Lectionary Reflections: Easter, 2013

Christ is Risen!
CHRIST IS RISEN, INDEED!

Happy Easter

Finishing up our reflections upon Mark, we now turn to Chapter 16:1-8, and Mark's short episode of a non-resurrection experience, or is it?

Again, my reflection comes from Ched Myers' Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus (20th Anniversary Edition) Orbis Books, 1988, 2008.

Let me first say that Myers doesn't even bother to work with the other "additions" to Mark's Gospel ending - he feels that these are much later additions that sometimes even work to undermine Mark's message and tone s/he has used throughout the Gospel narrative.

Instead, this last passage becomes a kind of prologue - inviting the reader back into re-reading the story all over again. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The point is about discipleship, about our own actions as a response to the events of the Gospel. How do we respond? For as Myers points out:

Mark, at least, offers no "proof"; did Jesus in fact appear to the disciples? We are not told. For Mark, the resurrection is not an answer, but the final question. There is only one genuine "witness" to the risen Jesus: to follow in discipleship. Only in this way will the truth of the resurrection be preserved. [BtSM:403-4] 

Easter Blessings,

Joel



My notes on Myers comments are below:

The Discipleship Narrative Resumes (16:1-7) [BtSM:397f.]

"The final scene of the epilogue, ..., is a carefully crafted apotheosis, full of narrative symbolics that leave not answers but questions. In these few verses, however, the story is rescued from tragic irresolution. It is not a "happy ending" in which all is resolved; rather, the discipleship narrative is given a new lease to continue.

i. The Women and the "Young Man"

"The genuine mission of mercy by the women (16:1-3) is portrayed in direct contrast to the actions of Joseph. Before the Sabbath, the council member:

1. bought (agorazein) linen;

2. wrapped Jesus' body in (improper) burial;

3. put Jesus in tomb;

4. rolled a stone against the entrance.

The narrative is closed. Now after the Sabbath, the women:

1. buy (egorasan) spices;

2. go to the tomb;

3. in order to "anoint" Jesus' body for proper burial

4. discuss how to roll the stone away from the entrance

"The women "go into" the tomb, defying the "closure," and there meet not Jesus but a "young man" (16:5, neaniskon). At this point Mark's narrative symbolics begin to proliferate. First the neaniskon is "sitting at the right." This is the position for which the former inner circle of male disciples competed (10:37), which the Psalmist attributed to Messiah (12:36) and Jesus to the Human One (14:62), and which was attributed to the bandits (15:27). It is the symbol of the true power of solidarity. Secondly, he is "wrapped in a white robe." The first neaniskos was similarly "wrapped" (peribeblemenos) in a linen cloth (14:51) - which cloth cloaked Jesus in the tomb, the Jesus who is no longer in the tomb! But this neaniskos is now wrapped in a white (leuken) robe, the same color as Jesus' garments in his transfiguration (9:3 ...), and the identical phrase used to describe the apparel of the martyrs of Revelation 7:9, 13. Finally, the women are "deeply troubled" (16:6, exethambethesan), a verb that appears only twice elsewhere in Mark. In 9:15 it described the reaction of the crowd upon beholding Jesus after his transfiguration and public teaching of the way of the cross; in 14:33 it describes Jesus' struggle to come to terms with his own execution. Each of these apocalyptic symbolics compels us to conclude that the women realize they are in the presence of a "glorified" martyr figure.* [*{Myers has an end-note:} Taylor argues that this term is found in intertestamental literature to describe angelophanies, but quickly retreats to saying that "Mark's description is imaginative" (1963:606f.). But neaniskos is dropped by all the other gospel writers in favor of the more conventional angelic vocabulary (see esp. Mt 28:2; Jn 20:12). Mark's choice of the term is all the more conspicuous, playing an important narrative role (BtSM:409).]

