Easter Vigil, March 30, 2024 - Acts 10:34A, 34-43; Colossians 5:6B-8; John 20:1-9

If you were following the gospel reading in your missalette, you may have noticed that my reading went on for one line longer than yours. That was Verse 8 of Chapter 16. It’s how the gospel story ends. The Church deliberately leaves it out of the reading on Easter because it’s a puzzling ending and has been a puzzle to Christians ever since Mark wrote it.

So how were you feeling as you heard that story? Everybody's feelings are their feelings. But notice what Marks says about the feelings of the women when they found the tomb empty and heard the message that He was risen. The last line says, “But they ran away in fear and trembling because they were very much afraid.” That’s not the only English translation. There is another one that goes, “But they ran a way half fearful, half overjoyed.” Because, in fact, it’s very obscure what the scripture actually says. 

Mark wrote his Gospel originally in Greek. Probably very bad Greek. He may not have been all that well educated. But that line uses two words to describe the women’s feelings - tremblore and ekstasis. You can recognize the English word tremble in that. Ekstasis is a very interesting word. It transliterates in the English language as ecstasy. For us ecstasy is a feeling of tremendous euphoria, which would’ve made a lot of sense. If they were told that Jesus was alive, they would have been filled with fear because that had never happened before in the history of the human race. And the question would be, “Oh, my God, what now?” But they might have also believed so strongly that he really was alive, that they would have been filled with sudden ecstasy. But when St. Jerome translated this Greek into Latin, he took a step back. He translated the Greek word tremblore with the Latin word tremblore. When he got to the next word, ekstasis, he used pavis instead. I looked up in a couple of places to find out if pavis had multiple meanings, but it doesn’t. It always means just fear. So, our English expression fear and trembling comes right from there. St. Jerome says that St. Mark said, “The women ran away in fear and trembling.” So, which was it? Were they just trembling with fear? Or were they trembling with excitement? Or neither of them? Or both of them? Or something else? That’s why I asked you what you felt when you heard the story because not everybody felt the same thing.

You know, we’re going to wake up on Monday morning and it's going to be the same old world. The same old war. The same old violence. The same old trouble in our communities. The same old bothersome relatives. The same old difficult children. The same old annoying  job. It’s the same old, same old. And so, what has changed? 

If we look at our lives under the aspect of the resurrection of Christ, we might be tempted to say, “Oh, my God, everything is changed!” Or we might say, “Aargh! Everything has changed now. I have to be different.” Or we might say, “Everything has changed. I don’t understand. I just don’t understand.” And no matter which of those things you say. If you say, “Oh, my God, everything is changed,” God whispers to you, “Yes, it is.” If you say, in sadness, “Oh my God, everything is changed, now I have to change,” God will say, “Yes, it is and yes, you do.” And if you’re angry about it all and confused and say, “Everything has changed,” God will say, “Yes, yes, it is.” “And I’m very confused,” and he will say, “Yes, yes you are”. “But what should I do?” “That’s up to you.”