Mark 16 - Into the Great Wide Open

April 5th, 2026                     “Into the Great Wide Open”               Rev. Heather Jepsen

Mark 16:1-8

          My friends, after 12 Sundays together, this morning we are finishing our series on the gospel of Mark.  This is the last chapter and the final word, the end of Mark’s gospel.  Jesus has entered Jerusalem for his final week, he has been preaching and teaching in the temple, and he has warned the disciples about his upcoming death.

          On Friday night we read chapters 14 and 15.  The disciples gathered together in an upper room to celebrate the Passover meal.  Jesus blessed and broke bread and cup, declaring that he was creating a new covenant with the community, based in his blood.  They prayed in Gethsemane and Jesus asked God to spare his life, but Judas arrived, betraying him with a kiss and arresting him in the garden. 

          Jesus stood trial before the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes.  While he was being condemned for blasphemy, Peter stood outside, denying not only Jesus’ lordship but their friendship as well.  In the morning Jesus was given over to Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, and there he was condemned to die.  At 9 in the morning, he was hung on the cross, mocked and derided by the crowds.  At noon the earth grew dark and at 3pm he cried out in horror and shame, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Then he breathed his last and died.

          A man named Joseph of Arimathea spoke on Jesus’ behalf and got permission to take the body down.  He wrapped the body and laid it in a tomb, to wait for the sabbath to pass.  The women were watching, so they know the place where Jesus has been laid.

          I tell you all this to set the scene for Easter morning.  We are so used to Easter joy that it can be hard for us to remember how heartbroken the women were as they made their way to the tomb.  The man they had placed all their hopes and dreams on was gone, brutally murdered by the empire.  Just two days ago they stood outside in the heat of the day for 6 hours, watching him suffer and die an agonizing death.

          The sabbath came and being good Jews, they needed to wait to tend the body.  But now it is sunrise and there is work to be done, women’s work.  There are always women up first in the morning, tending to the care needs of the world around them, ministering to family and friends.  And there is work to be done this day, a body to be washed and anointed, and so they gather and head toward the tomb.

          They walk in silence and shame to do the mundane task of attending to their friend’s body.  Any hope that their hearts once held is long gone.  The empire crushed those hopes in the death of Jesus.  Any promise that they might have thought they had for new life is now gone.  There is nothing new here at all.  Just another day of death and injustice in the Roman occupied world.

          They wonder aloud about who they might compel to help them reopen the tomb.  They saw Joseph roll the stone across to keep it shut and they fear they won’t be able to roll it again without help.  Other than that, they keep their heads down, eyes on their sandals, as they quietly make their way in the cool morning air.

          Of course they arrive to find the tomb open, and not only that, someone or something is inside.  A young man, dressed in white, clearly an angel or heavenly being of some kind.  The words he speaks are complete nonsense.  “Jesus has been raised, he is not here, he is going ahead of you to Galilee.  Tell his disciples that they will see him there.”     

          He might as well have been speaking another language for all the sense his words make.  Jesus isn’t here?  Why not?  We saw him die, we saw Jospeh bring the body into this space, we saw the tomb sealed.  How can the body be gone?  He has risen?  What does that even mean?  Risen from what, from where, how?  Gone to Galilee?  Jesus can’t go to Galilee; Jesus died a few days ago at the hands of the Romans.  None of this makes any sense.

          Rightfully so the women are confused and afraid.  And Mark tells us that they went out and fled from the tomb.  They saw something they couldn’t understand or explain and so they ran for their lives.  And they didn’t tell anyone about it because they were afraid.  The end.

          Well, that can’t be right, can it?  We have to evidence; we have to have proof.  All the other gospel writers will provide at least two pieces of evidence to this story, including other eyewitness accounts of an empty tomb and appearances of a risen Christ.  Eventually folks who copy out the gospel of Mark by hand years later feel like something must be missing so they add in their own versions of how the story might end.  The women have to tell Peter.  And they all have to see Jesus.  It just can’t be the end of the story without that.

