Good Morning friends,
If you celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday, I hope it was a peaceful today. And if it wasn’t a peaceful day, I hope that you find some peace this day.
I poured myself some Starbucks Christmas Blend this morning and so I’m pretty high on life at the moment.
HA!
We’re putting up our Christmas tree today, it’s one of my favorite days of the year. I’ll send a few pictures tomorrow.
Much love and more ☕️,
Glenn || PATREON / BUY ME A COFFEE
In Mark 16:7 some women showed up at Jesus' tomb to anoint his body. When they arrived at the tomb, though, they came across a man dressed in white who told them that Jesus had gone ahead to "Galilee".
Now.
Lots of people assume that the young man was an angel because that's the way the story is told in other Gospel accounts, but Mark doesn't say that ... he simply says that a "young man" was there dressed in a "white robe".
Interestingly a "young man" dressed in a "linen cloth" shows up in chapter 14, as well, and fled the scene just as Jesus was arrested and dragged before Pilate.
Who is this young man?
Some say it was an angel.
Some scholars say perhaps it was the writer of Mark's Gospel.
Maybe an entirely made up figure.
We can't be sure, but I have some ideas. Maybe we'll explore it another day (cliff hanger, I know), but today while drinking my coffee I was stuck on the word "Galilee" and the young man's insistence that Jesus had risen from the dead to go ahead of the disciples and meet them there.
Galilee?
I was reading from Alexander John Shaia's book "Radical Transformation" this morning and he said something really interesting about the word "Galilee", he said that "a first century reference to Galilee customarily meant the entire region of the Sea of Galilee."
In other words, the young man dressed in white wasn't necessarily pointing the women to a particular spot as much as he was pointing them to the region around "the Sea of Galilee".
This is important.
If you've ever read Mark's Gospel you've likely picked up on a few themes that come through the stories of the text very, very clearly and one of those themes is that "the sea" is often used by Mark to describe a place or a state of chaos and disillusionment.
Right?
Think of Jesus calming the storm, a story that took place upon the raging Sea of Galilee. This is just one example, but a lot of the more chaotic scenes in Mark's letter take place on or around the Sea of Galilee, very often after Jesus and the disciples cross over from one side of the lake to the other.
(Interesting side note, some scholars think Mark might have invented the Sea of Gailee because outside of his text and the other Gospel writers who used his text as a source for their own ... there is no ancient writer before Mark who mentions the "Sea of Galilee" to reference the lake that is in the Galilee region of Palestine - perhaps yet another thought to explore at a later date ... the Bible is filled with so many interesting oddities, isn't it??)
Anyways, so the young man dressed in white tells the women that Jesus has gone ahead of them to Galilee, to this region or this area where a lot of the chaotic stories in Mark's Gospel take place.
I like this.
Because it made me think this morning that Jesus very often goes ahead of us, into the chaotic places that our lives very often take us.
My mom and I have this thing where we'll remind each other that "God is already there". Whenever one of us has to face something that we'd rather not face ...
A difficult conversation.
A dentist appointment (I'm horrified of the dentist, by the way).
Or some other situation that is causing our anxiety levels to rise through the roof.
... We'll remind each other to breath and to remember that God is already there - God has gone ahead of us into the anxiety infested place and will meet us there with peace and presence and resurrection ... with new life, with fresh eyes, with renewed perspective, with clarity.
Will it always turn out well?
Will it always go according to plan?
Will it always go the way we want it to?
No.
But we can be assured that we aren't alone in the midst of the chaos.
I don't have much to say to you today other than to encourage you in that whatever Sea of Galilee or place of chaos awaits you tomorrow or next week or next month or next year - The Christ is already there.
A doctor's appointment?
A surgery?
A court hearing?
That next family gathering? (Gulp)
That difficult phone call?
That hard conversation?
... It may feel chaotic and out of control, but the Spirit of The Christ is with you now as you journey towards that chaotic place AND the Spirit of The Christ is already there in that chaotic place, "preparing a place for you" (another interesting phrase we'll explore one day!), and ready to usher you into the storm and help you tap into and find your inner peace amidst the chaotic and out of control storms that rage around you.
"Do not be alarmed! Jesus has been raised. He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him."
Yes.
"There."
In the chaos.
In the fear.
In the anxiety.
"You will see him."
... And this is Good News.