Read more about the FVPC Lent and Easter Wizard of Oz theme here.
A worship video cued to the start of the sermon is available here.
Last winter as they were preparing for ordination as officers, one of our new elders included in their Statement of Faith, “I believe the Easter sermon should be just three words, ‘He is risen.’”
Well, Leigh, I appreciate the notes, but I hope you can forgive me for the other 1,434.
I read a little pop culture opinion piece recently that was talking about how television has changed with the rise of streaming services. For the most part, gone are the days of sit-coms or dramas with 20-25 new episodes each season. What has replaced them are 8-10 episode mini-series where, the write bemoaned, everything mattered. Every minute has to move the plot forward or tell us something crucial about a character, because there isn’t time for filler that’s just for fun. And sometimes, when a series ends it’s often incomplete, a cliffhanger, but instead of a short 3 month wait until the next season starts, fans could be waiting a year or more to find out what happens next.
And that’s if it gets renewed. Some stories just leave you hanging there on the cliff, wondering what happened to the characters you were invested in. I sort of wish sometimes, they’d at least come back and wrap things up for me, give me the Cliff’s Notes version of what happened after the story ended – – like the do for movies that are based on real events. “After saving the litter of puppies from the raging river, John Doe went on to live his life as an insurance salesman in the suburbs, walking dogs at the Humane Society in his spare time.” Or something like that.
Mark’s gospel, and his account of the resurrection, ends on a cliffhanger. “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
<Fade to black>
Did Mark get interrupted by a pandemic or a writers’ strike? Or this really how he meant to leave things???
Well, some other ancient writers thought it must have been a mistake. At least a couple decided to try to fix it for him even. (I’m sure he was thrilled.) But really, while the earliest copies of the gospel according to Mark stop at the cliffhanger of verse 8, additions manuscripts tried to tie up the loose ends. It’s like they were embarrassed by a story that ended with Jesus’ followers silent and scared. So one author tacked on a couple of sentences that tells us the women eventually told Peter and the others and Jesus sent them off to proclaim salvation.
Like the text on the screen introducing the next scene —
After discovering the tomb empty, the women gathered their courage…
Well, not just like that, but you can find it in the book.
Another author decided the story needed more than a quick conclusion and added a couple of other scenes to wrap everything up – Jesus meeting two disciples in the country, Jesus appearing to the eleven while they sat around a table, commissioning them to “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation,” Jesus’ ascension into heaven.
It’s interesting how uncomfortable some people were with a story that seemed to have no end, or an end that didn’t quite give off the vibe they were hoping for. For the fledgling Jesus movement, a story that ends in terror didn’t really inspire. As they are circulating the stories of Jesus by mouth and eventually in writing, it does’t have a whole lot of oomph to say that women just kept the news to themselves. Maybe for their purposes – trying to inspire other believers and convince those with questions – they needed more to wrap things up. They needed some resurrection appearances to prove he was really alive. They needed him speaking to tell them what to do now.
But for us – – 2,000 years later, in a church decorated with lilies, choir, brass and timpani, empty cross on display – – those filler endings, the text on the bottom of the screen as the movie fades out, they are unnecessary, because we know, from the collective biblical witness, from our own experience, that the story did not end with the women confused and in hiding. We know, because otherwise we wouldn’t be here, that the women, Mary Magdalene, Mary, and Salome, became the world’s first Easter preachers! We know that they bore witness to what they saw and what they heard and what they ultimately believed, because we are here. Mary and Mary and Salome spoke up. Then, as Paul details to the church in Corinth, so did Peter and the rest of the disciples, then whole crowds who saw the risen Jesus, Jame, and even Paul himself in a vision on the road to Damascus.
Our needs are different from the 1st century audiences, though, and the end of Mark’s gospel may just meet them perfectly. We have the stories that they were looking for, but we are uncertain about different things. Two thousand years after the resurrection, two thousand years after Jesus walked this earth proclaiming a new reign was coming – we look around and maybe wonder – where? When? Where is this new “kingdom” that was promised? When will we see God put an end to war and suffering? How long will we have to wait before the captives are released, the last are first, and the hungry are fed? Where does the resurrection of Jesus look like good news in the world, anyway?
Throughout the season of Lent this year we’ve been illustrating the experience of being on a spiritual journey through the story of the Wizard of Oz. As we come to the end of our series today and transition from the journey of Lent into the living of Easter, I’m drawn to thinking about the scene toward the end of the movie when Dorothy and her friends return to the Wizard with proof of the death of the Wicked Witch of the West, her broom. Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman, and the Cowardly Lion are making their second appearance before the Wizard who previously denied their requests for brains, heart, courage, and home, until they had completed this seemingly impossible task.
Having pulled off the impossible, though, they are now back to collect on their promises. They quickly discover, though, that the Wizard isn’t so wonderful, and the man behind the curtain is not as magical as he wanted people think. All hope seems lost. It looks like Dorothy will never make it home and her friends will go back to their field and forests still wanting for what they think they lack. That is, until the not-so Wonderful not-so Wizard shares an insight he notices.
The gifts Dorothy’s friends wish for – intelligence, heart, and courage – are gifts they have displayed all along. In their journey to get to the wizard, in their quest to save Dorothy, in their retrieval of the broom and the return to the Emerald City – the Scarecrow used his brains to help devise the plan. The Tin Man used his heart to urge them onward. The Lion, his courage to stand up to enemies. Even Dorothy’s shoes will help her get home, although the revelation of what she’s looking for, family and friendship, really comes to light when she wakes up from her dream. The gifts they sought, the gentlemen pointed out for them, were with them all along; they just needed this shared experience to use them for a common purpose to recognize their presence.
The abrupt ending of Mark, for 21st century readers, functions a bit like the man in front of the curtain. It ends asking “Well, now what?” while telling us what was true all along. Clearly the story didn’t end there, but the women who overcame their fear and proclaimed the good news that Jesus Christ is risen indeed. Additional books tell of the acts of the apostles who continued to share the good news. There are a number of letters going back and forth between leaders and to the churches they founded. We have the history of the movement of Jesus’ followers that turns into the history of the Christian church as an institution (with all its strengths and its failings).
But most importantly we have centuries upon centuries of individual stories of how Jesus’ empty tomb and everlasting life transform the world. For the resurrection gives us hope to endure in the face of death-dealing forces. It gives us wisdom to counter the selfish folly of empires. It gives us compassion to care for the most vulnerable in the world. It gives us courage to stand up for what is good and right and faithful.
The people of God have everything we need to carry on and live out the story of the resurrection. We are the answer to Mark’s “Well, now what?” We *are* what God is doing now.
For Some Reason 