Mark 16:1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Sa-lome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?" 4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 6 "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has been raised! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.'" 8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
Introduction: Bad Endings
Have you ever watched a movie that had such a bad ending that it made you regret even watching the movie in the first place? Which movie has the worst ending you’ve ever seen? I think if you gathered all Bible commentators together in a giant room and asked, “Which book of the Bible has the worst ending?” it would be unanimous. Mark—winner by a mile. Almost nobody likes the ending of Mark.
If you ask for the best ending, Revelation might come out on top. That’s a fantastic ending. So satisfying. But Mark—the Church has always struggled with his ending, even as early as the 100’s, not that long after it was written. The Church has been so unsatisfied with the ending of Mark, there have been multiple efforts to fix it. There’s a longer one that’s probably printed in your Bible, but scholars are almost unanimous that nothing we have after v.8 was written by Mark.
But there is still debate over whether Mark intended more. Many scholars say either the real ending got lost or Mark died before he could finish up. There’s no manuscript ev-idence for that—they just argue that no one in his right mind would end a gospel with verse 8.
Mark 16:8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
The end.
What kind of ending is that?
I’ll tell you what kind of ending it is—it’s the ending God gave us. It’s what we have. And even if Mark did write more, the Holy Spirit didn’t see fit to preserve it for us.
And if we just study what God gave us instead of second-guessing it… , I think we’ll find that these eight verses are a powerful and brilliant way to end the book. And ending it this way provides a crucial insight that we don’t get as clearly with the other gospels but that we desperately need.
Part 1: The Quest for the “Historical” Jesus
Let me just show you how Mark organizes the material, and you can judge for your-self. Mark tells the story in 5 distinct sections. We’ll go through each one and then step back and see how they’re arranged. Section 1 is the first verse.
Mark 16:1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body.
Unbelief
It’s the first day of the week and they’re expecting to find his corpse. There is a fa-mous book by Albert Schweitzer titled The Quest for the Historical Jesus. When the liber-als say, “the historical Jesus,” what they mean is the real man as opposed to the mythical Christ of faith. The Christ of faith who came from heaven and performed miracles and rose from the dead—that’s all myth. But Schweitzer and other liberals are on a quest to discov-er the normal, natural man, who was just a regular human being with nothing supernatural about him and who is dead and gone.
I bring that up because the title of Schweitzer’s book could be the title of verse 1. Why do the women buy spices? Because they are on a quest to find the same kind of Jesus as Albert Schweitzer—a man who died and stayed dead.
That’s unbelief. Jesus said he’d rise, he said it would happen on the third day… , he said it plainly and clearly, and here these women expect to find his dead body in the tomb on the third day. They loved him; they just didn’t trust him. They didn’t believe his words.
So when the Sabbath ended (sundown on Saturday night), the shops open and these la-dies go buy the spices. But they don’t want to go to the tomb in the dark, so they wait until morning.
2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb.
Part 2: The Ominous Invitation
That’s section 1—the women set out for the tomb in unbelief. Part 2 is all about the stone (vv.2-4).
3 and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?"
Who Will Roll the Stone?
Those stones were 5 or 6 feet in diameter, and Mark says in the next verse that this one was especially large. They were pushed down an incline against the entrance, so to re-move it, you have to pull it uphill. Not something three women could do. If only they had a group of, say, eleven men there to help them. But the Apostles are all in the wind, so they’re on their own.
And asking for help could be a problem. The Romans had the death penalty for anyone removing a body from a tomb… , so it might be a little awkward walking up to strangers and saying, “Hey, will you help us open up this grave?
Come on In
So what’s the answer to their question? Who will roll the stone away for them? The answer ends up being really important. But instead of telling us, Mark wants to show us.
As they walk, the night shadows are starting to give way to the beginnings of dawn. It’s just light enough that they can see a little bit. They’re downcast, dejected, walking with their heads down, and when they get close they look up and—oh my.
4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away.
Wow. Who did that? They’re about to meet him.
We’re 12 hours into the first day of the week, so Jesus is long gone. It wouldn’t sur-prise me if he was up and out of there at 6:05 on Saturday night.
