Because Mark’s gospel breaks off in very unexpected fashion (Mark 16:8), a couple of people in the second century wrote up and tacked on different endings: one is called ‘the longer ending’ (16:9-20) and the other is called ‘the shorter ending’ (no verse numbers, but it’s probably in a footnote in your Bible). Neither of these endings is part of the original text of Mark; the earliest manuscripts available do not include them. They show up in several later manuscripts, indicating that they both were added by well-meaning people who received a copy of Mark with its abrupt ending and decided that it would be best to fix it by adding in a let’s-round-off-the-story-with-a-summary conclusion. All that additional material is paralleled in other accounts; it is all the work of second-century copyists drawing from the other gospels to smooth out the ending.

But Mark is the gospel that likes to include some of the rougher, rawer material, and it turns out that there’s actually some serious literary and theological motivation hidden in the jagged way Mark stops so suddenly. Look at the sequence. Mark tells us about a young man dressed in white, not specifically identified as an angel, announcing to the women that Jesus was raised from the dead, and giving them a message for the other disciples (16:5-7). The women then fled from the tomb, and said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid (16:8). And that’s the end of the story.

Except that we know that it isn’t the end of the story. We are here, reading and telling the story of Jesus in the present day. The message of Jesus’ resurrection has been going strong all down the centuries. And that was just as true for the first readers of Mark – between 45 and 60 AD, by Robinson’s dating – who also already knew that the story hadn’t ended with the women never saying anything. And that gave those first readers – and us – the ability to recognize that even if the women were scared and ran away and didn’t say anything (at first), later on they must have found their courage and their voice and told everyone what they had seen and heard.

I get that. I’ve been scared, too. I’ve kept silent when I should have spoken. In my fear and failure I have often arrived at what seemed to be the last line of the story and it was coming out wrong. By breaking off his gospel right here, Mark has enabled me to see that what looked like total failure was not the end of the story for the women, or for the gospel: and it need not be the end of the story for me, either.

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We fail so often, Jesus. It’s because we are afraid: afraid of what your resurrection might mean, afraid to declare your message, afraid of what people will say. We give you thanks that in your mercy you keep finding second chances for us. Grant us to find our courage and our voice, that we may declare your gospel to all the world.

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