Christ is Risen. Christ is Risen indeed.

Today is one of those Easters when it can be hard to go full joyful hallelujah. With the recent death of our beloved Anne and now longtime stalwart member, John in hospice care, how can we shout hallelujah? Our hearts are overwhelmed. With people unjustly imprisoned for the tint of their skin or their country of origin, with bombs and drones made in this country dropping in countries around the world, it is a broken hallelujah. The wilderness we have been wandering for the past six weeks with women of the bible feels ever present.

And there is grace: the planet keeps turning, the seasons keep shifting, the trees are greening, flowers blooming, birds nesting.

On this Easter Sunday we meet more women who traipse through wilderness spaces. Here are the faithful: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome. Despite deep grief, after the sabbath they gather their courage and go to the tomb to tend Jesus’ broken body. Impossibly, the stone has been rolled away and what they find is not their beloved Jesus, not even his mangled body. Instead they see a person all in white claiming Jesus is risen and has gone before them to Galilee.

The mysterious person in white, (it is called “martyr white” in the biblical color charts) instructs them to go tell Peter and the others the good news of resurrection. “Tell Peter, that traitor who denied Jesus three times? Unlikely.” They went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them. They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

And yet here we are, telling the story again, teaching it to our children, spreading the news that Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. Clearly, the women running away in fear and amazement is not the end, it is just the beginning all over again.

The gospel telling of the resurrection is not just the story of Jesus’ rising. It is the story of a resistance movement cut off at the knees and finding ways to rise again. The Romans are threatened by this rabbi that wanders the countryside, preaching and healing and gathering up the riff-raff relegated to the margins. Perhaps this Jesus movement is so threatening because it is not only the folks on the edges that are drawn in. Some of the moneyed class are also followers and supporters. Even a Roman centurion, a commander of the Roman army, recognizes Jesus as the son of God.

Retelling this story today seems all the more important when the present day “Romans” are grabbing people from the margins and amassing power however they can. Perhaps in a modern day adaptation, we here are the moneyed class that find meaning and purpose and liberation in the Jesus movement. (Sadly, as we tell the story this time, we do not have Pilate, a government official, who offers to release a prisoner at the festival time.)

So what of this text from Mark where the women run away and tell no one? It seems like more wilderness. How is it resistance? Well, clearly the women do tell someone because this is not the only story we have of the resurrection, it is just the earliest version. Matthew, Luke and John record and retell the story as well, though each gospel writer tells the story from their own perspective for their particular community.

I am a doubting pragmatist. The Mark text, written more than thirty years after Jesus’ death, but still the earliest text, is usually my preferred version of the resurrection story. Running away in fear but somehow leaking the story over the generations, this rings true to me. We usually end our reading as we heard it today, with the women running in fear.

But Mark’s community wasn’t finished telling the story. In the ensuing decades after Jesus’ death, the ending that “leaves us wondering” becomes inadequate for the community. As the Romans become more and more repressive, the followers of the Jesus way must find new ways to claim the potency of the resurrection. The keepers of the tradition, decide to add a new ending sometimes called the “shorter ending” or now in the NRSVue the “intermediate ending.”  Perhaps this is the satisfactory, more conclusive ending that the community needs.

The Intermediate Ending of Mark

[[And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterward Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation. Amen.]]

This feels stronger, doesn’t it? The women don’t just run away. They do as the person in white instructs: they go tell Peter and the other disciples. And it has just a whiff of the Great Commission from Matthew 28. The disciples are sent out to spread the liberating news of Jesus everywhere. Scholars believe that Mark’s gospel, as the earliest, is the basis for some of what Matthew and Luke also record. In this case, we might wonder if the later additions to Mark are informed by the way Matthew and Luke’s communities record the story.

But that is not the only additional/extra/later ending to Mark’s gospel that we find in our bibles. There is an even later addition, perhaps added more than a hundred years after the original ending. This part sounds like it is influenced by how Luke recounts the story. It is on page 1246 of the Anabaptist Community Bible if you want to take a look.

The Longer Ending of Mark

[[9 Now after Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. 10 She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping. 11 But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.12 After this he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. 13 And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them. 14 Later he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were sitting at the table, and he upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. 15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. 16 The one who believes and is baptized will be saved, but the one who does not believe will be condemned.