But the women don’t know any of that yet. All they know is this looks really sketchy. The tomb is open? The stone is way over there? What’s going on here?
Can you imagine how scary that would be? Obviously a bunch of strong guys were here—or maybe still inside. Or something supernatural? The spookiness of the whole sce-ne combined with the morning chill and send shivers through these women.
So what do they do? I love verse 5.
5 As they entered the tomb …
Hollywood has a trope in horror movies. The characters in horror movies always make decisions no sane person would make just because the writers want to ramp up the tension. There’s a hilarious Geico commercial that makes fun of that. A group of young people are running from a chainsaw murderer, and one of them says, “Why don’t we just get in that car and drive away!” And another one says, “Are you crazy? Let’s hide behind the chain-saws in the shed!” So they all go and crouch behind the chainsaws. And the murderer is standing right behind them and takes off his mask and just shakes his head. Then the voiceover comes on and says, “When you’re in a horror movie, you make bad decisions—it’s what you do” and then goes on to talk about Geico. And then the commercial ends with the teens running away from the shed and one of them says, “Let’s head for the cemetery!”
Every time I read verse 5, I think of that commercial. It’s dark, the huge stone is tossed aside, the tomb is standing open, no one is around. There are no lights in the tomb, so they’re looking at the opening to a cave that’s pitch black inside… —scariest situation you can imagine, and what do they do? Run away?
5 As they entered the tomb …
Mark just rachets up the tension. Something tells me Mary Magdalene went first. She ducks down, steps inside, holds up her lantern expecting to see a body wrapped up in lin-en… , and instead she sees someone sitting up looking back at her. And v.5 says they were alarmed. I guess!
Mark is showing us the answer to their question. Who will remove the stone? And an-gel. He was opening the door and inviting them in—that’s part 2 of the story. Part 1, they travel toward the tomb in unbelief. Part 2, The angel invites them in by moving the stone. Now part 3, which is v.5.
Part 3: The Angel
5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said.
That’s the first giveaway that this is an angel—they always say that. This scene has all the earmarks of an angelic encounter.
Young Man
Mark calls him a young man. Bible writers often describe angels from the observer’s point of view and they often use this term translated “young man.” A man in the prime of his strength. That term is frequently used in the Bible to refer to a champion or a mighty warrior. So don’t think of some gangly teenager. More like a Navy Seal.
White Robe
The second description Mark gives is his white robe, also common in heavenly visita-tions. And the only other time Mark uses the word “white” in the whole book is at the transfiguration to describe Jesus clothes shining like the sun. In Luke’s account at the tomb it says the angels’ clothes gleamed like lightning.
Right Side
Then he says he’s seated on the right side. The right side of what? Evidently, it doesn’t matter. It just matters that he’s seated on the right side, the place of honor.
There are only two other places in Mark where someone is seated at the right side. Both times it’s Jesus, seated at the right side of the Father.
This angel has the same clothes as Jesus had in his glory at the transfiguration… , and the same lingo of Jesus’ exalted status is used of this angel. I believe the point here is that this angel is there representing Jesus. Matthew tells us was the angel of the Lord, who appears many times in the Old Testament representing Yahweh. So this angel is there representing Jesus, so that every word out of his mouth is the word of Christ himself. It’s an angel representing Jesus—that’s part 3. Now part 4, where the angel speaks.
Part 4: Sending Out the Women
The Angel’s Knowledge
6 … You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified.
If they haven’t already figured out this is an angel, he removes all doubt by showing he has supernatural knowledge of everything that’s going on. I know why you’re here. I know what you want. And I know everything that’s happened. He even quotes word-for-word what Jesus said to the disciples in private.
Mark 14:27 "You will all fall away," Jesus told them, "for it is written: "'I will strike the shep-herd, and the sheep will be scattered.' 28 But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee."
Misguided Looking
And it’s a bit of a rebuke. When he says, “You are looking for Jesus,” that word trans-lated “looking” is used ten times in Mark, and every time it’s a bad thing. They are looking for Jesus on the third day in the one place he told them again and again he wouldn’t be. Truth that is only half understood, however plainly spoken, is always forgotten when the time comes to apply it.
He’s Been Raised
But then the angel reveals the good news.
