Saturday within the Octave of Easter, April 15, 2023

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.”

St. Mark’s Gospel follows Jesus breathlessly through the first events at the beginning of his ministry and the last few months of his life on earth, but his account of the Resurrection disappoints.  In fact, two accounts of the visit of the Resurrection are given.  The first, Mark 16, 1-8, ends as though a fragment with the women thoroughly frightened by the appearance of the angel st the tomb.  The second, Mark 16, 9-20, seems not to be by Mark but by another another.  Its legitimacy in the Gospel, however, is shown by the numerous early Greek texts of the Gospel which include it.  It is also found in all the early pre-Vulgate texts excepting one, and Jerome included it in the Vulgate.  The Catholic Church guarantees that it is divinely inspired through its making the Vulgate its official Bible at the Council of Trent.

“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.”  The four Gospels, written at different times in different places for diverse audiences all remarkably tell us that the Lord appeared first to Mary Magdalene.  We might expect one or another of them to simply not mention her or the other women but to go right from the angel rolling back the stone to the appearance of the Lord to the Apostles.  But each Evangelist thought it essential to speak of Mary.  John even goes into considerable detail in his description of the Lord’s appearance to her.  

“She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping.”. This detail about their “mourning and weeping” only appears in this Gospel.  Otherwise, we get a picture of the Apostles sitting around in the dark, their minds on how to hide from the Jews who might be looking for them.  “When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe.”  Grief has a way of reinforcing itself, and perhaps this is happening here: their grief had so overcome them that they could not believe that the Lord was alive.  This verse would seem to contradict what is said in the Gospel of John about Peter and John running to the tomb after Mary Magdalene delivered her message, but the verse may be a general summary of the condition of the Apostles without mentioning that Peter and John had seen the empty tomb and come back without seeing Jesus. “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 verse greatly condenses the story from Luke of the two disciples who met Jesus on their way to Emmaus.  However, “but they did not believe them either” seems to contradict Luke’s description of the Apostles already convinced of the Lord’s rising.  The problem arises from the fact that only a very condensed version of the encounter is related.  It could be that some of the Apostles believed and others did not with the result that we are told “his companions . . . did not believe.”  Similarly, Jesus appeared “as the Eleven were at table”: we know from the Gospel of John that Thomas was not present for the Lord’s first appearance to the Apostles on Easter Sunday evening.  The author is simply making a generalization, as when we might say, “The eyes of the world are on this”, when we might mean tens of thousands or a million people and not everyone on the earth at the time.

“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.’ ”  This verse is the reason the unbelief was emphasized in this ending to the Gospel: these disheartened, disbelieving men must have seen something in order for them to indeed go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel.  These broken-hearted men were not easy to convince.  Mere witnesses who had seen the Lord, and whom they knew and trusted, could not convince them.  Only the Lord himself could have convinced them that he was alive.  And if they were convinced, despite everything, it follows that we must be convinced too.  John makes this same point in his Gospel with his report on the Lord’s appearance to Thomas, who had doubted even when the other Apostles had seen him.

We should mourn and weep not over the loss of Jesus but over our own possible loss of eternal life due to our sins, but let our grief be tempered by the joy of the Resurrection, for the Lord Jesus has opened heaven for us.