Daily Reflection Friday in the Octave of Easter

The last two years have found today’s gospel passage from the great twenty-first chapter of John falling on my day for reflection. Rather than again try to add something else to what I’ve said before, I will instead speak here of tomorrow’s Gospel passage from Mark 16 which is known as the Long Ending to Mark’s gospel account. Most of the most ancient manuscripts we possess end Mark’s gospel account at verse 8 of chapter 16. One ancient text includes what has become known as the Short Ending to Mark and is a passage that does not have a verse number. It is usually included immediately following verse 16:8 but in brackets to indicate that it is not found in the other manuscripts.

The so-called Long Ending of Mark, the first part of which we hear at Saturday’s liturgy tomorrow, usually follows the Short Ending in most bibles. It is found in only some ancient manuscripts and it too is usually bracketed to indicate that most ancient authorities did not include it, as was also the case with the Short Ending which was found in only one.

In the text included in all ancient manuscripts we have, Mark 16:1-8, Mark tells us that Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome arrived at the tomb just after dawn with spices to anoint Jesus’ body. They wonder who will roll away the stone for them only to find the stone already rolled away. Upon entering the tomb, they see a “young man dressed in a white robe” who frightens them but tells them not to be afraid and that Jesus is risen and not there and that they are to go and tell the others (and Peter) that he has gone ahead of them to Galilee and will meet them there. The women then flee “in terror and amazement” and “they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

The Long Ending that follows this (Mk 16: 9-20) is very different. It is the only passage in the four gospel accounts that specifically states that Mary Magdalene was the first to see Jesus raised from death (although John 20 certainly very much describes just that without specifically stating it). When she tells the Apostles and the other disciples, they do not believe her. Luke also says that the women’s testimony was not believed. Then Mark briefly relates Luke 24:13-35, the Road to Emmaus story. However, in Luke, when Cleopas and the other unnamed disciple return to Jerusalem to tell the others, they are told that Jesus has also appeared to Simon Peter. But here in Mark, the two disciples (unnamed in Mark) are also not believed by the others when they tell them.

Finally, Jesus appears to them all in Galilee “at table” and rebukes them for refusing to believe the witnesses and for their “hardness of heart.” Thus, Mark is the only gospel account that so emphasizes this lack of faith among the Apostles immediately after the resurrection (although Matthew 28:17 famously states that when Jesus finally revealed himself to the Apostles in Galilee, “some doubted” which Luke also alludes to in 24:38).

The Long Ending of Mark concludes with Jesus telling the Apostles to go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to everyone, which is similar to but not as complete as Matthew 28:19-20. However, Mark alone adds several unique characteristics that Jesus says his followers will possess including the somewhat problematic, “They will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them.” This final part of Mark’s Long Ending is never proclaimed in any of the Church’s liturgies, for obvious reasons it seems! Nevertheless, there it is, even if not a part of most ancient manuscripts.

Those words might seem especially challenging, but I would say there are many words of Jesus that are just as challenging, such as “Love your enemies, do good to those who persecute you, bless those who curse you”; “Offer no resistance to the one who does evil”; “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you cannot have life within you”; “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven”; “Do not think I have come to bring peace to the earth!”; “If you do not forgive others, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you”; “Give to everyone who begs from you”; “If anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again”; “Woe to you rich!”

It would be a good Easter spiritual exercise to read all four post resurrection accounts of the gospels. They are quite different, as we said Monday, but quite extraordinary. They all finally challenge us to believe that He is Risen and what that means for us all. For as Paul told the Corinthians, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still dead in your sins.”