The Longer Ending

Mark 16:9-20

          
I have a question for you this morning. And an answer! But first an explanation.

           
In these weeks after Easter, in this season of Eastertide, we’re going to explore the resurrection experiences that the first followers had of the Risen Christ, beginning this morning in the Gospel of Mark. We’ll explore two experiences from the Gospels of John and Luke, actually, all in an attempt to understand more fully who we are actually going to meet in Jerusalem and what we are going to be called to do on Pentecost Sunday, May 24^th.

Got that? Ready to begin (again)? Okay, so, here’s the question: When is an ending not The End?

           
Let us pray …

And here’s the answer: An ending is not The End when Resurrection happens, when a Way of life that has been judged, condemned, and crucified by the world rises from a tomb intended to keep it sealed off from the world for eternity. And …

An ending is not The End when the Gospel of Jesus Christ stops in the middle of a verse. For such is the case with our Gospel of Mark.

Turn to page fifty-five in the New Testament section of your pew bibles, the Gospel of Mark, chapter sixteen, verse eight. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, the mother of the Sons of Zebedee arrived at the empty tomb and heard “a young man dressed in a white robe” proclaim that Jesus has been raised and is not there. They are told to “tell (the other) disciples and Peter to go to Galilee”, but as the first part of verse eight says, “They went out (instead) and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” The End …

Except, it’s not – you see that. The second part of verse eight – subtitled “the shorter ending of Mark” – follows “the end” in our bibles. This “verse 8b” was added no earlier than the fourth century CE, in the three hundreds, some three hundred years after the resurrection experience recorded in the opening verses of Mark’s sixteenth chapter.

But that’s still not the end, because then … “The longer ending of Mark” is included in our bibles beginning with verse nine and continuing through verse twenty. Listen then for the Word of God in these verses. Read Mark 16:9-20. The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

So, we’ve had some practice with these “bracketed” verses in our book of Holy Scripture, haven’t we? Back in week five of Lent, we explored some verses from John, that had brackets around them, about throwing stones. These brackets indicate that the verses within them were not in the earliest manuscripts of the writing, Mark in this case, but found their way into some manuscripts of the Gospel at a later date. The question then becomes, “why are they there" and "if they’re not 'original', can we find the Word (capital W) of God within them”. I decided we could and ended our reading saying as much. And you thanked God for God’s Word, so … We’ve decided we ought to explore this “longer ending” as if God has something to say to us through it. (A good decision, I think – whether you knew you were making it or not!).

Look … the biggest difference between Jesus of Nazareth and so many others who, in the centuries before and after him, spoke of the Kingdom/Kin-dom of God was that Jesus proclaimed that Kin-dom here, now. Others, before and after him and during his own time – including John the Baptizer, spoke of the “imminent” coming of the Kingdom. And you can proclaim an arrival “soon” for just about as long as you want to! But Jesus taught and shared, he revealed, the “actual” or “realized” Kingdom on earth right now. He did so by the way he lived and loved and shared and died. And while he was doing that, he did something else different, something remarkable. He empowered his followers to reveal that Kin-dom themselves, showing them the Way – the way to live, to love, to share, and to die. He taught them that they shouldn’t be waiting for God to act because God has acted. He taught them that God is waiting for them to act. The present Kingdom – the Kin-dom here, now – is a collaborative one. It’s here, but needs help. Would it happen without “God”? No. But, will it happen without believers? No.

Think about it. The other movements of Jesus' time, or movements of any time, that rely solely on the leader of that movement to succeed, end when that leader is removed – silenced, imprisoned, or killed. Such was the case with John the Baptist. His movement was stopped when Herod Antipas beheaded him. It may have lingered on in memory and sorrow for a while, but since it depended on John’s life, it ended with John’s death. Jesus shared, not just a vision or a theory, but a way of life – a practical day-to-day communal way of life – that was not dependent on just him and that, if believed and committed to, would not “die” with his death.

Why is that important? Because, that is why the last verse of the “original” Mark, verse eight-a, falls like a bomb on the expectations that the women will do what the angel asks them to do. The women, the first to realize that the Way of Christ revealed in Jesus is alive in them and the other disciples Jesus taught, fail to follow through. And that is simply not acceptable.

And so, the three resurrection appearances in our reading this morning are put in after The End.

Do you recognize them? They’re pieced together from accounts scattered in the other Gospels and in the Book of Acts. The appearance to Mary Magdalene in verses nine to eleven appear to be pieced together from John, chapter twenty. The two disciples on the road in Mark sixteen, verses twelve and thirteen, and the assembled disciples in verse fourteen echo the Road to Emmaus story and the gathering of the disciples in Luke twenty-four.  The commission to go to all the world in verse fifteen and following references Matthew’s twenty-eighth chapter and his Great Commission. And finally, the signs that will accompany the apostle’s teachings are found throughout the Book of Acts.

Now, I’ve always liked the short Gospel of Mark and its abrupt ending... “you figure it out,” the writer seems to be saying. The original ending of Mark, at verse eight-a, does put the ball in our court. It’s tantalizing on its own. The reader/hearers from the first century right up to us, must decide how the story will end for them, for us. Will we be afraid and silent, too? Or choose to “go to the world” with our Gospel? Mark didn’t explain how Jesus was conceived or born. He didn’t suggest he was “in the beginning” before creation. And he doesn’t feel the need to explain what we’re supposed to do after Jesus’ death beyond going to Galilee. That’s provocative and exciting on its own. What will we do?! What have we done?

But the longer ending of the Gospel of Mark brings the disciples, you and I, back onto the scene, recommissions us, and connects our story with the ongoing history of the Jesus movement that would become the Body of Christ on earth from here on out – the Church. So, I suggest, Ours is the longer ending. Always …

The questions of “what will we do / what have we done” still remains, though. The Kin-dom of God is here – no denying that if you are a follower of Jesus. And we’ve been empowered to do what Jesus did – reveal it!  We have experienced resurrection ourselves – last week, though long before.  And we came back this week. Our table is set to remind us once again of who we are and who we are supposed to follow. And we’ll be sent twenty minutes from now to proclaim the good news everywhere while God works through us, right now.

So, “The End” is not the end. – no matter where we put the amen in Mark  - or Matthew, Luke, and John.  It never is “the end” with the reality we call “God” at work in the world. So let’s keep moving on … and continue in the weeks ahead to experience Resurrection, understand it for our time, and prepare to receive the Holy Spirit.

Amen … for now.

Reverend Joel Weible, Pastor

Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church / April 12, 2026