what God does. This is God's good news we have to share at Easter, and the news will get out, no matter how scared you and I are, no matter how many times we fail to speak up about our faith, or how many times we make a mess of sharing the good news, it is God's gospel and the truth will out.

We are about to light taper candles from the Easter candle, the sign of the new life we have in Jesus Christ. We will light them (and hold them upright so they don't drop wax on you or the carpet and pews, and renew our baptism vows, and remind ourselves that we are commanded by Jesus to shine as a light in the world to the glory of God the Father. But I want first to remind you that baptism is not so much about whether and how much you believe in God but whether and how much God believes in you! AND THAT IS A VERY LARGE PIECE OF GOOD NEWS.

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