A Curious Tale Indeed! Lectionary Reflections on Luke 24: 1-12, Year C, Easter
by John C. Holbert on Friday, February 28, 2025
I have long been intrigued and, I admit, delighted, by the unexpected surprises to be found in the four Gospel’s recountings of the central event of Christianity, that is the resurrection of Jesus Messiah. Most people imagine that the resurrection itself, that is the rising of a dead man to life, would be surprise enough, but beyond that obvious wonder, there exists in each of the narratives astonishing details that give to me unexpected fascination and genuine amusement.
I have made it plain in earlier Easter essays that I do not believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead, but rather celebrate the day as an announcement that in God there is no death so dead that God cannot find life in it. It is, for me, a metaphor, but a metaphor so powerful as to make my life far more hopeful and far more wonderful than it could ever be without this tale infusing and inspiring me always. Thus, for me, the story of Easter is my story and the world’s story, too, a story that proclaims the power of the love of God, unconquered and unconquerable. No surprise that the trumpets blare, the drums resound, and the choirs rejoice. Nothing less will do!
But now, for those delicious details in the story. I want to provide a brief look at all four accounts. Mark’s I love the best. Its ending has shocked and delighted me from the very first time I read it. The three women, Mary Magdalene, Mary, James’s mother, and Salome, bring their burial spices to the tomb in order to anoint Jesus’s body. They see the huge stone covering the tomb rolled away, and as they go into the tomb, they see a young man in a white robe, sitting on the right side of the bier, and “they were utterly amazed,” echoing a deep emotion found at Mark 9:15 and 14:33, an emotion that includes astonishment and profound distress. The man urges the women to “tell his disciples, and Peter (or “especially Peter,” last seen weeping over his craven denial of Jesus) that he is going ahead of you to Galilee.” Now comes the surprise. Through the Gospel, people have been urged again and again to “say nothing to anybody” about the great acts of Jesus Messiah, but invariably blab the news all over the countryside. Finally, some are told to tell, but “they said nothing to anybody, for they were terrified!” The end! (The so-called longer ending of Mark is clearly a late addition.) This remarkable ending leaves the reader shocked for certain, but it also makes plain that someone has to tell the tale! And that someone is us!
Matthew narrates very differently and adds his own surprising details. Here only Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” (mother of James?) come to the tomb. But once there they experience a great earthquake, after which an angel from heaven descends to roll away the great stone covering the tomb, and then sits on it. He too is dressed in white, but the angel is “like lightning” and when the guards witness his appearance, they “become like dead men,” deliciously ironic given the now living Jesus. The angel tells the women that Jesus has been raised, and like Mark explains that he is going to Galilee before you. The women then see Jesus himself, who repeats the angel’s directions to go to Galilee, but first, “tell your brothers,” so they may join you there. Then Matthew adds the tale about the supposed theft of Jesus’ body, concocted by the “chief priests” in order to offer them safety from the wild conviction of Jesus’s absurd resurrection. But then Matthew adds this amazing bit. The eleven disciples (Judas is dead) assemble on a mountain in Galilee, as called to do by Jesus, and when they see him—now resurrected—“they paid him homage, but some doubted” (or “hesitated”). What? Looking right at the now-living Messiah some still doubt! Incredible, but fully human, we might say. The call to follow Jesus is most difficult, filled with both hesitation and doubt, even in the face of the supposed fact of Jesus’ resurrection. How wise of Matthew to recognize the dangers and hardships of following this man.
John gives us the touching tale of Mary Magdalene in the garden. Mary goes first alone to the tomb, sees the stone has been removed, and rushes to tell Peter and the “beloved disciple” that the tomb is empty. The disciples run to the tomb, but the beloved disciple outruns Peter, looks into the tomb “and believed,” when he and Peter saw the linen cloths and napkin, but no body. Peter is not said to have then believed. Neither say anything to anybody about their experience. Mary then weeps near the tomb, but stooping to go in, she sees two angels in white, one at the former place of Jesus’ head and the other at the place of his feet. “Why weep?” they say to her. She then exits the tomb, and sees Jesus, but imagines him to be the gardener. She wails to him about the missing body of Jesus, but when the “gardener” says her name—“Miriam”— she recognizes him and calls him “Rabbouni”. Jesus urges her not to hang on to him, so she leaves and tells the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” Mary Magdalene thus becomes the first witness and evangelist for Jesus.
And Luke adds his own flavor to the tale. “The women who had together followed him from Galilee” (Luke 23:49—Luke adds his characteristic interest in the significance of women in the ministry of Jesus) witnessed Jesus’ terrible death, follow his body to the tomb and bring their spices to anoint the body. No specific women are mentioned until later in the story, after they have been told by “two men” that Jesus has been raised. When they return from the tomb, “they reported all these things to the eleven and all the rest” (Luke 24:9) Among the many women, Luke now mentions “Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James.” Though they spoke of what they had seen and heard, “these words seemed in their (the disciples) view to be so much nonsense. They refused to believe the women” (Luke 24:11). To make matters worse, Peter ran back to the tomb, looked in, and saw only the burial cloths, “and went away marveling to himself.” Once again, rather like Mark’s tale, no one hears what has happened at that tomb! Luke adds his own lengthy story of Jesus’s appearance to two unnamed disciples on a road to Emmaus, who finally recognize him “in the breaking of the bread.”
What are we to make of all these unusual details? From the terrified women in Mark, to the doubting disciples in Matthew, to the evangelist Mary in John to the unbelieving (misogynistic?) disciples in Luke, the bare story of the resurrection offers to us wonderful and fresh insights into the astonishing reactions that may be experienced when confronted with such a story. I can hardly speak for you, but I too often find myself with the women of Mark whose terror shuts their mouths, with those doubting disciples in Matthew, or the arrogant disciples in Luke who refuse to accept the witness of the women, assuming it to be utter nonsense. I want so much to be like John’s Mary! The story needs telling, however it may be told, and I must be one to tell it. How about you? Happy Easter!