6 … He has been raised! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.
Tomorrow, worship leaders all over the world will say, “He is risen!” and the people will respond with, “He is risen indeed!” But did you know the Bible never actually says that? Every time where you read “He has risen” in your Bible (here, twice in Matthew, and twice in Luke), it’s always in the passive voice. The literal translation would be “he has been raised.” The Father raised him. Yes, Jesus had the authority to lay down his life and take it up again (Jn.10:18), but more important than that is the fact that God raised him up. It’s important because it shows that God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice and honored him by raising him from the dead.
Romans 1:4 Jesus Christ our Lord, who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead.
He was already God’s Son, but when the Father raised him, it was a powerful, earth-shattering declaration of his sonship.
So this angel tells the women, “Don’t be upset. The things you’re upset over things you should be rejoicing over! What you see as a disaster (the tomb empty on the third day) is the best news ever! Sometimes it’s so painful when God doesn’t give us what we so des-perately want… , and we don’t realize it’s because what he has for us is so much better.
Jesus is the Christ
And this angel leaves no room whatsoever for this idea that the historical Jesus was one thing and the “Christ of faith” is something else. The angel points to where the corpse was and says, “See where he was?” He’s not there anymore. He uses the most earthy, hu-man way of referring to Jesus—Jesus the Nazarene… —Jesus from backwater hickville, who was crucified, the one whose body was lying right there, the man—he’s the one who was raised. Same person. And when he says, “He’s not here,” what wasn’t there? The body. The thing that was buried was the same thing that was raised—no room or some spiritual-ized “resurrection” that wasn’t physical.
There’s really no getting around the fact that the gospel writers wrote what they wrote as actual history. The gospel accounts don’t read like myths or legends, which have a very clear style. The gospel accounts are presented as historical fact.
The Commission
So the angel gives them the news, then he gives them a commission.
7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter.
Tell His Disciples
You women are to go and be the apostles to the Apostles. Before the Apostles’ could tell the world, the women had to tell the Apostles.
Tell them what? You might expect him to say, “Jesus said, ‘Tell those backstabbing cowards, it’s too late to apologize.” No.
7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.
Jesus is going to lead them as a shepherd again.
And Peter
And you can’t miss the “and Peter” part. That’s redundant, but necessary. If he hadn’t said this, no doubt there would have been some big debate in the years to follow about whether Peter could be restored. In fact, there was a big debate in the Church not long after this about whether people who have denied Christ could ever be allowed back in the church. Most churches finally decided that they could, but only after a long period of punishment and penance. The brothers and sisters in the pews can be merciless when you fall in ways they haven’t fallen.
That’s one reason Jesus needs to say this. Another reason is for Peter himself. You can just hear the enemy whispering in his ear, “Jesus warned you, you wouldn’t listen, you had your chance, you blew it. Don’t you dare show up at the Galilee reunion. He’s not going to want to see your face.”
We know right after it happened, Peter went out and wept bitterly. If he was that crushed then, can you imagine his weeping now after what they did to Jesus on the cross?
So Peter is off by himself somewhere, in the pit of darkness, coming right up to the brink of going the way of Judas. Maybe he even brought a rope with him. Peter’s an in-tense man with intense emotions. When he’s up, he’s way up. But you can imagine, when he’s down, like this—that has to be about as dark as it gets.
His tears are dried up, maybe the only thing keeping him from putting that rope around his neck is that he’s paralyzed with grief.
Suddenly there’s a hand on his shoulder. It’s the soft touch of a woman, but the hand is trembling. It’s Mary Magdelene. She tells him the whole story. “He said if we go to Gali-lee, we’ll see him.”
Peter shakes his head. “You can go. Not me.”
“Peter, he said your name.” He looks up at her. “Yes, the angel spoke your name.”
One thing that stands out to me is how quickly Jesus restores Peter and the others. This is the very first thing God says through his angel. His highest priority is not to make sure they understand how bad they messed up. It’s to make sure they know how welcome they are to come back.
I always think of that line in the song, “He’s Alive” where Peter says, “Even if he was alive, it wouldn’t be the same.” Who knows what the exalted Christ will be like? He was patient with us during his humiliation, but now that he has been exalted into heaven, is he going to be more stern? Less accessible?