This longer ending incorporates many of the incidents that Luke’s gospel includes: Jesus appearing to the women and Mary Magdalene; the risen Christ meeting people on the road (the road to Emmaus?); Christ appearing to the disciples as they are at table. The disciples told to go into the world,(like the shorter ending) but this time baptizing is included.

But this is not the end of the “longer ending,” it continues – into some very strange territory. Our contemporary “Roman context” – and an incident that happened here in worship on March 30, compel me to explore parts of the “longer ending” that I have previously discounted.

You might remember the morning of Lent 4, when during sharing time, Sarah said that her cat brought a snake into her apartment. And she was afraid to pick it up. So she came to church, and happened to tell Brian about the snake. Brian was on greeter duty for the first time, and maybe was not aware that as greeter you are not obligated to wrangle snakes. So he went with Sarah back to her apartment and removed the snake from her closet.

Brian wrangling that snake sent me back to the longer ending of Mark, to try and understand what could possibly be going on in this text. In this next part of the longer ending of Mark’s gospel, the resurrected Christ gives bizarre instructions that are not included in any of the other gospels (or epistles.)

“Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. 16 The one who believes and is baptized will be saved, but the one who does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.

Anabaptists generally take the words of Jesus to heart, believing that we should follow his instructions to feed hungry people, love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. We have not followed these words of Jesus in Mark about snakes and poison, at least our “Anabaptism at 500” team has not yet informed us of this. (There are small groups of Christians in this country that do take this later text literally – handling poisonous snakes and drinking poison in church. Spoiler: they do not always survive.)

What could be going on that the community of Mark’s gospel adds this “longer ending” with snake handling and drinking poison more than 100 years after Jesus death and resurrection? Well, the Romans are still after them. The threats of imprisonment, torture and death are always in the air. I imagine that as things get worse for Jesus’ followers under the Romans, Mark’s community must stake out their spiritual space in bolder and stronger ways.

These wild declarations about snakes and poison are a political claim that Rome will not overcome the power of resurrection, not for Jesus and not for his followers. The Romans may claim control but the followers of Jesus will not be intimidated, they will not cower in fear. Christ is risen.

The snake, bad news from the beginning of the faith story in the garden of Eden, is no longer a threat for the followers of Jesus. And the poison that Rome so often uses to get rid of troublemakers, this poison will not defeat the Jesus followers. Jesus’ followers will heal and cast out demons; they will not be killed by poison. They are followers of the resurrected Christ and they will. not. die. In fact, though Rome may try to conquer them, they will keep multiplying, baptizing people throughout the world, speaking in many languages. The power of the Almighty cannot be contained by Rome and it cannot be killed. Jesus’ followers serve a risen, liberating God and they too will rise.

Perhaps these political claims about snakes and poison are slightly akin to the lawsuit that Mennonite Church USA is bringing against the Department of Homeland Security. Joining with other Christian and Jewish groups, together we say that the government cannot tell us who we can work and worship with. We will live out our faith as God calls. We will welcome and serve where our faith leads. As Mennonite Christians, we are not subject to the king of the USA. We are part of the reign of the Risen Christ.

This Easter Sunday, even in the midst of personal anguish and political outrage, we declare again that we are followers of the Jesus way; we are people of the resurrection. As people of the resurrection, we resist the death-dealing culture that would have us dehumanize and discount tattooed prisoners in the mega-prison in El Salvador. We resist calling the debris of Palestine a potential vacation paradise. NO, we see Jesus in the prison; we see Christ in the rubble.

When we hear the poisonous lies that are spread about our loved ones who are civil servants, we recommit ourselves to be people of truth, people who love our neighbors as ourselves.

• We experience the risen Christ in our LGBTQ neighbors and immigrant friends.
• We see the image of God in women and trans children and trans adults, in our Jewish and Palestinian friends, our Ukrainian and Russian friends, in our Canadian friends.
• We experience the Spirit of God in the beauty of the earth, in the waters and mountains, in Oak Flat – along with our Apache relatives.

We may not handle snakes, we do not drink poison. But we are followers of the Resurrected Christ. We resist the powers of death. We will not be slain by the evils and poisons of this world. We will rise with joy in the power of love.