Given By Rev. Madison Shockley April 1 2018
Happy Easter! The Gospel of Mark was the first to be written and stand as a foundation for the other gospels. The story of the empty tomb is a simple one. Several women arrive to prepare Jesus for burial and find an empty tomb. A white-robed man tells them to go tell the disciples to go to Galilee where he (Jesus) would meet them. The women instead ran in terror. Mark seems to write this gospel as a mystery/drama with an important question for the reader at the end. His question was simple, what will you do? Throughout the gospel, the disciples are shown to be selfish, powerless, a bit power-hungry, treacherous, and cowardly. They were silent during his trial and absent from the crucifixion. Jesus was not alone though. There were the women who followed at a distance. Mark tells us that it was the women that helped finance Jesus’s ministry. They proved to be the most faithful of the disciples. Yet they came to the tomb ready to bury their hope in Jesus’s ministry. Instead of rejoicing, they ran in terror and told no one of what they saw. Today, we are still asked, what will you do? Are you afraid? Do you believe that love and hope died in that tomb? Is the Empire of God buried in that tomb? Jesus is still alive in us today! We are the body of Christ! Tell the world!
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