As Jon Meacham so beautifully puts it in his recent article in Time magazine, it is “acts of selflessness and love that bring God’s sacred space and grace to a broken world suffused with” suffering. He also notes that Paul’s 15th chapter about resurrection in his first letter to the Corinthians ends with these words: “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
The story of Jesus did not end with his death on a cross. It was to be continued. At the Resurrection. And the story does not end there, either. The women run away in terror and amazement. They trust the words that Jesus is going ahead of them to Galilee. Where their story is to be continued. And could it be that Mark ends his Gospel abruptly at verse 8 because the story is to be continued…. not only by the disciples but by his readers, by you and me, and our acts of selflessness and love that are always bringing reality a little closer to God’s dreams for our world.
Mark begins his Gospel as suddenly as he ends it. He doesn’t include any stories of Jesus’ birth but begins immediately with Jesus’ Baptism and this first line: “The beginning of the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Could it be that Mark’s Gospel does not really end at verse 8 at all? That in fact his Gospel is the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, and we are those who continue the story as we set out on the path of discipleship? The story is to be continued, through the quality of our loving, and by our choices to live with fidelity, forgiveness, faith, and conscience in spite of everything in the world that suggests they aren’t true. The good news of Easter is that if Christ is Risen, the story is not over–it is to be continued-by you and by me.
