Dee
April 17th, 2006, 12:14 PM
Easter Fear
04/20/03
C. Wayne Barnett, Minister
Have you read your Bible lately? When I was a child the men and women we admired were those who knew their Bible. Not too long ago my parents moved from our house on the farm to a house in town, but my brother Lee still lives in the farmhouse. My parents left a lot of their stuff in the home place. Once when I was visiting my parents my father asked me to take him to the farm. I gave him the farm tour, which he had given so many others and then he asked me to take him to the house. For ten minutes he tried to gain enough strength to go up the two steps on the back porch. Finally, he said, “I can’t do it. Will you go in and get these things for me?” I went in the house to look for a gun and a certain book. In the process I came across his old Bible. I picked it up with a kind of reverence and took it along with the items that he requested. I gave him the book, but I couldn’t find the gun. I got in the car and I said, “Here is your old Bible; it was in the closet and I would like to have it.” It’s a King James Bible and I won’t say my dad had it memorized, but he knew it pretty well. He read it and read it and read it. If he had any doubts about his faith he never shared them with me.
But why did I tell you this story? Because his old Bible and the one he now had at that time are not the same. His old Bible was authorized by King James in 1611, and it was translated by a committee of scholars just a few years before Shakespeare’s death in 1620. They were some of the most learned men of their time. They did an excellent job. Their translation survived so that until 1952 the King James Bible was, for all practical purposes, the only Bible. In 1952 the National Council of Churches published the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. It too was the work of a committee of scholars. It changed the Bible publishing world. Today you can purchase at least 15 different English translations of the Bible. Some are done by a committee of scholars and some are done by one individual.
Today there are two widely recognized accepted versions apart from the King James: the New International Version, copywrited in 1984 by the International Bible Society, and the New Revised Standard Version, copywrited in 1989 by the National Council of Churches.
In 1952 I was told that the Revised Standard Version was published because our language had changed. We don’t use thee and thou anymore. Consider the 23rd Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want; He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.” Put that in your Microsoft word program with a spell checker and it will give you a red underline indicating that you have misspelled those words. The Revised Standard Version and the New Revised have, “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.”
So the new Bibles were published because our language changed. No. No, No, that is not the only reason. The text of the Bible has changed. You thought the Bible couldn’t change. Since Archeology began to dig up historical sites we have discovered vast amounts of literature that we did not have in 1611. Not only have we discovered vast libraries like the Nag Humarims texts and the Dead Sea Scrolls, we have also learned how to understand ancient languages that were nothing but a mystery to us fifty years ago. All of this has made it easier to understand and translate our Bible into English. The 500 or so Greek manuscripts are now gathered together in the 27 editions of the Nesley Greek New Testament. It is from this edition that scholars are now currently working.
What is it that is so important on Easter Sunday? Because if I had been preaching in 1950 from the 16th chapter of Mark, I would have 20 verses to work and not 8. Those twenty verses include verses 17 and 18 which read: “These signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
The New International Version has this note at the end of verse 8. “The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.” Why is that so important, other than I didn’t want to have any demonstrations with snakes this morning, which is reason enough? Because it took me forever to convince my Dad that he needed a new Bible and not just a New King James, a new translation that worked from the latest authorized Greek text. I have gone to this great length to convince you that you too may need a new translation.
You see, so much of how we understand something has to do with how it ends. If Mark ends at verse 8, we get a totally different picture than if it ends at verse 20. Mark 16:9-20 seeks to prove to us what cannot be proved - that Jesus was raised from the dead. The last eight verses relate that Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, two men who were walking in the country, to the eleven as they were at table. These appearances are followed by a commission by the risen Christ to go into all the world. Verses 19 and 20 end this way: “After he had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.” These accounts seem to be taken from Luke, Matthew, and John. It is so unfortunate that the verses about the snakes were added. How many people in good faith have been harmed because they took the Bible literally full of faith and were bitten by snakes. At least with a new translation they could disregard verse 16:18.
Why were these verses added by scribes as the scroll of Mark was handed down? Because the gospel of Mark, the oldest manuscript, seems to end in an unsatisfactory manner. Mark tells us that at the crucifixion of Jesus in Jerusalem all the disciples had fled, but then after Mark tells us that Jesus breathes his last, Mark adds that from a distance there were some women who were looking on. These were the same women who used to follow him and provide for him when he was in Galilee. So these women had made the journey with the disciples and Jesus some 150 miles from Galilee. At the crucifixion the disciples had fled, presumably out of fear of being arrested, tried and crucified with their leader. But the courageous women were at the cross standing at a distance. They saw Jesus die; they saw Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the council that condemned him, take his body and bury it in his tomb. At the very least, I would like to think that had I been a disciple of Jesus I would have wanted to have buried him. But these guys were hiding. How often have you and I hidden from the witness we felt God called us to make.
