St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church

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Movin’ On!

Mark 16:1-8

April 16, 2006

1. Have you ever had a boulder roll in front of you? You know – a rock like this one, only much bigger. I have, and it is no fun! A boulder in your path stops all forward movement, doesn’t it? Imagine driving along a beautiful mountain highway somewhere in the Rockies, and a boulder comes from way up there, rolling down onto the road right in front of you. What do you do? You stop, don’t you? There’s not much else you can do! Or what if you are hiking on a serene wooded path, and you come around a bend and find a huge rock in your way – you have to slow down and think about what to do next, don’t you? Even little pebbles can trip us up if we don’t see them in time to go around them. Boulders and stones and rocks and pebbles. They are all incompatible with the forward movement of life, aren’t they? Some boulders are literal, like this one; others are figurative, like a death of someone we love, or a tragic accident, or a debilitating illness. I suppose we could say that The Drama of Life has three acts:

Act I: Before the Boulder – life as usual

Act II: The Boulder – screech to a halt

Act III: After the Boulder – ???? big question mark. But you know right away that your life is going to be different. Your life may never be the same again!

2. A big boulder certainly rolled in front of these women! They were well into Act I – Life as Usual. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome were among Jesus’ disciples. They may have even gone from place to place with him. They listened to him teach in those puzzling parables, they heard him tell stories about a life of equality and justice for those who had long been left out. They may even have seen him get angry with the money-changers who were cheating the poor people. I cannot say that they were living "life as usual" because the life that Jesus called them to live was far from usual! But they were certainly living the way that had become normal to them. Act I: Before the boulder – life as usual.

3. Then Act II, the boulder. First it was more of a figurative boulder. Their leader killed, their lord gone, and their life stopped – at least, the forward movement of their life stopped, their life of following Jesus. There was nothing to do except stop, and do what had to be done. What had to be done now was to go to that little chamber carved out of the cliff, into the tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea. Remember, he had been given permission to place the body of Jesus there. They knew they had to move the literal boulder, that big stone which had been rolled in front of the opening to the tomb. It had been placed there to keep in what was in (the body of Jesus) and keep out what was out (animals, grave-robbers). But it also threatened to keep out the women who had come to do the normal ritual after a burial – anoint the dead body with spices, which was a pre-cursor to embalming. So here they come, ready with the spices, like frankincense and myrrh, and maybe mint and cinnamon, wondering how in the world they will move that big, heavy stone so they can get to his body.

4. Before the boulder, life as "usual." Then the boulder. Screech! And now Act III, the big question mark that clouded life after the boulder. The women’s most immediate problem ("who will roll away the boulder for us?") became a moot issue! Someone had already rolled it away. At least one of the question marks had been erased – they could walk into the tomb with their spices and do what they came to do. But erasing that one question mark created room for another, much larger question – where did he go, and what were they going to do next? The answer to the first question is in the second half of the sixth verse: Where did he go? "He has been raised; he is not here. See for yourself – look, there is the place they laid him." That’s the answer to the first question.

5. The next question was more difficult: "What were they going to do next?" Fortunately, they didn’t have to wonder very long. The answer came straight from the mouth of the young man: "Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you." It seems a reasonable thing to do next, doesn’t it? But what did they do? Verse 8: "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." One boulder had been removed, but another had taken its place! The actual, literal boulder that sealed the tomb was gone, so they could at least move ahead, but the invisible, figurative boulder stopped them in their tracks. Fear turned them around and made them run away, speechless. And that’s the end of the gospel of Mark. At least, it’s the end of the oldest copies of this Gospel. Later Christians would add the next 11 verses. But originally Mark end with verse 8: "They went out, they fled, they said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid."

6. Isn’t that what we do when the boulders of life stop us in our tracks? Don’t we ask ourselves the same question – "What am I gonna do now?" And aren’t we tempted to be like those women, frightened and wanting to run away? I think so. Actually, I know so! It’s happened to me. And I know it’s happened to many of you. Boulders get in the way! They get between our lives as we’re living them today, and our lives as we want to live them tomorrow. And we don’t know what to do . . . or where to go . . . or how to get there. It seems like a hopeless situation; there seems to be no way around that huge boulder. But remember! Jesus said he was going ahead of them, ahead of his disciples, and he would wait for them there. Jesus would move ahead, move beyond death, move beyond that life-stopping boulder, and wait for them in the future. You see, tombs are only for dead people! But God is life! God’s very name means life. And God was in Christ Jesus, bringing life to all who knew him. It’s no wonder that tomb could not hold him! And it didn’t stop those women very long, either.

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