No. It doesn’t matter if he’s in the house at Bethany, or in the upper room… , or hang-ing on a cross, or lying in a tomb, or risen from the dead, or seated at the right hand of God. He is the same everywhere and always and he said, “I have loved you with an ever-lasting love.”
Just as He Told You
You know what I think might be the most encouraging words in this verse—even more than the “and Peter”? It’s the words, “Just as he told you.” Think about it—when did Jesus say those words about meeting up with them in Galilee? He said that immediately after he said they would all fall away. Jesus was talking about their restoration from their failure even before the failure happened.
When you have a really bad fall, it takes you by surprise, you thought you would never do something like that… , you’re defeated, you’re discouraged, you’re deflated, you feel like you’ve ruined everything… , and it’s natural to think God feels the same way. Like God is shocked, and he needs to work through it. And once he comes to terms with it, then you can start talking about how you could be restored. But that’s as wrong as it can be. Je-sus told these men about their restoration before they even fell.
God chose you to be his child before the foundation of the world. He chose you to be his with full knowledge of every sin you would ever commit against him your whole life… —including all the ones you don’t even know about because they are still in your future.
We are so prone to project our weak, fragile, fickle love onto God and imagine he will give up on us as easily as we give up on ourselves.
God is a person, and he responds in personal ways. We can do things that grieve him, anger him, or delight him. All that is true—God is responsive to us in positive and nega-tive ways. But we tend to imagine that our little fluctuations in loyalty have way more ef-fect than they do. Like the earth thinking its changes in season have an impact on the sun. God’s love is more stable than we can even imagine.
When Jesus required us to forgive 70 times 7 (the number of completeness squared and multiplied times ten)… —if that’s how many times God requires you to forgive oth-ers, how many times do you think God is ready to forgive you?
Not only is Peter included, but he’s actually given preference.
1 Corinthians 15:4 He was buried, he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.
He appears to Peter first, ahead of the others. Peter receives special grace because he committed special sin. And if that sounds backwards, it’s because we’re influenced by a world that values fairness above grace. Sometimes the Lord draws nearest to those who need him most, even if they deserve it the least.
And Me
One really cool thing about this is that if Peter’s name could be singled out, yours could too. Peter represents the worst of the disciples’ failures. And so if the angel would say, “Tell his disciples and Peter,” he would also say, “Tell his disciples and [fill in your name].” When you think you’ve gone too far, failed too much, fallen too severely, you can hear your name in the angel’s words. You’re invited back too.
Part 5: Fear and Disobedience
Okay, so let’s take a look at part 5. This is the ending no one likes—verse 8. Right af-ter the angel commands them to go and tell …
8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
The end.
Fled
The word translated “fled” is the same word used to describe the abandonment of the disciples when they fled in fear at Jesus’ arrest (14:50). All these terms are negative. Mark piles up the negative terms in describing their response. They were cowards at the cross and they are cowards at the resurrection.
And all that money they spend on those those spices was wasted. They went there to honor Jesus, but they dishonor him by disobeying. The only way to honor Jesus is through faith—by trusting him enough to obey him.
Afraid
But they don’t obey—why?
8 … They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
Afraid of whom? Some say their still freaked out about the angel, but that doesn’t make sense. If they’re afraid of the angel, they would say, “We don’t want to cross him. We better do what he says.”
What kind of fear would make them disobey and not tell anyone? Fear of people. They were afraid people would think they were crazy. “People will write us off as a bunch of gullible, hysterical women.” And they were right. Here’s what happened when they did finally get up the courage to go tell the Apostles.
Luke 24:10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.
And as the Apostles laughed, Mary said to Salome, “See. This is exactly what I was afraid of.” Two hundred years later, Celsus mocked Christianity as being based on “the gossip of women about the empty tomb.”
They were afraid of exactly the same things we’re afraid of when we don’t tell people about Jesus. Isn’t it true that we have read the Great Commission and immediately gone right out and bit our tongue when we had a chance to speak up for Christ because we were nervous about how it would come across?
