Saturday  Within the Octave of Easter, April 23, 2022

Mark 16:9–15

When Jesus had risen, early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. After this he appeared in another form to two of them walking along on their way to the country. They returned and told the others; but they did not believe them either. But later, as the Eleven were at table, Jesus appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised. He said to them, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

“When Jesus had risen, early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene.”  Scholars call Mark 16, 1-8 “the shorter ending”, as distinct from Mark 16, 9-20, which they call “the longer ending”.  The two earliest full texts of the Gospel of Mark, found in the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus (both dating from 315-350 A,D.) contain only the shorter ending, but manuscripts nearly contemporary with these contain both the “shorter” and the “longer” endings.  The shorter ending, which is in all the early manuscripts, ends with the women fleeing from the tomb where an angel had told them to announce the Resurrection to the Apostles.  The last words of this ending strike us as odd: “And they said nothing to any man: for they were afraid” (Mark 16, 8).  This cannot be all that Mark wrote because if it were, the Apostles would not know the Lord had risen.  This would constitute an incredible anticlimax to a narrative that had been building up expectations for this very moment: the victory of Christ over sin and death.  It seems that this ending is cut off in the middle of the sentence that should read something like this: “And they said nothing to any man until they came to the place where the Apostles were staying, for they were afraid.”  Then should follow a description of the appearances of the Lord Jesus.  The fact that the Gospel originally ended in this way, with verse 8, indicates either that Mark was interrupted in his writing and was not able to resume it, or that the complete ending was lost very early, before many copies could be made of his text.  Mark would have written on papyrus which would have been rolled into a scroll.  It is very possible that a few inches of the tail end of the original scroll were torn during transit or under other circumstances.  In any event, a later hand penned the “longer ending”, a summary of the Lord’s appearances, in order to provide a more fitting conclusion.  While not the work of Mark, the Catholic Church guarantees that it too was inspired by the Holy Spirit.

“She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping.”  These “companions” were the Apostles.  While we know that they feared for their lives, we do not hear from the other Evangelists that they were “mourning and weeping” over the Death of the Lord.  We see in the Gospels how they often misunderstood him, but they did deeply love him.  His Death and their failure to protect him affected them very deeply.  We can easily imagine the grief of St. Peter who had denied knowing him to inconsequential persons.  When the cock crowed, as the Lord had foretold, Peter went off and wept bitterly.  “When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe.”  This is a generality, for Peter and John, who had gone to the tomb, did believe.  “After this he appeared in another form to two of them walking along on their way to the country. They returned and told the others; but they did not believe them either.”  This highly condenses the story of the appearance of the Lord at Emmaus, found in Luke.  “They did not believe” is again a generality.

“But later, as the Eleven were at table, Jesus appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart.”  That the Apostles “were at table”, eating, when the Lord appeared to them fits in with what we read in John’s Gospel, where the Lord asks for something to eat to prove that he is indeed alive.  Remarkably, one would think, the Lord commanded the, after rebuking them, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”  But who could be a better witness than one who had not believed and had to be won over by very hard evidence?  The chief preachers of the Gospel in the first days of the Church had not believed, and had in fact abandoned Jesus and denied him.  These are the Apostles and St. Paul, who openly fought against belief in his Resurrection.