Mark 16:1-8
They Said Nothing to Anyone
1When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so they could go and anoint the body of Jesus.
2Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they went to the tomb.
3They were asking one another, “Who will roll away the stone from the entrance of the tomb?”
4But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, even though it was extremely large.
5When they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
6But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here! See the place where they put Him.
7But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him, just as He told you.’”
8So the women left the tomb and ran away, trembling and bewildered. And in their fear they did not say a word to anyone.
Berean Standard Bible
The Sabbath ends at sundown on Saturday, the shops open, and three women go out and buy spices. Consider what that purchase is for. They are buying what you put on a body, for a body they expect to find where they watched it laid. Nobody walking out to that tomb is expecting anything.
They set off very early on Sunday, just after sunrise. On the way out they are working on a practical problem.
They were asking one another, “Who will roll away the stone from the entrance of the tomb?”
Three women and one heavy stone. It is an ordinary sentence in an extraordinary chapter, and it tells us what they thought they were doing that morning. Then they look up, and the stone is already moved, and Mark adds that it was extremely large, which is the kind of thing somebody mentions when he is still surprised about it.
Inside there is a young man in a white robe sitting on the right side. They are alarmed, and he tells them not to be. He names who they came for, Jesus the Nazarene, the one who was crucified, and he tells them he has risen and is not here. Then he invites them to see the place where the body had been put. The first people to hear it are handed the evidence before they are handed the errand.
The young man is not finished. There is a message they are to carry.
But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him, just as He told you.’
Both halves are promises being kept. On Thursday night he said he would go ahead of them into Galilee after he had risen, in the same breath as telling them they would all abandon him. They did abandon him, and he is going anyway. Peter gets his own mention, days after swearing to a servant girl that he had never met the man.
Then the last verse of the passage. It is one of the strangest endings anywhere.
So the women left the tomb and ran away, trembling and bewildered. And in their fear they did not say a word to anyone.
The earliest surviving complete manuscripts stop there. More text follows verse 8 in most Bibles and we will handle it honestly when we reach it, but tonight the ending is the one Mark's first readers had. Not a triumph. Three frightened women running from an empty grave with the best news anybody has ever carried, saying nothing to anybody. Mark finishes with people who are frightened and quiet.
How We Know
This Gospel ends at verse 8 in the earliest surviving complete manuscripts. The women say nothing to anyone, and the book stops.
Twelve further verses appear in most later manuscripts and are printed in this Bible as verses 9 to 20. A shorter alternative ending also survives in some copies. The longer ending was known by the second century, since early writers refer to it.
What is contested is where Mark's own account finishes. What is not contested is everything in verses 1 to 8: the stone, the young man, the message, and the silence.
- Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, the two earliest complete manuscripts, end at 16:8.
Questions
1 What were the women expecting to find when they set out?
AnswerA body. They bought burial spices once the Sabbath ended and walked out at dawn worrying about who could move the stone for them. Nothing in the scene suggests they expected anything else.
2 What does the young man show them before he sends them anywhere?
AnswerThe place where the body had been put. He tells them not to be alarmed, tells them Jesus has risen and is not there, and then points at the rock. They are handed the evidence before they are handed the errand.
3 Has anybody here ever been given good news and not been able to take it in straight away? What do the women do with theirs?
AnswerThey run, shaking and frightened, and say nothing to anyone. Mark does not scold them for it. He writes down what fear does to people who have just seen something they cannot account for.
4 Peter had sworn he never knew Jesus. What does the message from the tomb do about that?
AnswerIt names him. Tell his disciples and Peter, days after he stood in a courtyard denying he had ever met the man. Somebody made sure that name went in.
What This Means for Us
Two words got added to a message from an empty tomb: and Peter.
Nobody needed to put his name in. Tell his disciples would have covered him, technically, but Peter was not going to believe that, and somebody knew it, so the name went in. It is the first thing arranged after the resurrection in this account. Not an appearance to the authorities, and not a word to Pilate. A message with a broken man's name in it, handed to three women too frightened to deliver it.
If anybody here is carrying something they are sure has put them outside, that is who those two words are for. Their being there was deliberate.
Prayer
Father, thank you for two words in a message from an empty tomb. Thank you that you named the man who had failed worst, and that you named him on purpose. When any of us is certain we have put ourselves outside, remind us of Peter. Amen.