Troubling Ending
So that’s the ending nobody likes. The whole story just … ends with fear and disobe-dience? And worse than that, a resurrection account with no appearances of Jesus? Jesus is the main character in every scene in the entire gospel, front and center every time… , but the most important scene of the entire book, the resurrection, and Jesus is nowhere to be seen? Mark couldn’t have meant to end his gospel this way, could he? Wouldn’t he put the most important part, the big climax at the very end?
The Structure
Meat in the Middle
Would he? What have we seen all through the book? Where does Mark like to put the climax? At the end? No—the middle.
The whole book is set up that way. The first half is about who Jesus is, the second half is why he came, and the climax—Christ in all his spectacular glory—that’s the center-piece. So Mark puts it in the mid point in the book - the transfiguration.
What about this section? I counted the Greek words in Mark’s resurrection account, and guess what’s right in the center… , with exactly 61 Greek words before it and 61 words after it. Verse 5.
Mark 16 is a chiasmus—where parts 1 and 5 go together, parts 2 and 4 go together, and the centerpiece is part 3.
A – The women go to the tomb in unbelief.
B – The angel invites the women in to tell them the news.
C – The appearance of the angel.
B1 – The angel sends the women out to tell the news.
A1 – The women flee from the tomb in unbelief.
And the centerpiece? The glorious angel who represents Christ.
The Three Complaints
And how does that structure solve the problem of Mark’s terrible ending? Well, let’s think about it. What are the complaints with Mark’s ending? It’s too abrupt, it’s too much of a downer, and no appearances of the risen Christ.
Stories as Parables
Too abrupt. Would Mark end a story abruptly? Mark is the king of abrupt endings. Chapter 1, Jesus is tested with an epic battle with Satan in the wilderness for 40 days. How did that turn out Mark? No comment—just moves on to the next story.
He stills the storm and the disciples say, “Who is this?” There’s your opportunity Mark—answer their question! Nope—right on to the next event.
Jesus asks, “How is it that the Messiah is the son of David, and yet David calls him Lord?” And we all scoot to the edge of our seats for the answer. And it’s like Mark just says, “Weird, huh?” and moves on to the next thing.
Mark’s strategy is to narrate what happened, but then end it in a way that turns the sto-ry into a kind of parable or riddle that forces you to think. He gets you leaning forward in your chair, then suddenly ends the story, leaving you with two options… : either think re-ally hard about the meaning or walk away without a clue.
Mark doesn’t want you to get to the end of his gospel and slam the book closed. He wants you to read the last verse and say, “Wait, what?” and start paging backward looking for insight.
It’s interesting—everyone who thinks Mark should have a longer ending has exactly the same idea of what it should say. The women eventually get up the courage to tell the Apostles, and later Jesus appears to them. We want Mark to say that because we all know that’s what happened, obviously, otherwise how would we all know?
But Mark’s not real big on stating the obvious. So many times the other gospel writ-ers will state something explicitly, but in Mark’s account, he just implies it and leaves it to the reader to figure it out. He likes to make things into riddles because it exposes who has spiritual eyesight and who’s blind.
The Messianic “Secret”
Probably the most famous riddle in Mark is what commentators call, “the messianic secret,… ” where Jesus keeps saying, “Don’t tell anyone about me.” It’s such a head-scratcher because it’s not a secret. Jesus’ revealed who he was in public and he did his miracles in public. It wasn’t secret.
But Mark won’t tell us why. He forces us to put the puzzle pieces together and figure it out. And by chapter 8, it all comes together. He didn’t want them telling others about him because without understanding the cross and resurrection, they would get it wrong.
The riddle of the last verse of the book is similar. It also involves not telling. But this time it’s different, because this time they are supposed to tell. But it’s still a riddle. Why won’t the women tell? If we understand the answer to the other riddle, that’s a clue to get-ting this one. Before they weren’t allowed to tell because they didn’t understand about Je-sus’ death and resurrection. Now the women fail to tell also because of confusion about Jesus’ death and resurrection—they still don’t believe.
Fear Persists until Faith
And that brings us to the 2nd complaint people have—why does Mark end with such a downer—disobedience and unbelief? Didn’t he know that would make us uncomfortable? Of course he did. We can’t close the book there, we need some resolution, so where does Mark point us with his structure? Back to the centerpiece in v.5. What’s the solution to fear and disobedience? Listen to the word of Christ through the angel.