          But that’s not the way Mark wanted the story to be told.  Mark ended it this way on purpose.  The women travel to the tomb, find it empty, and run away with their secret.  The end.

          Last time I was in the pulpit I told you that this is my favorite Easter story and I am serious about that.  I love the abrupt ending of Mark for two reasons.  First, I find this to be one of the most believable parts of the whole Jesus story.  The empty tomb story is crazy and unsettling.  Even now, when we know very well how the story ends, it can be hard to imagine finding that empty tomb and seeing that angel. 

I believe that Jesus really died, and I think that if women went to tend to the body a few days later and found it gone, I think those women would have been out of their minds with fear.  Of course they ran away.  That is the only sensible and logical thing to do.  And of course they kept quiet about it.  Women’s testimony was worth less than nothing in the ancient world.  No one would believe them anyway and it would put them in danger to be talking crazy talk against the Roman empire.  Run away in fear and say nothing to no one.  That just makes sense.

And the second reason I love the story so much is because it is unfinished.  If the women said nothing to no one then how did Mark know about it to write about it?  Someone must have said something to someone.  And Mark leaves it up to the reader to decide.  Finish the story yourself, Mark seems to say.  What happened, who talked, and what are you going to do about it now?  Everything is wide open from here.

The closing of the gospel of Mark is an opening into your own life and the world.  What are you going to do with the story of the Messiah that you just read?  What are you going to do with the good news of Jesus Christ?    It’s up to you to decide and this is a great opportunity for a fresh start and something new.  From the end of Mark chapter 13, verse 8, you are just off, into the great wide open, free to choose your path.  The cool thing about the gospel of Mark is that the end is the beginning.

I see parallels of this beginning at the end all through our world.  If you are the age of my father Tom, then you might remember Paul Harvey and “the rest of the story.”  When I was a little girl, my dad would pick me up in his orange pickup truck, with a hostess snack cake if I was lucky, and we would listen to Paul Harvey on the radio.  Paul would set us off with a story hook, then we would have to wait for the commercial break, only to return and find an unexpected plot twist or surprise.  It was “the rest of the story” and it was always a hit.  Mark invites us to tell “the rest of the story” in our own lives today.

Or maybe you are my age, and you remember those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books we used to read.  Those were always the best ones to choose for book reports because you didn’t have to read every page to say you read the book.  Instead, you read a few pages and then you pick the next action.  Do you “open the door on the left” turn to page 20 or do you “open the door on the right” turn to page 46.  You could choose different paths to follow in the story.  You could run or you could fight the monster.  I was always obsessed with trying to figure every ending out.  I would see a picture I liked in the book and then try to figure out how to get my story to end there.  So, if you’re Gen X like me, then today Mark invites you to “choose your own adventure”.

If you are younger, like my kids, then my favorite parallel for Mark is Harry Potter.  At the end of the final book, spoiler alert here, Harry faces his own death.  He has the resurrection stone hidden in the first golden snitch that he caught, and it came with a note from Dumbledore reading “I open at the close.”  When Harry knows the end is near, he puts the snitch to his mouth and whispers, “I am going to die” and the snitch opens and reveals the stone.  Like Jesus, Harry lays down his life for his friends, he allows himself to be killed, and through that deep magic, he can live again.  The gospel of Mark opens at the close, as it invites us to tell our own story at the end of the book.

Friends, today you head out into the great wide open.  The story is yours to craft as you see fit.  The women have fled the tomb in fear and silence and so now it is up to you to finish the story.  What happens next to Jesus and his followers?  And what happens next for you in your own life?  This is your chance to tell “the rest of the story”, to “choose your own adventure”, and to “open at the close”.  My friends, the world is out there waiting for you.  May we go forth as a people of faith and wonder into the great wide open.  Amen.