I preached last Sunday at a local methodist church here in the Durham circuit. It was deemed worthy, and I moved from being ‘On Note’ to ‘On Trial’ as as part of the lay preaching vetting process. For this sermon they require you to preach out of Mark because of the training module that goes with this stage of the process. Since we’re in the Easter season I picked Mark 16.1-8.
I was struck at how odd this passage is. Lost portion of manuscript or intentional ending? The thing I thought was most interesting was that the angel/young man told the women to do two things: 1) don’t be afraid and 2) go tell the others what he said. And 16.8 reads: ‘So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.’ So, Mark has them not doing either one. Interesting.
P.S. We moved last week, and are almost done unpacking all the boxes and re-organising everything. Thanks especially to Heather’s mom, who had a previously planned trip here and has spent most of it cleaning and organising.
Monday, 4 May 2009 at 3:27 pm
Ben
I had to preach on this selfsame passage on Easter Sunday and managed to make a total and utter hash of it. It was a case of ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time’ but as I actually prepared it was hard work.
It is a strange ending and after enlightening the congregation to a few of the nuances and options managed not to edify them very much at all and that for too long. The redemming feature of the service was singing ‘See What a Morning…’ the new-ish Easter Hymn by Stuart Townend.
I focussed on the announcment of the ‘young man’ which seemed to me to imply four things: 1 that the empty tomb has an explanation: Jesus is raised; 2 that Jesus still loves Peter and his disciples; 3 that Jesus will be somewhere – this body is real it has a place; 4 He will be seen – we’re not shown the risen Christ, but we are told he is alive and will appear.
I also tackled the fear thing which is interesting: Why? Three suggestions: 1 Anointing a criminal was a subversive act; 2 They met the young man in the dark – not the dead Jesus as they expected;
3 They had met something that no-one had met before – a crucified man alive.
As you can imagine, by the time we’d done all that people were tired of thinking and just wanted to be happy that it was Easter, so I’d kinda missed the chance to send everyone out rejoicing… we had to content ourselves with coffee with Easter cookies and Creme Eggs for the kids!
Happy Easter anyway
Mark
PS: So sorry to hear about your previous landlord and all the hassle – how dreadful! So glad you go a new place fixed up.