The Sermon for Easter Sunday - 8 April, 2012

 So 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.

• Tell. That's what the angel said to to. “But 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."
• However, Mark says that the women were to terrified to say anything to any one. Strangely enough, the Gospel of Mark ends with this silence, fear, and amazement.
• Still, we have to know that Mark was wrong about the women at the tomb; they told someone. They had to or how did Mark learn of it? There must be more to the story, but, sadly, it is lost to us through some quirk of history. The Gospel of Mark ends with the women fleeing the empty tomb, which is an odd place to end. Other endings have been found, but Scripture scholars are skeptical about them.
• Still the women must have told someone. Otherwise the story would have died with them. Instead we have the four Gospels, written so that what was passed on person-to-person would not be lost.
• There exactly is the main point: the Gospels were written to preserve what had been passed on person-to-person. As the original disciples passed on, those who remained and those who were coming needed a way to remember what was known to those who knew Jesus when he walked the earth. The written word became a way to preserve and pass on what was the spoken and told word in the early gatherings of Christians.
• And so it is down to our own day. The story is still told today and the written accounts are still preserved and discussed and interpreted and, yes, to be honest, misinterpreted. The written word seems to mean the most to those who have come to faith through the word told in other ways.
• Yet the story is still told.
• It is told and the words and teachings of Jesus are still embodied in his disciples. It is disciples that make disciples, either by their example, by their presence and compassion, by their loving service, by their words, or even by their blood. Often it seems that these other ways of making disciples speak louder in our times than the words of teaching and proclamation. I could very well be wrong, since people remain people in every age, even though we see our own age in its own peculiar light and judge it in that light – the only light we have.
• Bishop Johnson's seven words of spiritual renewal include “Tell” as the last word. To tell the story is still important and cannot be done without. It is important for each and every one of us to tell it, not the ministers alone. Every Christian is to tell the story. Every one of us is to tell what the story means to us. Every one of us is to live out this story in our everyday lives, letting the value of it shine through our actions and attitudes.
• The young man at the empty tomb said the women should tell the disciples. Mark says they were too afraid to tell, but the existence of Mark's Gospel shows the women did tell someone... and that telling made a big difference in the lives of the hearers.
• Maybe Mark's Gospel didn't end there and some old papyrus in some musty basement contains the true end of the Gospel of Mark. But maybe that doesn't matter. Mark begins by saying this is “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” It sounds like a good way to start a written work, but maybe the entire written work, the entire Gospel is the “beginning” and we are in the middle of the story! The story is going on right now and our own stories tell the larger story of the love and care of God in this world.
• The story is still there to tell. The story is ours to tell. The story had become our story. Our story is a part of the bigger story that is to be told to others. Mary Magdalene was the first to tell it and she has not been the last. God willing, neither will we. Listen to the angel; Go and tell.
• Christ is risen!