The Great En-Love-Ment
By Andrea Lingle
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so they could embalm him. Very early on Sunday morning, as the sun rose, they went to the tomb. They worried out loud to each other, “Who will roll back the stone from the tomb for us?”
Then they looked up, saw that it had been rolled back—it was a huge stone—and walked right in. They saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed all in white. They were completely taken aback, astonished.
He said, “Don’t be afraid. I know you’re looking for Jesus the Nazarene, the One they nailed on the cross. He’s been raised up; he’s here no longer. You can see for yourselves that the place is empty. Now—on your way. Tell his disciples and Peter that he is going on ahead of you to Galilee. You’ll see him there, exactly as he said.”
They got out as fast as they could, beside themselves, their heads swimming. Stunned, they said nothing to anyone.
Mark 16:1–8 The Message
Resurrection: fact or fiction, myth or truth, metaphor or reality? There is enough conjecture about this question to fill Lake Superior. Probably. Even the gospels leave room for befuddlement. The original ending of Mark closes with an empty tomb that feels empty. The women leave afraid and silenced, and the careening tale that is the Gospel of Mark seems to slide inelegantly off a cliff.
The story of Jesus’s life does not end with the death of Jesus, nor does it end with the Resurrection. In the Gospel of Mark the receiver of the story is left without an ending. Obviously, the story teller knew that the average human can withstand a conversational pause for two to eight seconds. Any longer than that, and humans start filling in. Filling in the conversation, filling in the story, filling in the ending. The impulse is so strong that the Gospel of Mark has been furnished with two endings, but in Mark’s original gospel Jesus’s story ends with an ellipse…An injunction to continue. A gushing forth of all the pieces of the Life of Grace, and the freedom, no, the expectation to participate. The is the rushing fullness of the Gospel of Mark [without the extra endings.]
What is this Divinity that would refuse power for the wildness of grace? This is the God of the wilderness, the Spirit that hovers over chaos, and the Friend who sought out the desert. This is the grand gesture of the Divine. To inhabit life, to endure shame, to submit to force, and to let go. This is Resurrection Theology. God must be that which comes, nurtures, and participates. In the words of Alfred North Whitehead, “God is in the world, or nowhere, creating continually in us and around us. Insofar as man partakes of this creative process does he partake of the divine, of God, and that participation is his immortality.”
Resurrection is the invitation to participate in the great en-love-ment of creation. Come, let us dance!