What v.8 forces us to see is that even though the cross has happened and the resurrec-tion has happened… , we’re still not where we need to be until faith happens. He’s show-ing us that the cross doesn’t automatically transform anyone. Neither does the resurrec-tion. No one changes—not even the best disciples—until believe. Where does the resurrec-tion of Jesus get you prior to faith? Nowhere. And that forces us to look at ourselves and our own fear, doesn’t it? If those women never would have told anyone, the whole work of Christ really would have ended in disaster. And our silence and fear and cowardice will also be disastrous. And what is the solution? The centerpiece—believe the revealed Word of God.
No Appearances – Jesus’ Word Is Proof
The third complaint people have about Mark’s ending is the fact that there are no ap-pearances of the risen Christ. In the other gospels, those are the proof of the resurrection—the Apostles see Jesus with their own eyes.
So why doesn’t Mark give us that? He does. Again, go back to that centerpiece—the word of God through the angel.
6 He has been raised! … 7 He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.
That’s divine revelation. He said those post-resurrection appearances would happened, so they happened. And if that’s not enough, he reminds us that Jesus himself said it. You want proof of the resurrection? It was proved beyond a shadow of a doubt the moment Je-sus first prophesied it.
Mark has shown Jesus’ prophecies fulfilled to the letter again and again and again leading up to the cross. If Jesus said he would rise and appear to the Apostles, that settles it. And when God sends an angel from heaven to repeat it, that really settles it. And we know the angel said that because of the testimony of the women.
The accounts of Jesus appearing to the Apostles in a way that completely transformed them is compelling proof, but it’s not the best kind of proof. One thing we’ve learned in Mark is that the question of whether or not you will believe something depends not on how much proof or evidence you are given… , but rather it’s based on whether your eyes are open or blind. When you’re spiritually blind, Jesus can literally perform miracles right in front of your face and it won’t budge your heart.
And what tool does God use to open blind eyes? Usually not proof. The tool that has power to open blind eyes is the gospel—God’s Word. So Mark ends in a way that makes us lean forward and go back and search the book until we find he’s already given us the end of the story and the best proof of all… —the word of God through the angel and the word of Christ. Divine revelation is more reliable than what you see with your own eyes.
Remember what God said when he spoke from heaven at the Transfiguration? “This is my Son … listen to him.” The Moses and Elijah disappeared. Beyond even the law and the prophets, listen to my Son.
The book started with God’s message delivered through his messenger, John the Bap-tist. And it ends with God’s message delivered through this angel. And what Mark wants the reader to do with this ending is the very thing all the characters in the story refused to do—take Jesus’ prophecies seriously.
Finding Jesus Starts with Revelation
One last observation.
7 … There you will see him.
With all we’ve seen in this gospel on the theme of blindness and spiritual sight… , we can’t miss the implication of those words, “you will see him.” Not only will they see him physically; their eyes will be opened like the Centurion and they will see the Son of God. Even though they’ve walked with him for years, in Galilee they’re going to see him—really see him—for the first time. And it’s only after seeing Jesus that way that fear finally gives way to courage.
Conclusion
Do you see the beauty of Mark’s crazy ending? Every time you get to that hopeless ending in v.8, and it forces you back to the Word of Christ in v.5… , so what looks at first like a hopeless ending becomes an endless hope—perpetually cycling you back to his great and precious promises. Such a profound and powerful way to end the book. Especially when you remember who Mark is writing to—the persecuted believers in Rome. Do you think maybe some of them were at a place where they were trembling and bewildered and silenced by fear? How about us here in this room? What’s the solution to our times of be-wilderment and confusion and fear? Ask yourself, “Am I trusting him? Am I believing his words?”
He understands your weaknesses. He wasn’t thrown off by your most recent failure. He already has a plan in place to restore you from your next failure. And the plan is to draw you close to him.
The solution to our fear and confusion and anxiety is to see him. To have our spiritual eyes opened wider. And that will happen when we stop operating based on how things seem and go back to his words, think deeply about them, and believe.
