Location and Date: Remsen Bible Fellowship, 07/13/2025
Theme: How will you respond to the news of Jesus’ resurrection?
Subject: The strange ending of Mark’s gospel
Title: A Weird Ending
Introduction
How does the gospel of Mark end? That might seem a strange question to ask, at least considering that a good portion of you have Bibles in your laps and could simply look down for the answer, right?
Or—could you? If you do have a physical or digital Bible in front of you, you will probably notice something weird right before verse 9. In the English Standard Version, which is the translation I preach from, there is a bracketed note written in all capital letters: [SOME OF THE EARLIEST MANUSCRIPTS DO NOT INCLUDE 16:9-20]. The text of 16:9-20 is then included, but set apart by double brackets. Most modern translations have similar features or notes in this place. So—what is going on here?
To answer that question we’re going to have to talk about textual criticism. That is a phrase that might sound a little academic and nerdy—and well, it is. But the basic idea is pretty straightforward. Textual criticism attempts to ascertain the original wording of a given text. When studying ancient documents—for instance, the books of the Bible—one of the problems scholars encounter is the variation between the handwritten copies when it comes to wording or phrasing in particular passages. You can imagine how that might happen—if we each sat down to copy the gospel of Mark word-for-word, how many of us do you think would get every word correct? Probably none of us would.
And that starts to sound a little scary. Well, if all of these errors crept in in the copying process, who can tell which ones are correct? Is biblical transmission just a long game of telephone? Here we have two simple sources of reassurance: 1) most of the people copying the books of the Bible were trained as scribes, and so while they were human and did make errors, they actually made a lot fewer than you might expect. 2) while there are errors in the manuscripts we have received, we have so many copies that it becomes possible for textual critics to determine where the errors are. So it’s not a case of two or three copies which are all different, and the scholars have to gather in a circle and flip a coin trying to determine which one is actually God’s word. Instead, we have over 5,800 whole or partial manuscripts of the NT. For comparison, there are about 10 copies of The Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar. NT textual critics have a lot to work with, and that gives us more confidence in the text, rather than less. One of the greatest NT scholars of the 20th century was FF Bruce, and he put it this way:
If the great number of manuscripts increases the number of scribal errors, it increases proportionately the means of correcting such errors, so that the margin of doubt left in the process of recovering the exact original wording is . . . in truth remarkably small.
Or, to return to our analogy, if two of us make a copy and disagree about a word, that’s a potential problem. If 35 of us make copies, and only two people disagree on a particular word, we can guess that the 33 people who agree were correct in their copying of the original.
All of that to say, the process of textual criticism has actually served to give us a great deal of certainty about the biblical text. You really can have confidence that what you are holding in your hand when you pick up a good English translation of the Bible is a faithful representation of what the Holy Spirit inspired the original authors to write.
Now, having said that, there are two passages that cause a little extra consternation. The first is John 7:53-8:11, which was actually the text of the second sermon we ever had here at Remsen Bible. If you are still awake at the end of this service and are actually more interested, I can send you the link to that. But the other text is before us here Mark 16:9-20. Verses 9-20, the bracketed ones, have been associated with Mark’s gospel for a long time. Like, from the middle of the second century long time. Which, based on the standard above, might make you think “then they’re genuine, right?” But there are three main reasons why scholars today doubt the original status of verses 9-20. First, the language is very different from the rest of Mark’s gospel. Second, the transition from verse 8 to verse 9 is very abrupt. The subject of verse eight is clearly the women who had gone to the tomb. The subject of verse 9 is Jesus, but he isn’t introduced—he’s just referred to as “he.” That wouldn’t make sense if you were writing this as a continuous narrative. The third reason scholars doubt this section as original is that though most of our ancient manuscripts include it, the very earliest do not. Additionally, ancient Christian writers like Eusebius and Jerome speak of manuscripts both with and without this longer ending, and don’t seem to consider the longer ending original.