On Easter Sunday morning, after the Sabbath, these same women get up early in the morning and make their way to the tomb to anoint the body. We embalm the body. We fix the hair, we shave the body, we dress the body. We try to preserve the body and make the body seem as beautiful as possible. And many times it is a comfort to see our loved one in peaceful rest, especially if they have suffered in agony. I imagine that is just exactly what these women were hoping to do. They knew Jesus has been laid in a tomb and it had a big stone that covered the opening. How were they going to roll it away? Like women today, they couldn’t find a man when they needed one. After all, the soldiers might still be there guarding the tomb lest his disciples steal his body and say he had risen from the dead. The men might get arrested. The women didn’t care; they were going to risk it. To their amazement when they arrived their worst fears were realized. Someone had disturbed the grave. Most of you know how much it hurts for someone to disturb the grave of a loved one. Just to take the flowers is enough to drive you crazy. Someone had rolled away the stone and I suspect these women imagined before they entered the tomb that someone had stolen or desecrated the body. So if they were approaching the tomb slowly you can bet they picked up the pace to see what had happened. Let’s read the scripture.
They were afraid. That is the way the oldest manuscripts of Mark end. The scribes who copied these manuscripts felt the ending was so unsatisfactory they added more verses. For the longest time modern scholars thought maybe the original ending was lost. But in recent years scholars are fairly much in agreement that Mark ended his gospel this way intentionally. “They fled the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” No proof of the resurrection here. No stories about appearances here. Mark had appearance stories at his disposal. He no doubt had copies of Paul’s letters that were written at least 14 years before Mark’s gospel. And what does Paul say:
3For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins he was buried, and he was raised on the third day, 5and he appeared to Peter, then to the twelve. 6Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
Mark knew that tradition and yet he tells us no resurrection appearance. The women go into the tomb and see a young man sitting on the right side; “he speaks to them and says, “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.” They were filled with terror. I think going to the grave of a loved one and seeing that the body had been removed would fill me with terror, fear, and anger. They saw a man. He spoke to them and told them to go and tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him just as he told you. Notice, Peter and the disciples had abandoned Jesus, but Jesus has not abandoned them. Go and tell Peter. Mark also, however, makes it clear that the disciples’ new relationship to Christ is mediated by these women. After receiving this commission these women leave in fear.
So why, if Mark had appearance stories at his disposal, did he stop with the women controlled by fear? We know from Paul’s that some of the church wanted to talk only about the raised glorified Christ. To put it in our terms, a lot of the power of positive thinking or possibility thinking may have dominated Mark’s church. What does Mark want to stress? Not the resurrection, but the cross. Not glory and success but discipleship. What does Jesus say in this gospel you must do to follow Jesus. You must take the cross. No resurrection appearances in Mark but he certainly knew of the resurrection or else he would not written his book. Remember what I said last Sunday. What I preached at the Good Friday service. I believe the hero in Mark’s gospel apart from Jesus is the Roman solider who looks at Jesus as he dies on the cross and says what no one else in the gospel says. “Surely, this man was the Son of God.” Even these women have not said that much. They haven’t said anything. But the Roman soldier looking only at Jesus dead on the cross makes the greatest most complete affirmation of faith in the gospel of Mark, “Surely this man was the Son of God.” Mark’s theology demands that resurrection serve the cross and not the other way around. Resurrection must be affirmed; otherwise, Jesus is not vindicated. If resurrection is not affirmed, then evil wins and good is destroyed.
There may be another reason. The women stand between the resurrection and the final return of Christ. The church should not expect to be nourished by the appearance of Christ until Christ returns. The time between the final return of Christ on the last day and the resurrection is marked by the absence of Jesus but by the presence of his word of power. Jesus is absent but the word he spoke is present to us here and now.
The ministry of Jesus was marked by manifestations of the power and grace of Jesus’ word, and the post resurrection church still had that same word. Therefore, the original and subsequent disciples are not to be differentiated in quality of life and faith because both live and minister by the same word of power and grace. It might just be that not fulfilling but repeating the assurance of Jesus that he is going before us to Galilee serves as a subtle but powerful purpose: to include each generation of readers within this as yet unfinished story. If so, the question is not, “did the twelve ever hear and believe” but rather, “Do we hear and believe?”
So then the question comes, what must the women do? They must tell Peter and the others that Jesus is not in the tomb that he goes before them to Galilee. He also goes before you. Faith is generated when the gospel word is spoken. It was left up to the women to generate that story based on what they saw and heard from the man in the tomb. It was enough to make them afraid and filled with awe.
So what are you supposed to do with such a story? That’s your problem and mine. After all, you are the one who came here looking for Jesus. But he isn’t here! You just missed him; by this time of the morning, he was already well on his way to Galilee. He’s gone before you. Go! Tell!
