Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, St. Mark & Third Sunday after Easter
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Feast of St. Mark and the Third Sunday after Easter.
Day: April 25, 2021
Sermon for the Feast of St. Mark & Third Sunday after Easter
“For they were afraid”
The Easter stories all show the overcoming of fear and uncertainty through the encounter with Christ’s Resurrection. Sorrow is transformed into joy. “Be not afraid” is the message of Easter in the second Gospel provided on Easter Day read from St. Mark (Mk. 16.1-8, BCP, p. 185). We have seen in various ways the process of dawning awareness in the disciples about the essential life of God that is greater than sin and evil, greater than darkness and death, whether it is Mary Magdalene coming in her early morning sorrow to the empty tomb or the disciples huddled in fear behind closed doors as in a tomb or in the arresting and dynamic image of Christ the Good Shepherd. His laying down his life for the sheep is precisely about his going “through the valley of the shadow of death” for us, with us, and in us such that we need not fear “for thou art with me.” On the Third Sunday after Easter, we see the new birth of the Resurrection in us by way of the image of child-birth, the idea of sorrow and pain transformed into joy and delight.
Thus there is something rather fitting about the conjunction of the Feast of St. Mark with the Third Sunday after Easter today. Mark is the Easter saint par excellence. His feast day always falls within Eastertide. The Easter Gospel from Mark helps to explain today’s Gospel and Feast. “For they were afraid” complements “be ye not troubled.”
It is known as the short ending to The Gospel According to St. Mark. Why? Because some of the earliest texts of St. Mark’s Gospel that we possess end at verse eight of the sixteenth chapter rather than with the accounts of the Resurrection that take us to verse twenty. To be sure, the canonical Gospel, the gospel that is authoritative for orthodox Christians, includes those twelve verses. The shorter ending does not mean that Mark does not believe in the Doctrine of the Resurrection or that those twelve verses are somehow unrelated and disconnected to the rest of his Gospel and unfaithful to it. Quite the contrary.
And yet, what are we to make of that shorter ending? From a literary point of view, I think it is a powerful and poignant ending, and serves to highlight the doctrinal point about the Resurrection even more strongly. After all, it is only in the light of the Resurrection that the story of Jesus makes any sense. The Resurrection has captured the imaginations of the Gospel writers, such as St. Mark, and has compelled them to see things in a new light without which the Gospels themselves could never have been written.
Week at a Glance, 26 April – 2 May
Tuesday, April 27th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: On the Shoulders of Giants (2017, trans. 2019) by Umberto Eco and The Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and The Invention of Art (2017) by Ingrid Rowland and Noah Charney.
Sunday, May 2nd, Fourth Sunday after Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Saint Mark the Evangelist
The collect for today, The Feast of Saint Mark the Evangelist, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O ALMIGHTY God, who hast instructed thy holy Church with the heavenly doctrine of thy Evangelist Saint Mark: Give us grace, that, being not like children carried away with every blast of vain doctrine, we may be established in the truth of thy holy Gospel; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: Ephesians 4:11-16
The Gospel: St. Mark 13:1-10
The author of the second gospel, Saint Mark is generally identified with John Mark, the son of Mary, whose house in Jerusalem was a meeting place for the disciples (Acts 12:12,25). John Mark accompanied his cousin Barnabas and Paul on their missionary journey to Cyprus, but Mark’s early departure to Jerusalem caused a rift between Paul and Barnabas, following which Barnabas took Mark on the next mission to Cyprus while Paul and Silas traveled through Syria and Cilicia (Acts 15:37-41).
Paul later changed his mind about Mark, who helped him during his imprisonment in Rome (Col. 4:10). Just before his martyrdom, Paul urged Timothy: “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry” (2 Tim. 4:11).
Also, Peter affectionately calls Mark “my son” and says that Mark is with him at “Babylon”—almost certainly Rome—as he writes his first epistle (1 Pet. 5:13). This accords with church tradition that Mark’s Gospel represents the teaching of Peter.
The Third Sunday After Easter
The collect for today, The Third Sunday After Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
ALMIGHTY God, who showest to them that be in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness: Grant unto all them that are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion, that they may forsake those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 2:11-17
The Gospel: St. John 16:16-22
Artwork: Jacopo Bassano, Last Supper, 1542. Oil on canvas, Galleria Borghese, Rome.