2014.06.01 6pm
Ephesians 1:15-23
Mark 16:14-20
This morning we were looking at the Ascension of Christ in to heaven, and we were thinking about how hard it is to tell the story of these unique events in the life of the early Church, and particularly how hard it must have been for the disciples to find the words to describe something they had never seen before. We talked about the difficulty of knowing when to finish a story and how in some stories it is important to include something of what comes next.
This morning we heard the account of the Ascension from the writer of Luke in Acts chapter 1. This evening we heard the account of the ascension from Mark's Gospel. This account gives us some dilemmas to deal with. This morning we thought about some films that go on too long and some that finish at just the right moment, and how important it was that we don't simply end this story with the empty tomb. Now ironically the struggle with Mark's Gospel is that some of the early manuscripts that we have of it do just that. They finish with the women fleeing in fear from the empty tomb. Those versions of Mark's Gospel leave everything open including the tomb. Cinematically that's a great ending - that leaves the universe hanging on a knife edge. It's like the end of the films The Italian Job, The Usual Suspects or Inception.
But what do we do with the knowledge that there is more than one version of the ending of Mark's Gospel out there? In a way it's like the several versions of the classic 1980's Sci-fi movie Blade Runner that now exist, the most important difference being the change in the ending with some versions that fundamentally change the nature of the lead character. With fictional stories it's all bit of fun to wrestle over ambiguous endings and alternative versions. But With the Gospel's we are talking about differences that change the world. So what do we do with that? Do we trust those who chose to add the ascension story? Do we dig into the history and find out more? Do we take a cynical stance and only trust the material that is in all of the versions?
Well to start with let's be clear, the shorter version casts no particular doubt, it simply leaves the ending open. Secondly, history is not so simple that we can assume that the earliest or the shorter version is the most accurate. If I were to offer you a booklet printed in 1947 about the history of the second world war and another 800 page book written by a professor of military History From Durham University in 2011, which one do you think might have the most accurate and comprehensive account of the events of the war?
The addition could be a matter of creative choice, about theological emphasis, about the time taken to reflect on what is important, what needs to be included and what needs to be left out. All this is very interesting but it means very little unless we actually deal with the contents of the text.
But before we do that I want to bring some context using our reading from Ephesians. Now I'm sure that there were a number of important theological reasons why these texts were put together in the Lectionary. Theological links with the ascension when Paul talks about when God raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms. There are important theological issues being raised in this passage about this being an eternal heavenly inheritance that we enter into as believers and not a finite, fleeting earthly inheritance, and the point being that this is reflected in Christ's resurrection body nor remaining on earth or decaying but ascending into heaven.
But that's not the point I want to focus on right now. The point I want to focus on is that this is one of the few letters where Paul actually seems to be genuinely filled with Joy about the people to whom he is writing. Often in this letters he has a very well written joyous greeting at the beginning of the letter which rapidly gives way to him setting them straight on a number of things they are doing wrong, and you can usually tell a lot about his mood by the number of cheerful verses at the beginning of the letter. Ephesians I think is second only in cheerfulness to Philippians.
What is important here is that when Paul is happy with people, he is thankful for them and wants to dwell with them. Our reading this evening began at verse 15 and he's still being thankful and joyous, and if we go back for a moment to verses 7 & 8 we hear these words 7 It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. 8 God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
He wants to dwell with those people of faith who bring him joy and no doubt strengthen his faith as much as he strengthens theirs. By Contrast though, the end of Mark's Gospel gives us a strangely different mood. There is less of a desire to dwell and more of a command to get on with the job;
Jesus appears to the disciples and has a go at them because they lack faith then commands them to; “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. After all the subtlety and nuance of Jesus' ministry we are suddenly hit by this rather black and white statement 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned."
Jesus says a few more words and then that's it, he's taken up into heaven. Luke's account is softer and more descriptive. We can't say for sure which one is the more accurate account or whether either of them represent a true account of Jesus' last words on Earth. Certainly the "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation." Bit has a great final words ring to it, but after all that had been done and all that Christ had achieved through his actions, to leave his disciples having just rebuked the m like that seems odd.
Perhaps we need to look more the places where these accounts were being read in order to consider why these particular aspects of the story were being emphasised. Luke was writing for the Gentiles, Paul in his letter to the Ephesians was celebrating one of many healthy growing Christian communities that were springing up across the Roman Empire.
It is most likely that Mark's Gospel was written for Jewish Christians near the time of the war that led to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD. These were troubled times and there was indeed work to be done, this was not time for sitting back and dwelling in each other's presence with the Joy of the Lord in their hearts - it was time of life and death decisions, decisions about what it was to be Jewish Christian in a place where the Jewish nation was about to be crushed.
How we tell our story depends in part on who we are telling it to. That was true then and it is true now. Perhaps there was a time when Mark's Gospel didn't need such a certain ending, perhaps there was a time when there was time to marvel at the mystery of the empty tomb, to dwell within the questions and imagine the nature of Christ's resurrection. But perhaps there came a time when God's people needed every drop of certainty they could hold onto, and maybe then it was time to add those extra words and to record them in such a way as was useful to those people living on the verge of destruction. It may also be true that the two versions hung around side by side in different places for a while until the longer one was chosen as part of the canon of New Testament books.
It would be easy to presume that finding those other and versions of Mark's Gospel without the added ending ought to be cause for historical worry and concern about our faith, but the reality is that our story is richer than that, deeper than that and even the differences between those versions are a part of the story we have to tell. They help remind us that we are in a new place and a new time and we need to find the right words, the right way to tell these stories to this generation. Some of our words should be about dwelling with our brothers and sisters in Christ, about reaching wide our open arms of hospitality to a world in need of God's love and Grace. And some of our words should be about the need to get on with the job, to be aware of the darkness and the trouble around us.
Sometimes our telling of these stories should have a short sharp snappy ending, to get people thinking and to get them coming back for more. Other times we should linger a while, dwell with the text, to seek deeper understanding and to understand what it is to express these stories together as a community.
In any case I'm glad they kept the longer ending for Mark's gospel because however we tell it, it reminds us that Jesus left up with the call to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation."
Part i: http://revpetebrazier.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/ascension-pt-i.html
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