      Mark now begins his reversal of the narrative inertia of the story. The women are reproved by the young man, who knows they "seek" (zeteite) Jesus. Throughout the story (1:24; 10:47; 14:67) he was "sought" by those who in the end betrayed him: the crowds (1:37), his own family and community (3:32; 14:11), and of course the authorities (11:18; 12:12; 14:1). But Jesus is no longer just "the Nazarene," or even the "beloved son"; the young man identifies him as "the crucified" - this is the proper confession of the "transformed disciple." Finally, this Jesus is not where Joseph laid him: the authorities have not had the last word after all! Jesus is "risen" (egerthe, 16:6), a word that recalls earlier healing episodes (egeirein, six times in healings) [BtSM:397-8].

ii. The Third Call to Discipleship: The Story Begins Again

"The reversals continue in the young man's instructions. He commands the women to "get up and tell the disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you" (16:7). Fuller suggests that this is an allusion to the "apostolic resurrection tradition" reproduced in 1 Corinthians 15:5 ("he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve"). Such a historicist view misses the narrative function of the message as a reopening of the "closed" discipleship story. The community "destructed" in two stages: the flight of the disciples, then Peter's denial. So now Mark reconstructs it in two stages: tell the disciples, and Peter. With the reinstated community comes the reinstated journey of following: he is going before you. A fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy in 14:28, this new journey reverses the direction of the narrative. As they followed him "up to Jerusalem" (10:32), they must follow him "back to Galilee."

     There, they "will see him." As commentators such as Lohmeyer, Lightfoot, and Marxsen long ago pointed out, this future verbal form (opsesthe) appears in only two other places: Jesus' portents of the advent of the Human One (13:26; 14:62). Commentators assumed therefore that Mark was indicating Galilee as the site of the Parousia of the Human One (Marxsen ...). Others (e.g. Taylor and Fuller) argued that the reference was to the resurrection appearances. But the advent of the Human One has already occurred at the cross, and Mark does not narrate the appearance of the risen Christ. I would contend that Mark is not pointing "beyond" his narrative world at all. This "future" point of reference is the same as the "past" one: Galilee. And where is that? It is where "the disciples and Peter" were first called, named, sent on mission, and taught by Jesus. In other words, the disciple/reader is being told that that narrative, which appeared to have ended, is beginning again. This story is circular!

     The full revelation of the Human One has resulted in neither triumphal victory for the community (as the disciples had hoped), nor the restored Davidic kingdom (as the rebels had hoped), nor tragic failure and defeat (as the reader had feared). It has resulted in nothing more and nothing less than the regeneration of the messianic mission. If we have eyes to "see" the advent of the Human One we will be able to "see" Jesus still going before us. The "invitation" by Jesus, via the young man, to follow him to Galilee, is the third and last call to discipleship. He evokes both hope and terror. Hope, in that he who once joined in the naked shame of abandonment (14:51f.) now stands in new attire: terror, in that his new clothes are that of a martyr figure.

     Is the disciple/reader also willing to undergo such a transformation? here both the realism and genius of Mark are fully revealed, for the final narrative signal is fought with ambiguity. As quickly as they had "entered" the tomb, the women exit, fleeing (epugon). They are traumatized (tromos) and "ecstatic (ekstasis); as befits and encounter wit that which was thought dead (cf. 5:42). Then, abruptly, Mark terminates the narrative with the report that out of fear the women "said nothing to anyone" (16:8). If this sense is meant to recall a kind of "healing" (the command "arise" to the women was Jesus' word of healing, hupagein; 1:44; 2:11; 5:19, 34; 7:29; 10:52), then the discourse has been reversed. Whereas before the subjects had been commanded to silence but spoke nonetheless (1:44f.; 7:36), here the women are commanded to speak but remain silent! We suddenly freeze in our readerly tracks. After the promise of a new beginning, is this the final betrayal? [BtSM:398-9]

"What is the Meaning of Resurrection"? (16:8): Silence and Fear: How Will We Respond? [BtSM:399ff.]

This sudden ending to Mark has spawned much consternation. Indeed, many (including Taylor) have hypothesized that the true ending was lost (the theories are summarized by Fuller, 1971:64f.). Such speculation can now be considered obsolete, along with the grammatico-literary objection that a book could not end in a gar clause. Bilezikian points out, for example, that it was not unknown for tragedies in antiquity to conclude upon a note of departure:

Even on a hasty exit of the kind described in the last verse of the Gospel. A stage suddenly left vacant by the sometimes precipitate dismissal of the characters seems to have been a acceptable convention for ending tragedies. ... If Mark was inspired by tragedy in the structuring the Gospel, the dramatic effectiveness of graphic action in the form of rapid departure to bring a composition to an expressive end could hardly have escaped his notice [1977:135f.]

