“FOR THEY WERE AFRAID”: ORALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF MARK 16:1-8 AND THE EASTER VIGIL
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He who is the author and superintendent of time rose from the dead during the final part of the night. The whole of the emerging day is thus made a festival, brightened by the light of his resurrection.
The Venerable Bede,
Homilies on the Gospels 2:7 (trans. L Martin)=PL XCIV fol.135B
In looking at our understanding of Mark’s ending, we often harp on the perplexity of it all. It ends so abruptly!
“And they said nothing, for they were afraid.” (Mk 16:8).
The Messianic secret is on full display here. Even at the end, the women tell no one of the resurrection of the Messiah. Markan irony is also at play here: If the women told no one, how did we get here? If we want to understand how to tell this story, it is important to understand these things.
Let me explain what I mean here. The Messianic secret is the understanding that Jesus, in Mark’s Gospel, desired to keep his identity of “Messiah” secret. He often commanded disciples, those who witnessed miracles, and even demons to keep quiet about his identity. There are plenty of theories about “why” this was; but we only need to know the “what”: that Jesus’ messiahship should not be exposed to anyone until the cross. Even after the cross, the women at the tomb keep his messiahship a secret. This perpetuates this secrecy in Mark’s Gospel until the very end. The second concept is Markan irony. In Mark, this sense of irony means that the characters in the story are victim to the irony that we as the reader and audience know to be true. For instance, throughout chapter 15 Jesus is called king; yet no one calling him King believes this to be true. We as the hearers of the story DO know it to be true. Jesus is King and Lord of all! This is the same rhetorical strategy employed in 16:8. The women run away afraid and tell no one; yet we the hearers know they told someone. Otherwise this story does not happen. It is Mark’s final punch at showing the audience his hand, to use a cards metaphor, and for us to get one last look at the type of people that populate his story: oblivious and simple people who God has chosen to spread the Good News.
The Easter service starts in darkness, with only glowing candlelight from the Paschal flame lighting the faces of those present. We start the service with the story of Creation and move through the Holy Scriptures to the Eucharist where we read from the Gospel resurrection narrative. In Year B, our text is front and center; ending at verse 8. These verses are an appeal to emotion. For instance, the dialogue between the women could be orated two ways: as a legitimate question between two women who have no idea how they’re going to move a stone to prepare Christ’s body, or as a cry of lament. I choose the latter, as it is more emotionally invigorating. As the mysterious young man, we can be impassioned when we say to the listener, “Go tell the disciples and Peter…”. Whitney Shiner discusses the performance of the Gospel of Mark and, in this portion, notes that she wishes to invite the audience to be involved. “As a performer you rely on the promise to bring the Gospel closure. But Mark does not want us to feel comfortable closure. If I am feeling good about the promise I have received, I am not feeling amazed.” (1) We should perform this narrative to provoke pure emotion in the listeners. Why? Because, by this point, we have performed the entirety of Creation and Redemption. What do we do when we get to the end of Mark then? What do we do when we get to the eighth verse of the sixteenth chapter? As the lector, we are responsible for imparting Markan irony and secrecy using just our voice. This is hard work and should be carefully done. We are Mark’s new voice, so it is important that we carry the legacy of his Good News to all.
The prime text on orality in the Gospels is Werner Kelber’s Oral and Written Gospel in which he describes the oral traditions of Paul, Mark, and the infamous “Q” (short for the German “Quelle” meaning source; this is an postulated text theorized to be Matthew and Luke’s source material.) In his discussion of Mark’s passion, he notes that the text crushes our last hope that Jesus’ message could be furthered. “This one last time hopes are aroused that the women might repair the broken connection, transmit the message of life, and facilitate the disciples’ rehabilitation. But inasmuch as the narrative kindles such hopes, it does everything to wreck them. While the women are indeed commissioned to carry the message of the resurrection to the disciples, they fail to deliver it.” (2) What do we draw from such a message? On Easter we are preaching the risen Lord! What then, are to make of a text that could shatter hope in such a resurrection? What should we preach? We preach that we are not to be afraid; as the angel says to Mary in Luke’s infancy narrative, as the angel of the LORD says to so many in the Hebrew scriptures. Those women are the tomb were afraid. It is up to us not to be. It is up to us to take the young man’s word to heart and take his message of resurrection to all those we can!
In this time of pandemic (tiresome as such a sentiment is getting to be) it is up to us to make new meaning of “going forth into the world, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit.” Preaching the story of Mark’s resurrection narrative is always hard, and with — or even after — the pandemic, it’s going to be that much harder. How do we do it? We fill the gap. We fill that which is left by Mark for us to make for ourselves. With us is the Risen Christ. We are the women, commissioned to go and preach the Good News to those around us: in our love, words, and actions. It on our way to worship him that we discover that he is risen and not where we expected. Let us go forth, rejoicing in the Spirit, to find the Risen Christ and let us not be afraid and tell everyone what we have heard.
Whitney Shiner, Proclaiming the Gospel (New York: Trinity Press International, 2003), 189.
Werner Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983), 128.
