“To Galilee”
Mark 16:1-8
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
Easter Sunday 2015 (11am)
The ending to
a story can determine whether that story is meant merely to entertain, or if it
has the power to transform. If a story aims only to entertain, it often ends by
tying things up in some tidy little bow – usually some version of “happily ever
after.” If a story is told because it holds transforming power, the ending is
never neat and tidy. It leaves loose ends hanging, or it leaves the readers and
hearers with some evocative and unforgettable image. A story that aims to
transform takes us to a door, opens it for us, and invites us to step forward
in trust. The story offers a continuing journey. Whether we go or stay is up to
us.
If we accept
the conclusion of the vast majority of scholars, the authentic ending of Mark
is chapter 16, verse 8. That ending makes it clear that the earliest gospel is
a story that aims to transform. “So [the women] went out and fled from the
tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to
anyone, for they were afraid.”
Mark ushers us
to the threshold of an open door with all kinds of loose ends dangling and all
kinds of possibilities available. But he does not abandon us. Just before this
abrupt ending, he tells the women to go and tell the disciples that Jesus will
meet them in Galilee.
Galilee is the place where the end
becomes a new beginning. The opening of the tomb is not just in a cemetery. On
Easter morning the whole creation yawns before us with newborn brilliance.
We can find Galilee
on a map, of course. It’s north of Jerusalem. It’s on the Sea of Galilee. Much
of Jesus’ life and ministry happens in this territory, whose modern configuration
is a little larger than Washington County, and a little smaller than Greene
County. But as we have said, Galilee is bigger than its geography. According to
Matthew and Luke, Jesus is not born in Galilee, but Nazareth in Galilee is his
home. Galilee is where we meet and get to know Jesus. It is where he preaches
his first sermon, and where he preaches the Sermon on the Mount. Galilee is
where it all begins, and where it all begins again. Maybe we can compare
Galilee to what Native Americans have referred to as a “thin place,” a place
where time and eternity meet, a place where the holy and the mundane breathe
the same air, a place where terror and amazement drive us crazy and fill us
with awe.
Galilee is where
stories don’t end in “happily ever after” nearly so much as they end with
unexpected twists of plot, with lumps in the throat, and bewildering decisions
to make. Galilee, then, becomes more than a place. It is an approach to life,
an approach that requires creativity, perseverance; and as Paul will say, this
life is marked by faith, and hope, and, most of all, Love.
I have found myself
in Galilee in hospital rooms as friends and family gathered to tend the death
of one they have known and loved for years. I have found myself in Galilee in
hospital rooms where they gather to celebrate the birth of one whom they will learn
to know in years to come. I have found myself in Galilee on mission trips into
the poverty of Appalachia, Africa, and Central America. In such places, terror
and amazement are like sparrows constantly chattering in the same tree. They
are everywhere. I have even found myself in Galilee during session meetings
when we have found the grace to discuss difficult issues with more Love for our
brothers and sisters sitting around the table than for our own opinions, which
we still hold to, and which we share with humility and without fear of judgment.
Mark suggests that
Easter happens most compellingly in Galilee, a two-day journey from the
cemetery. That tells me that Easter is not about an empty tomb. It is about a
full life. And a full life is not nearly so much a “happily ever after” life as
it is a life burgeoning with terror, amazement, new possibilities, and new responsibilities.
Whenever we find ourselves in Galilee, we find ourselves living in the midst of
Resurrection.
T. S. Eliot
opens Part II of his work “Four Quartets” with the line, “In my
beginning is my end.” He closes that same Part
II by turning those words around and saying, “In my end is my beginning.”
In between the beginning and the end, Eliot pens what today I want to call a
celebration of Galilee. Here is a very
selective sampling of that celebration:
In my beginning is my end. In
succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are
extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored…
Old stone to new building, old
timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to
the earth…
Houses live and die: there is a
time for building
And a time for living and for
generation
And a time for the wind to break
the loosened pane…
Home is where one starts from. As
we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the
pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense
moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every
moment…
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper
communion
Through the dark cold and the empty
desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the
vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In
my end is my beginning.1
Hear the terror
and amazement in those words. Feel yourself standing at a newly opened door,
invited into an unimagined journey.
Truly, Galilee
is the home from which we start. Truly, we live into another intensity of union
and communion. Truly, in the end is our beginning. Truly, the story continues.
Truly, he is risen! Alleluia! Amen!
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