Peterson therefore is correct in asserting that problems with 16:8 cannot be attributed to the author but arise as a "result of readerly responses to that literary ending" (1980b:152).

      But how does the author wish us to respond? Petersen has provided a useful analysis of the "narrative closure" problem posed by such an ending:

The juxtaposition of the expectation introduced in 16:7 with the terminal frustration of it in 16:8 requires the reader to review what he has read in order to comprehend this apparent incongruity and its meaning for the narrator's message. ... The end of a text is not the end of the work when the narrator leaves unfinished business for the reader to complete, thoughtfully and imaginatively. ... The narrator creates an expectation and then cancels it, leading the reader to wonder why he raised the expectation in the first place. ... For this reason the reader is forced to follow one or both of two lines of reflectively inquiry - either to view everything before 16:8 in light of it or to view 16:8 in light of everything before it [1980:153f.].

Petersen refers to the first option as the "literal," and the second as the "ironic," reading of the text.

      T. Weeden (1971) represents the former approach, claiming that since the women did not tell anyone (ever) about the risen Jesus and the rendezvous in Galilee, we cannot presume that the story did indeed begin again. although this may fit with the unreliability of the disciples as Mark has portrayed them, N. Petersen points to its "contagious effect" that "contaminates the reliability of both Jesus and the narrator," until by a "domino effect" the entire preceding narrative is robbed of credibility (1980:161). In this case, the triumph of what I have called the "betrayal" narrative is indeed complete, such that finally even the reader is betrayed. The story is thus a bitter and even cynical tragedy - hardly "good news"!

      Petersen rejects such a reading for the second alternative - namely, that Mark "does not mean what he says":

He ceases his narration in the middle of an off-stage action and before another one which will be imaginatively on-stage. Mark 16:6-7 thus directs the reader's imagination to provide the proper closure to the narrator's story by supplying the satisfaction of the expectation generated in the prediction of a meeting between Jesus and the eleven in Galilee. Literarily, because the narrator knows about his meeting - he predicted it through the mouths of his actors - he could have described its consequences. But eh irony of 16:8 ... continues an artful substitute for the obvious [1980b:163].

Petersen' insights are valuable, but I believe Mark is doing more than inviting the reader to finish the last stroke of the painting; the openness/ambiguity of 16:8 cannot be resolved "aesthetically," but only by practice.

      We should not be surprised that the women are overcome with "fear." The disciples have in fact been described as "fearful" (phobeisthai) at several important "passages" in their journey with Jesus: both stormy boat crossings (4:41; 6:50), his transfiguration (9:6), the portents of his execution (9:32), and the journey up to Jerusalem (10:32). And does not this closing scene represent the most difficult passage of all? For in it the martyr-figure beckons the disciple to take up the journey afresh, to return to the beginning of the story for a new reading-enactment. The young man's invitation ought to provoke trepidation in us, if we take it seriously. As Bonhoeffer paraphrased Mark 8:34 in Cost of Discipleship (1953), "When Christ calls a person, He bids them to come and die."

      The second epilogue, like the first (8:21), ends with a challenge to the reader in the form of an unresolved question. Will we "flee" or will be "follow"? This cannot be resolved in the narrative moment, only in the historical moment of the reader. Whether or not we actually "see" Jesus again depends upon whether the disciple/readers renew their commitment to the journey. It is at this point that we should recall the mysterious words of 9:10: "And they held fast to his word, but discussed among themselves 'What is the meaning of resurrection from the dead?' " Here at the end of the story we find ourselves in exactly the same position. We do not entirely understand what "resurrection" means, but if we have understood the story, we should be "holding fast" to what we do know: that Jesus still goes before us, summoning us to the way of the cross. And that is the hardest ending of all: not tragedy, not victory, but an unending challenge to follow anew. Because that means we must respond. [BtSM:399-401]

Or to put it another way (as I mentioned above):

Mark, at least, offers no "proof"; did Jesus in fact appear to the disciples? We are not told. For Mark, the resurrection is not an answer, but the final question. There is only one genuine "witness" to the risen Jesus: to follow in discipleship. Only in this way will the truth of the resurrection be preserved. [BtSM:403-4]