Mark 16:[Mark 16:9 Verses 9–20 are found in many ancient Greek manuscripts but not in the two oldest ones.]9 When Yeshua rose early Sunday, he appeared first to Miryam of Magdala, from whom he had expelled seven demons. 10 She went and told those who had been with him, as they were crying and mourning. 11 But when they heard that he was alive and that she had seen him, they wouldn’t believe it.
12 After that, Yeshua appeared in another form to two of them as they were walking into the country. 13 They went and told the others, but they didn’t believe them either.
14 Later, Yeshua appeared to the Eleven as they were eating, and he reproached them for their lack of trust and their spiritual insensitivity in not having believed those who had seen him after he had risen. 15 Then he said to them, “As you go throughout the world, proclaim the Good News to all creation. 16 Whoever trusts and is immersed will be saved; whoever does not trust will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who do trust: in my name they will drive out demons, speak with new tongues, 18 not be injured if they handle snakes or drink poison, and heal the sick by laying hands on them.”
19 So then, after he had spoken to them, the Lord Yeshua was taken up into heaven and sat at the right hand of God.[Mark 16:19 Psalm 110:1] 20 And they went out and proclaimed everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the message by the accompanying signs. (Complete Jewish Bible)
Reflection Questions
As we’ve seen, the oldest existing manuscripts of Mark’s gospel end at Mark 16:8. Some later manuscripts contain these two efforts by well-meaning copyists to fill the gap. Pastor Hamilton described them in a post on his public Facebook page last week: “Early in the church two alternative endings were added, drawing from material from the other gospels and/or other traditions (e.g. incorporating the mention of Mary Magdalene having had seven demons from Luke 8:2).”*
- Differences in details (e.g. was there one angel at the tomb, as Mark and Matthew wrote, or two, as Luke and John said?), and Mark’s lost ending, make some people doubt that they can trust the gospels. Author Phillip Yancey said such variations actually point toward the gospels’ reliability: “Accounts of the discovery of the empty tomb sound breathless and fragmentary…. the early reports seem wispy, mysterious, confused. Surely conspirators could have done a neater job of depicting what they would later claim to be the hinge event of history.”** If you find the gospels largely credible, how does that shape the way you live your daily life?
- Mark’s ending, missing by intention or accident, gives us cause to reflect. Day-by-day, each of us is “writing” our witness to Jesus. How will you complete the “gospel” story your life tells?
Lord Jesus, even though we no longer seem to have Mark’s original ending to his gospel, his witness to you speaks through the centuries. Help me, in my own quieter, smaller way, to bear witness to you with equal faithfulness. Amen.
* Facebook post by Pastor Adam Hamilton—click here to see the entire March 27 post.
*'Phillip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995, p. 213.
* Facebook post by Pastor Adam Hamilton—click here to see the entire March 27 post.
*'Phillip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995, p. 213.
Kari is a part of Resurrection's
ShareChurch team. She is involved with the marketing, guest registration, and volunteer coordination for the conferences we host, and she considers it a joy to serve, using her gifts to help renew God's church. She enjoys running and hiking and loves being a cheerleader for her girls at all of their sporting, music and school events.
Pastor Adam, in his Easter sermon, said that in 28 years he had never preached on the Gospel of Mark on Easter, namely because of this odd and abrupt ending to the book (and the controversial verses that follow). As a Christ-follower for most all my life, I’m pretty sure I’ve never really contemplated, studied or even given much thought to what happened to the unfinished text of Mark until this week.
We’ve heard about three possible reasons for the odd ending: 1) He was unable to finish the Gospel due to death or imprisonment, 2) The original ending was lost because the manuscript was damaged or lost before other copies were made or 3) Mark purposely ended his Gospel this way. I am no scholar or theologian, so I don’t have any credible insight into this topic. Upon considering these three possibilities, they all seem equally likely to me.
I am a logical person. I am most adept at helping my kids with homework like algebra. Give me a formula, a certain order of steps to take and I can follow the process to come up with the one right answer. I am less at ease helping my kids with more open-ended assignments and projects – ones which give a student great latitude and creative license on topic and process.
Similarly, I like the stories I read and movies I watch to have neat and tidy endings. There are times I get to an end of a movie that doesn’t give you the end of the story and I feel exasperated and frustrated. “No, no, no!”, I yell at the TV screen, “Come on. Tell me what happens to so-and-so!” Leaving it to my own imagination isn’t satisfactory and fulfilling to me, probably because my logical brain doesn’t have enough imagination to creatively finish the story!
So, in a sense, I appreciate the efforts by early copyists to fill in the gap left at the end of Mark’s Gospel. For me, the first (and considerably shorter) ending is the safest. The first verse 9 says: [They promptly reported all of the young man’s instructions to those who were with Peter. Afterward, through the work of his disciples, Jesus sent out, from the east to the west, the sacred and undying message of eternal salvation. Amen.] Neat and tidy, this ending gives the reader the basics without embellishment or much potential for error. Simply: The women reported the instructions to the disciples and the result is the disciples spread the Good News throughout the land.
The evidence that the events in this ending are true is tangible today (and evidence is important to logic minded people like me, right?) – the message of salvation for all through Jesus Christ is still being spread to the ends of the earth, nearly 2000 years later. As Easter people, the job of spreading this message falls to us. We are called to bear witness and share Christ’s message of hope to everyone we encounter in our daily life.
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Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011.
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