So, where did it come from, and why is it still in our Bibles? Well, as to where it came from, we can’t be sure. Most likely it was compiled by some person or persons who thought that ending on the note v8 does—one of fear—maybe wasn’t the best way to conclude a gospel, a message of Good News. So they compiled a number of things that seemed important to them from other sources.
It’s still in our Bibles because of the long connection it has with this gospel. Even if it is not, in fact, original to what Mark wrote, I think we can be fairly certain that God had a plan and purpose in preserving it for us for over 1800 years. We should be grateful for the help that textual criticism offers to the church and our understanding of God’s word, while still maintaining that the doctrine of God’s providence is more important than the work of scholars in the last 200 years. So, while some pastors—including men I respect and admire—look at the text-critical evidence and decide to skip the final dozen verses of Mark, my plan is still to cover them the next time I preach. There is plenty in them for our reflection and instruction.
And that’s a really long introduction to bring us to the first 8 verses of Mark 16. But I wanted to lay that groundwork today, because if those scholars are correct in saying that 9-20 are an addition, then the end of what Mark wrote comes in v8. And that is significant, I believe, for understanding the point of the text.
Mark 16:1-8, When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” 4 And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back— it was very large. 5 And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. 6 And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” 8 And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
Reset the Scene
Verse one reintroduces the group of women we met in Mark 15:40. There, these women who had loved and served Jesus throughout his ministry in Galilee are reduced to a position of helplessness, where all they can do is grieve the crucifixion of their Lord.
But verse one doesn’t simply reintroduce these women, it also continues the thought from Mark 15:47, then end of the previous chapter, which reads “Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.” They had followed Joseph of Arimathia, the wealthy and respectable member of the council who had handled Jesus’ burial arrangements, and saw where he laid Jesus’ body to rest.
While there was nothing they could do in that moment on Friday afternoon, nor on Saturday because it was the Sabbath day, they went first thing on Sunday morning. They went just after the sun had risen, and headed to the tomb. They brought with them spices for properly anointing the body. These women, who had previously shown so much care for Jesus, were determined to demonstrate their love one last time.
How were they going to manage it? They weren’t even sure themselves. As we discussed last week, this stone would have been very large, and once sealed would have to be rolled back up an incline—a task for four strong men, which these women obviously were not. So they asked among themselves as they pressed on “who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?”
Do Not Be Alarmed
Imagine their surprise, then, when they looked up—I imagine them coming around a corner in the garden and lifting their eyes to make sure they were in the right location—and they saw the stone was already moved. Mark pauses here to remind us: this is a big ol stone. It didn’t move itself. So the women head toward the tomb, and then look down inside and, where they thought they would see Jesus’ body, instead they see a young man sitting there. A young man in a white robe. A young man who, pairing this with the other gospel narratives, is obviously an angel. That, I imagine, was also something of a surprise.
Then the young man speaks to them: “do not be alarmed.” Well, too late. They’re already alarmed just by seeing him sitting there. They’re already alarmed because Jesus died. They’re already alarmed because the stone was rolled away. Why in the world, they might ask, would we not be alarmed?
If that’s all he had to say, “don’t be alarmed”, it certainly wouldn’t have worked. It wouldn’t have meant much. But his message kept going: “You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him” (v6).
Here these women have come to take care of the body of the Lord—and the body is gone. Instead of a dead body, they instead meet an angel telling them that the man they seek is no longer dead—he had been dead, they could see the place where he was laid—but that he now lives. What must have flooded through their minds? Did they remember his words from Mark 9:31, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise”? Or the third prediction he made, in Mark 10:33-34, on the road to Jerusalem, a road these women journeyed with him: “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.”
The betrayal and death part had been too hard for anyone to believe. And then it happened. These women had witnessed it in all its horror. But now this young man, this angelic being, this messenger from God was telling them that the final piece of the prediction was true, too: was it too good to be true?
