Good Morning Friends,
Did you know that someone changed the ending of Markβs Gospel? That it ended abruptly with fear and trembling and everyone being scared out of their minds? I wonder why someone changed it? And I wonder if the actual ending might be much more encouraging than the fake one?
Peace and βοΈ,
Glenn || PATREON / BUY ME A COFFEE
After the 8th verse of Mark 16 my Bible has an interesting note (yours should too) - "some of the earliest manuscripts do not include 16:9-20". In other words, it seems that the end of Mark's Gospel (verses 9 through 20) were added sometime later.
Why?
Well, when the story ends in verse 8 it does so very abruptly. The 2 Mary's go to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body and discover he isn't there. As we've heard in countless Easter sermons, an angel appears before them and tells them not to be alarmed, but to head to Galilee where they will find the Risen Jesus.
According to Mark's Gospel, though.
... the earliest manuscripts, at least ...
They don't go to Galilee.
They don't skip out of the tomb and celebrate.
But.
Instead.
Verse 8 says that, "they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid."
And that's the end of the story. The next verse, verse 9, that was added later (likely by a Scribe) has Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene and her going to tell others that he's alive and then Jesus appearing to the disciples and then a Great Commission of sorts ... everything gets tied up in neat bow and the story goes on as we've been told it happened.
BUT.
The original writer of Mark's Gospel didn't have that ending. Instead, his story ended abruptly with those closest to Jesus running away and hiding - seized by "trembling", "astonishment", and fear.
Perhaps the Scribe didn't feel like that was a good way to end the story? Perhaps some Scribe somewhere in history felt that followers of Jesus would be better followers of Jesus if they had a more inspiring story to read?
OR.
Perhaps the church leaders around that Scribe pressured the Scribe to come up with a halfway decent story so that the people in their churches wouldn't have an excuse to run away from their congregations and buildings, but would have a model that showed them how to come back from their fear, how to stick by things that are hard, how to stay ... in their churches?
After all, it's hard to build a church and build a religion and build a system if you have people running away being seized by trembling and astonishment and fear ... right? It's much easier to manipulate people into staying if you can hit them with some verses from the "Holy Word of God" and say something like, "I know you want to run away and I know that you don't want to be here anymore and I know you feel just like those 2 Mary's did - and yes, they did run away and they did hide ... but read the rest of the story - they came back, in a sense! Jesus appeared to them and they went on to continue to follow him and build up his following! So be like the Mary's - be afraid, but don't let fear take you away from God's church!"
I'm just kidding.
Or am I?
Ahh maybe I'm being too critical of the church this morning, but it's an interesting theory, no? Perhaps Scribes were pressured to add an ending to Mark's Gospel that made it easier for them to keep people in their congregations or churches of pews or whatever they had way back then, and (as a result) keep the tithes, offerings, and cash coming in too.
Whatever the case, I don't know about you but I like the ending of Mark's Gospel just the way it was, with it ending in verse 8. And I like it because it makes the Mary's feel much more human and the whole bunch of Jesus followers, really, feel much more human too.
It makes me feel like it's OK to be afraid.
Like it's OK to have doubts and fears.
And to not feel very much like following God or Jesus or Christ or the Divine or whatever through the hard questions, doubts, and uncertainties about him and all that I've been taught about God that seem to fill my heart and my mind.
So that's what I wanted to share today.
The end of Mark's Gospel has the Mary's showing up at the tomb and running away to hide in fear when they find that everything is not how they expected it to be. And so, today, know that when you begin to discover that things like ...
The doctrine of hell.
The doctrine of atonement.
The cross.
Salvation.
The End Times.
The inerrancy of the Bible.
LGBTQ exclusion.
... When you show up at these places and discover that all is not as you were taught it is and you discover that Jesus isn't in these dead tombs, these dead doctrines and theologies, that there are many other ways to think about them than the narrow way you were taught ... it's OK to be afraid.
YES.
It's OK to feel like your world is falling apart, it's OK to feel astonished that there are many other ways to think and to believe, it's OK to run away and hide under the covers of your mind for a while and not come out until you're good and ready.
It's OK to run away from those tombs ...
When you come to realize that Jesus is not found in the dead doctrine of hell, it's OK to run away from it and never look back.
When you find out that Jesus isn't in the dead theology of LGBTQ exclusion, it's OK to run away and never look back.
When you find out that Jesus isn't in the dead tomb of atonement theories and God is angry theologies, it's OK to run away and never look back.
... You may not know where you're going yet, but you know that you no longer want to be in the middle of a cold, empty tomb that is void of the Divine.
And so it's OK to leave and never look back.