How Would You End the Story?

In my Easter sermon, I focused on the abrupt end to the gospel of Mark: “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.”

It’s even more abrupt in the original language. There, Mark’s gospel ends with the preposition “because.” It literally reads, “They were afraid because…” 

Because why? Did the last page of Mark’s gospel get lost along the way? Most biblical scholars think not. While it’s rare, in Greek a sentence can end with the preposition “because.” 

But if you read a King James Version of Mark, the gospel ends at verse 20, not verse eight. In those verses Jesus appears to the women and to the disciples, berates them, but sends them out with the power to heal, speak in tongues, and even handle snakes and drink poison! Then Jesus ascends to heaven. This ending, however, is not in most modern-day translations. 

Why does Mark have a shorter and a longer ending depending on which translation you read? The longer ending was known to Christians in the late second century. Some of them quote it directly in their writings. But the oldest manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse eight. Modern translations rely on older and more reliable copies of Mark than were available to the scholars who published the King James Version. Perhaps an early Christian scribe was dissatisfied with the short ending of Mark, drew from other sources, and added a longer ending.

You can do that too! Hear me out. Many scholars argue that Mark’s short ending invites us “to write the end of the gospel” by “meeting the Risen Christ in Galilee” ourselves. In other words, our discipleship is the real ending of Mark. If we follow the Risen Christ, we too will have power to proclaim God’s Word, to do good for the sick and hungry, and to overcome evil. We also will suffer. We have to die in order to be raised. Like the women at the empty tomb, we may be frightened by that realization, but let’s follow anyway.