04/20/03
C. Wayne Barnett, Minister
Have you read your Bible lately? When I was a child the men and women we admired were those who knew their Bible. Not too long ago my parents moved from our house on the farm to a house in town, but my brother Lee still lives in the farmhouse. My parents left a lot of their stuff in the home place. Once when I was visiting my parents my father asked me to take him to the farm. I gave him the farm tour, which he had given so many others and then he asked me to take him to the house. For ten minutes he tried to gain enough strength to go up the two steps on the back porch. Finally, he said, “I can’t do it. Will you go in and get these things for me?” I went in the house to look for a gun and a certain book. In the process I came across his old Bible. I picked it up with a kind of reverence and took it along with the items that he requested. I gave him the book, but I couldn’t find the gun. I got in the car and I said, “Here is your old Bible; it was in the closet and I would like to have it.” It’s a King James Bible and I won’t say my dad had it memorized, but he knew it pretty well. He read it and read it and read it. If he had any doubts about his faith he never shared them with me.
But why did I tell you this story? Because his old Bible and the one he now had at that time are not the same. His old Bible was authorized by King James in 1611, and it was translated by a committee of scholars just a few years before Shakespeare’s death in 1620. They were some of the most learned men of their time. They did an excellent job. Their translation survived so that until 1952 the King James Bible was, for all practical purposes, the only Bible. In 1952 the National Council of Churches published the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. It too was the work of a committee of scholars. It changed the Bible publishing world. Today you can purchase at least 15 different English translations of the Bible. Some are done by a committee of scholars and some are done by one individual.
Today there are two widely recognized accepted versions apart from the King James: the New International Version, copywrited in 1984 by the International Bible Society, and the New Revised Standard Version, copywrited in 1989 by the National Council of Churches.
In 1952 I was told that the Revised Standard Version was published because our language had changed. We don’t use thee and thou anymore. Consider the 23rd Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want; He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.” Put that in your Microsoft word program with a spell checker and it will give you a red underline indicating that you have misspelled those words. The Revised Standard Version and the New Revised have, “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.”
So the new Bibles were published because our language changed. No. No, No, that is not the only reason. The text of the Bible has changed. You thought the Bible couldn’t change. Since Archeology began to dig up historical sites we have discovered vast amounts of literature that we did not have in 1611. Not only have we discovered vast libraries like the Nag Humarims texts and the Dead Sea Scrolls, we have also learned how to understand ancient languages that were nothing but a mystery to us fifty years ago. All of this has made it easier to understand and translate our Bible into English. The 500 or so Greek manuscripts are now gathered together in the 27 editions of the Nesley Greek New Testament. It is from this edition that scholars are now currently working.
What is it that is so important on Easter Sunday? Because if I had been preaching in 1950 from the 16th chapter of Mark, I would have 20 verses to work and not 8. Those twenty verses include verses 17 and 18 which read: “These signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
The New International Version has this note at the end of verse 8. “The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.” Why is that so important, other than I didn’t want to have any demonstrations with snakes this morning, which is reason enough? Because it took me forever to convince my Dad that he needed a new Bible and not just a New King James, a new translation that worked from the latest authorized Greek text. I have gone to this great length to convince you that you too may need a new translation.
You see, so much of how we understand something has to do with how it ends. If Mark ends at verse 8, we get a totally different picture than if it ends at verse 20. Mark 16:9-20 seeks to prove to us what cannot be proved - that Jesus was raised from the dead. The last eight verses relate that Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, two men who were walking in the country, to the eleven as they were at table. These appearances are followed by a commission by the risen Christ to go into all the world. Verses 19 and 20 end this way: “After he had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.” These accounts seem to be taken from Luke, Matthew, and John. It is so unfortunate that the verses about the snakes were added. How many people in good faith have been harmed because they took the Bible literally full of faith and were bitten by snakes. At least with a new translation they could disregard verse 16:18.
Why were these verses added by scribes as the scroll of Mark was handed down? Because the gospel of Mark, the oldest manuscript, seems to end in an unsatisfactory manner. Mark tells us that at the crucifixion of Jesus in Jerusalem all the disciples had fled, but then after Mark tells us that Jesus breathes his last, Mark adds that from a distance there were some women who were looking on. These were the same women who used to follow him and provide for him when he was in Galilee. So these women had made the journey with the disciples and Jesus some 150 miles from Galilee. At the crucifixion the disciples had fled, presumably out of fear of being arrested, tried and crucified with their leader. But the courageous women were at the cross standing at a distance. They saw Jesus die; they saw Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the council that condemned him, take his body and bury it in his tomb. At the very least, I would like to think that had I been a disciple of Jesus I would have wanted to have buried him. But these guys were hiding. How often have you and I hidden from the witness we felt God called us to make.
