Talk about a cliffhanger! With an ending like that, I could imagine St. Mark as a screenwriter for just about any TV drama or soap opera in this day and age.

A cliffhanger such as this is calculated to make the reader ask "What happened next?" A good story, after all, is compelling; it draws us in and speeds us forward with it.

A cliffhanger such as this is also calculated to be intensely disappointing, even unsatisfactory. Mark's cliffhanger leaves the hearer straining for some sort of resolution. It's like cutting off a familiar tune just before the final note. Let me give you an example; feel free to provide what's missing: "Happy birthday to ---" [you.] That's right. Without that final note, things feel incomplete, so much so that you just can't stand it, so much so that you're compelled to provide the final note yourself.

And that's exactly what happened in Mark's case. Some early Christians couldn't stand the fact that Mark's gospel ends, essentially, without an ending; in fact, in the Greek text the last word is "for," as if Mark was cut off in the middle of a sentence. And so these early Christians began to provide endings for it. The canonical text that has come down to us has both a shorter and a longer ending, but I am convinced that they are later accretions, inserted to give the gospel a resolution, a happy ending, if you will, consonant with the other gospels. All the other gospels have post-resurrection appearances, after all, so why shouldn't Mark?

The problem with adding an ending to Mark's non-ending, though, is that whatever ending you put on this gospel would only serve to let the hearer off the hook. But as it now stands, the way this gospel ends demands a response from us. So this morning, I want us to stick with the ending as Mark presents it here, for in its abrupt and disturbing way, it calls us to a deeper and ultimately more joyful response than the happiest of endings ever could.

Because this gospel demands of us a response, I can't do this alone. I'm sorry to put you all on the spot, but in seeking some halfway decent mode of preaching on this text, I was reminded of the old call-and-response sermons of my boyhood. Maybe you've seen the movie "The Apostle," in which there's a scene where two preachers in tag-team fashion ask: "Who's the King of Kings?" and the congregation responds in one voice "Jesus." "Before Abraham was, was who?" "Jesus" "Who's the First and the Last?" "Jesus." So it hit me: in the Anglican tradition, we have our own version of call and response. I'll give you an example. Help me out here if you can:

The Lord be with you.
[And also with you.]
or,
Lord, in your mercy,
[Hear our prayer.]
or,
Alleluia. Christ is risen.
[The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.]

You get the idea. And I've got an idea I'd like to try out this morning; it may fall flat, but given everything Jesus has done for me, I'm more than willing to take a small risk for him.

Take a look at the back of your bulletin insert; see the very last sentence? Every time I quote from the end of Mark, saying "they said nothing to anyone," I would like you to respond by completing the sentence, namely "for they were afraid." Just four little words, but I need them nice and clear. Let's try it. Ready?

V. They said nothing to anyone
R. For they were afraid.

Good. Here we go, for real this time:

They came expecting to find a corpse; being observant Jews, they waited out the night, and "When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him." They came hoping to anoint his body as one anoints a king for burial, but they did not expect a resurrected Lord, and so:

V. They said nothing to anyone
R. For they were afraid.

The most they hoped for was some Roman officer or strong peasant to take pity on them and consent to open the tomb, for "very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another 'Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?'" Their biggest obstacle was a cold, hard rock. They hardly expected to move cold, hard death itself, and so in the end:

V. They said nothing to anyone
R. For they were afraid.

"When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back." At first, they might have suspected grave-robbers; this was a rich man's tomb, after all, donated by Joseph of Arimathea. But when they realized it was God's own hand that had rolled away the stone,

V. They said nothing to anyone
R. For they were afraid.

But that's just the beginning of their fear. For "as they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed." It probably wouldn't have mattered what this heavenly messenger had said at that moment, for whatever it was,

V. They said nothing to anyone
R. For they were afraid.

"But he said to them, 'Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him." The women could sense immediately that he had authority, for he sat at "the right side," like God's "right-hand man." He already knew what they were doing there, and who they were looking for; and even though his first words to them were "do not be alarmed," still

V. They said nothing to anyone
R. For they were afraid.

The next words this man in white spoke were words of hope and reconciliation, yet all the more frightening because of their unexpectedness: "But go, tell his disciples and Peter" -Peter, the one who had denied Jesus three times-"that [Jesus] is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you." The women, faithful to the end, more faithful even than Peter and the disciples, at the last moment cracked under the weight of grief. They were unable after all the tears, the bitterness, the hopelessness, to hear the word of hope, unable to carry out even a message of reconciliation. And who can blame them? After all they had been through "they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and…"

V. They said nothing to anyone
R. For they were afraid.

Fear. In the "fight or flight" mechanism embedded in every living creature, fear is its trigger. So it is no wonder that, confronted with a reality that defied comprehension, these first Christians should flee from the empty tomb. I, too, have had my moments of flight, when I have run away from the empty tomb, when I have been too afraid to proclaim the resurrection. Most of the time, though, it is not for fear of the empty tomb or amazement at the good news, but for fear of what people will think of me. I suspect the same may be said of most of us. What about you? What about us? How will our faith be judged? At the end of our lives, will people say of us:

V. They said nothing to anyone
R. For they were afraid.

Will we be more afraid of being judged as wanting in tact or sophistication or wisdom by our neighbors than we are of being judged as wanting in Christian love? Will we subscribe to the beguiling notion that one's "Religion" should be kept private? Or isn't faith important enough to want to share with those whom we love? "I don't want to impose my beliefs on others," I've heard it said. Well, believe it or not, neither do I-I would not preach at all if I disrespected you so much as to think you incapable of resisting the "imposition" of my beliefs, should you so choose. Don't let yourself off the hook so easily; most of the time, when we demur on the grounds of another's supposed discomfort, we are only projecting our own onto that person. Rather than projections, the ending of Mark's gospel offers an uncomfortable reflection. St. Mark holds up a mirror for us, showing us that we've got it easy by comparison. We refrain from sharing our resurrection faith out of embarrassment, whereas the women fled from the empty tomb out of terror and amazement, and at first, at least,

V. They said nothing to anyone
R. For they were afraid.

Yet do not despair. Mark's gospel is not just about failing. Seeing our flawed reflection as if in a mirror is hardly "good news." Rather, the overwhelming good news of Mark's gospel is that even when we do fail Christ, Jesus never fails us. Jesus never fails us; even death cannot hold him. The resurrected Jesus is always going on before us, "to Galilee"-in Mark an important symbol both of "the home front," for it is where the disciples were first called at the beginning of the gospel, and of "the margins of society," for Galilee was the border between Jews and Gentiles, a region in which both groups mixed, albeit uneasily at times.

So we, too, are called both to find Jesus at home and on the margins (not merely in one place or the other, but in both), where Jesus goes before us. Jesus is faithful in accomplishing his purposes on earth even when we fail, always calling us back into fellowship with him, always loving us-in our failings, our terrors, our amazements, our embarrassments, and our fears. Even though there's no "happy ending" to Mark's gospel, it is a consolation to know that Jesus reaches out to us beyond the cross and empty tomb, even when we are running away, even when others accuse us, even when preachers put us on the defensive, saying

V. They said nothing to anyone
R. For they were afraid.