THE END OF THE STORY?

Most Bible translations show the variations in the ending of Mark’s Gospel in the various manuscripts that have been found. The older translations use the longer ending that stretches to verse 16, but the older manuscripts—discovered more recently than the older translations—have a shorter ending. As the footnote in the New Living Translation puts it: “The most reliable early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse 8.” It is tempting to conclude that some readers of the earliest versions of Mark’s Gospel were uncomfortable with having the story end with the trembling and bewildered women fleeing from the empty tomb in fear. So, the later readers might have added a more complete and comforting ending, which then became part of the traditional text. We can understand the desire for a more satisfactory resolution, but we should not hurry too quickly past the startling disruption that the Resurrection was—to Jesus’ first disciples, to the city of Jerusalem, to the history of our world, and even to us.

It seems Mark “knew how the women felt as they picked up their skirts and made a dash for it anyway. Wonderful and terrible things were happening, and more were still to come. He knew what fear was all about—the scalp cold, the mouth dry, the midnight knock at the door—but he also knew that fear was not the last thing. It was the next to last thing. The last thing was hope. . . . So Mark stopped there.”* That we are reading the Gospel story proves that there was more to the story, more chapters to be written, but it is always worthwhile to pause at the wonder and the terror of the moment of discovering Jesus’ resurrection.

* Frederick Buechner, Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who (New York: Harper and Row, 1979), 112, 113.