On Easter Sunday morning, after the Sabbath, these same women get up early in the morning and make their way to the tomb to anoint the body. We embalm the body. We fix the hair, we shave the body, we dress the body. We try to preserve the body and make the body seem as beautiful as possible. And many times it is a comfort to see our loved one in peaceful rest, especially if they have suffered in agony. I imagine that is just exactly what these women were hoping to do. They knew Jesus has been laid in a tomb and it had a big stone that covered the opening. How were they going to roll it away? Like women today, they couldn’t find a man when they needed one. After all, the soldiers might still be there guarding the tomb lest his disciples steal his body and say he had risen from the dead. The men might get arrested. The women didn’t care; they were going to risk it. To their amazement when they arrived their worst fears were realized. Someone had disturbed the grave. Most of you know how much it hurts for someone to disturb the grave of a loved one. Just to take the flowers is enough to drive you crazy. Someone had rolled away the stone and I suspect these women imagined before they entered the tomb that someone had stolen or desecrated the body. So if they were approaching the tomb slowly you can bet they picked up the pace to see what had happened. Let’s read the scripture.
They were afraid. That is the way the oldest manuscripts of Mark end. The scribes who copied these manuscripts felt the ending was so unsatisfactory they added more verses. For the longest time modern scholars thought maybe the original ending was lost. But in recent years scholars are fairly much in agreement that Mark ended his gospel this way intentionally. “They fled the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” No proof of the resurrection here. No stories about appearances here. Mark had appearance stories at his disposal. He no doubt had copies of Paul’s letters that were written at least 14 years before Mark’s gospel. And what does Paul say:
3For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins he was buried, and he was raised on the third day, 5and he appeared to Peter, then to the twelve. 6Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
Mark knew that tradition and yet he tells us no resurrection appearance. The women go into the tomb and see a young man sitting on the right side; “he speaks to them and says, “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.” They were filled with terror. I think going to the grave of a loved one and seeing that the body had been removed would fill me with terror, fear, and anger. They saw a man. He spoke to them and told them to go and tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him just as he told you. Notice, Peter and the disciples had abandoned Jesus, but Jesus has not abandoned them. Go and tell Peter. Mark also, however, makes it clear that the disciples’ new relationship to Christ is mediated by these women. After receiving this commission these women leave in fear.
So why, if Mark had appearance stories at his disposal, did he stop with the women controlled by fear? We know from Paul’s that some of the church wanted to talk only about the raised glorified Christ. To put it in our terms, a lot of the power of positive thinking or possibility thinking may have dominated Mark’s church. What does Mark want to stress? Not the resurrection, but the cross. Not glory and success but discipleship. What does Jesus say in this gospel you must do to follow Jesus. You must take the cross. No resurrection appearances in Mark but he certainly knew of the resurrection or else he would not written his book. Remember what I said last Sunday. What I preached at the Good Friday service. I believe the hero in Mark’s gospel apart from Jesus is the Roman solider who looks at Jesus as he dies on the cross and says what no one else in the gospel says. “Surely, this man was the Son of God.” Even these women have not said that much. They haven’t said anything. But the Roman soldier looking only at Jesus dead on the cross makes the greatest most complete affirmation of faith in the gospel of Mark, “Surely this man was the Son of God.” Mark’s theology demands that resurrection serve the cross and not the other way around. Resurrection must be affirmed; otherwise, Jesus is not vindicated. If resurrection is not affirmed, then evil wins and good is destroyed.
There may be another reason. The women stand between the resurrection and the final return of Christ. The church should not expect to be nourished by the appearance of Christ until Christ returns. The time between the final return of Christ on the last day and the resurrection is marked by the absence of Jesus but by the presence of his word of power. Jesus is absent but the word he spoke is present to us here and now.
The ministry of Jesus was marked by manifestations of the power and grace of Jesus’ word, and the post resurrection church still had that same word. Therefore, the original and subsequent disciples are not to be differentiated in quality of life and faith because both live and minister by the same word of power and grace. It might just be that not fulfilling but repeating the assurance of Jesus that he is going before us to Galilee serves as a subtle but powerful purpose: to include each generation of readers within this as yet unfinished story. If so, the question is not, “did the twelve ever hear and believe” but rather, “Do we hear and believe?”
So then the question comes, what must the women do? They must tell Peter and the others that Jesus is not in the tomb that he goes before them to Galilee. He also goes before you. Faith is generated when the gospel word is spoken. It was left up to the women to generate that story based on what they saw and heard from the man in the tomb. It was enough to make them afraid and filled with awe.
So what are you supposed to do with such a story? That’s your problem and mine. After all, you are the one who came here looking for Jesus. But he isn’t here! You just missed him; by this time of the morning, he was already well on his way to Galilee. He’s gone before you. Go! Tell!