In verse 7 his instructions for the women continues: “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” The women are given a task: tell the disciples. Tell Peter, especially. Tell them that he will go before you to Galilee, and you will see him there.
This is one of those details that’s pretty easy to miss—the fact that the women are the first eyewitnesses of the resurrection. They were the ones who beheld the empty tomb, before the disciples. We learn from John’s gospel that Mary Magdalene sees the Lord before any of the men do. No one who was making up the gospel stories would make this part up, simply for the reason that a woman’s testimony was not considered sufficient to stand up in court in 1st century Judaism. Women were considered less reliable than men. But not to Jesus. They were the first witnesses, and then messengers, of the resurrection.
Trembling, Astonished, Afraid
But here is the strange thing about where Mark ends this narrative: he doesn’t tell us that they made it back and told the disciples. He doesn’t say they all went to Galilee and saw Jesus and talked with Jesus and were there when he ascended back to the Father’s right hand. He doesn’t tell us about the disciples on the road to Emmaus, or the appearance to doubting Thomas, in fact—he doesn’t even show us one instance of the resurrected Jesus!
He just leaves us with the message of the angel, and the immediate reaction of the women thereto. And what was their reaction? “They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” What was the immediate response of the first witnesses to the empty tomb? They ran from the angelic messenger. They were seized, the text tells us, by trembling and astonishment. And the final word of the book? Afraid. The women were afraid.
Now, I just want to register at this point that I really sympathize with these ladies. I hate surprises. Maybe my least favorite thing in life is being surprised. Even when what I’m expecting is horrible, a pleasant surprise still doesn’t feel, well, pleasant in the moment. I have to process what’s going on and what it means before I can get over the fact that it wasn’t what I expected. So, if you’re one of those folks that loves surprises and can’t figure out what’s wrong with these women, I’m just saying—surprises can be hard for some of us, even if they’re objectively good.
But on a more serious note, I think this note is intentionally where Mark leaves his book for theological reasons. The women have seen Jesus crucified. They saw him buried. And then when they went to the tomb—it was empty. And they were astonished and afraid. What were they going to do?
How Will You Respond?
We want Mark to spoon feed us the answer to that question, but I think he leaves us hanging for this reason: he wants you to decide what you’re going to do about Jesus. We’ve spent a good portion of the past two and a half years moving through Mark’s gospel. We’ve seen the miraculous power he exercised by healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, feeding the multitudes, and calming the seas. We’ve heard his teaching on the nature of salvation and the kingdom of God—and his counterintuitive instructions that to enter into his kingdom, we must see ourselves as little children (10:15).
We’ve watched him gladly receive the praise of the multitudes who called him the Lord and the Son of David, and the extravagant worship of the woman who anointed him with priceless oil in passion week. We’ve heard his claim to have the power to forgive sins (2:10), his assertion that he is the Creator and Lord of time (2:28), and his claim that though he is David’s son, he is nonetheless greater than David (12:35-37).
We’ve seen Jesus on the mount of Transfiguration, his glory revealed to Peter and James and John, with Moses and Elijah bearing witness to his glory.
And, as I mentioned already in connection with the women at the tomb, we’ve seen three distinct times where Jesus predicted his betrayal, conviction, crucifixion, and resurrection.
And now we come to the end. This very strange end.
The women run away, afraid. They haven’t yet made sense of what they’ve heard.
How do you respond to this news: the news that this Jesus, Jesus who claims authority over heaven and earth, Jesus who went to the cross to bear the weight of human sin and guilt—your sin and guilt—is now alive? When you hear the words, “Jesus was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures”, or the words of the angels at the toms, “He has risen, he is not here”, how do you respond?
Friends, this is a question that demands a response. The message of the angel is clear: Jesus is alive. Will you try to ignore him? Shrug your shoulders in indifference? Act like it only matters on Sunday? Or will you trust him with your life? Will you look to him for the forgiveness of your sins and be saved?
