Patrick Comerford
Our Easter celebrations continue in the Church Calendar, and tomorrow is the Second Sunday of Easter (Easter II).
I am probably going to spend a large part of today watching the funeral of Pope Francis on television news channels. However, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Mark 16: 9-15 (NRSVA):
9 Now after he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. 10 She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping. 11 But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.
12 After this he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. 13 And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.
14 Later he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were sitting at the table; and he upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. 15 And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.’
Today’s Reflection:
This morning’s Easter Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Mark 16: 9-15) is part of what is known as ‘the Longer Ending of Mark’ and this section and the remaining verses in Saint Mark’s Gospel are often placed in parentheses in many modern translations of the Bible.
Mark 16 begins after the sabbath has ended, with Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome buying spices to bring to the tomb next morning to anoint Jesus’ body. When they arrive, the see the stone has been rolled away, the tomb is open, and a young man dressed in a white robe announces that Jesus has been raised from the dead (verses 1-6).
The two oldest manuscripts of Mark 16 conclude with verse 8, which ends with the women fleeing from the empty tomb and saying nothing to anyone, ‘for they were afraid’.
The longer ending tells of three separate appearances of the Risen Christ: 1 his appearance early on the first day of the week to Mary Magdalene, who goes and tells the mourning disciples who do not believe her; 2, his appearance later that day to the two walking into the country, on the road to Emmaus, who go too and tell the others, although they refuse to believe them; and 3, a later appearance to remaining eleven of the twelve as they are eating at the table.
It is interesting that this reading places the first meal of the Risen Christ with disciples not at the inn in Emmaus, as in Wednesday’s reading (Luke 24: 13-35), nor by the shore of Tiberias, as in yesterday’s reading (John 21: 1-14), but at the table, perhaps in the ‘Upper Room’.
At the table, Jesus is critical of the disciples for their lack of faith and stubbornness, and because they had not believe the women who saw him after he had risen, or the two people who met him on the road.
As this is a post-resurrection narrative, we must understand Jesus becoming present at the table as a way of understanding how Christ becomes present among us at the table when we eat and drink together at the Eucharist.
In the Eucharist, I am challenged constantly to face the ways in which my faith is inadequate and the so many ways in which I am stubbornly set in my ways and in my prejudices. Yes, Jesus upbraids for all this, yet he becomes present at the table, and he welcomes me and I welcome him.
He upbraids me when I am complicit in the church looking into itself, being turned in on itself, too concerned with its own inner workings, and refusing to listen to the voice of women, the voice of those who find themselves outside the boundaries and yet have seen the living Lord, the Risen Christ.
Christ tells them the way forward is to move from looking inward to looking out. He tells them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation’ (verse 16).
Sending out is the act of mission. The original Greek phrases here show that the disciples are sent out in mission not to those like me, not to those who are the ‘saved’, the ‘chosen’ or the ‘elect’, not even to the whole of humanity or into ‘all the world’, as the NRSV recalls. The Greek text is all embracing: we are sent out into the whole cosmos or universe (κόσμον ἅπαντα), and out into the whole created order (πάσῃ τῇ κτίσει).
Creation is not an added-on dimension of mission, but integral to the Church’s theology of mission. The fifth of the five marks of mission accepted throughout the Anglican Communion is: ‘To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.’
In the Orthodox Church, care for the creation has become the defining hallmark of Patriarch Bartholomew. ‘Ecology is not a political or economic issue,’ the Ecumenical Patriarch said earlier this month. ‘It is mainly a spiritual and religious issue because God created and gave it to us to protect it, to cultivate it, to use it, but not to abuse it. This is the spiritual dimension of ecology.’
Pope Francis, in his encyclical Laudato sí on care for our common home, made creation and the environment an important agenda item in all theological and ecumenical dialogue.
Perhaps the greatest ecumenical dialogue has yet to take place, and concerns not our differences on doctrine, liturgy and church order, but how must fulfil the commission from the Risen Christ: ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation’ (Mark 16: 15).
Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!
Christ is Risen!
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 26 April 2025, Saturday in Easter Week):
‘Cross-Cultural Mission at Manchester Airport’ provided the theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme was introduced on Easter Day with reflections by the Revd Debbie Sawyer, Pastoral Chaplain in the Church in Wales and Airport Chaplain, Manchester.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 26 April 2025, Saturday in Easter Week) invites us to pray:
We pray for everyone working around the globe who assist in repatriations from country to country as families are reunited following extended separation often after many years apart.
The Collect:
Lord of all life and power,
who through the mighty resurrection of your Son
overcame the old order of sin and death
to make all things new in him:
grant that we, being dead to sin
and alive to you in Jesus Christ,
may reign with him in glory;
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit
be praise and honour, glory and might,
now and in all eternity.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God of Life,
who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son
to the death of the cross,
and by his glorious resurrection
have delivered us from the power of our enemy:
grant us so to die daily to sin,
that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his risen life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
God of glory,
by the raising of your Son
you have broken the chains of death and hell:
fill your Church with faith and hope;
for a new day has dawned
and the way to life stands open
in our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Collect on the Eve of Easter II:
Almighty Father,
you have given your only Son to die for our sins
and to rise again for our justification:
grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness
that we may always serve you
in pureness of living and truth;
through the merits of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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