NOTES for Mar 16:19-20

Having risen, Christ did not appear to the apostles at once, but first to Mary Magdalene, one of the women who had buried Him, and only then to some of the disciples. Even the apostles found it hard to believe those who first saw the Risen One. For this, when He appeared to all the apostles, He reproached them not simply for unbelief, but also for hardness of heart.

Reasoning in human terms, one can acknowledge the fairness of the reproach and begin recalling what else the guilty ones had done to deserve it. But it is precisely to them, the hard-hearted, that Christ immediately entrusts the task of carrying the Gospel to the whole world. More than that, He gives them the ability to support their preaching with signs confirming the truth of the saving teaching. This means that the disciples' hardness of heart is not fatal; its ice can be melted by the sun of the Resurrection.

The Lord does not push away those who have stumbled, but calls them, and us, again to follow Him, precisely because His gifts, salvation and transformation, can be received only by following Him.

Mark depicts the events after Christ's Resurrection very briefly. Almost every episode in this account is described in more detail in the other Gospels. Mark wants to emphasize the most important thing. So the disciples are hiding from persecution, overcome by grief and despair. Only certain women, who did not leave Jesus in the hour of His death, now want to pay Him their last duty and complete the burial they had not finished because of the Sabbath rest. It is to them, His most faithful followers, that the Angel announces the stunning, fearful, and at the same time joyful news: He has risen. He is not here. But the disciples cannot believe Mary Magdalene, to whom Jesus appeared, or the two other disciples who saw Him. They are so absorbed in their grief and despair that their hearts close themselves to hope, even though Jesus had repeatedly predicted His Resurrection to them. Finally, Jesus Himself appears among them and rebukes them for hardness of heart and unbelief. By His appearing He scatters their grief and fear.

The risen Savior sends the disciples to proclaim to "all creation" the joyful news of the new life that began with His Resurrection. He says that through faith and baptism a person already in this life enters salvation: liberation from slavery to fear, sin, death, and eternal condemnation. Christ names the miraculous signs and gifts now possessed by the new humanity, reborn and raised to life in God. The authority of Christ's disciples over death, illness, and dark powers is testimony to the presence of Christ Himself among them. Even now He lives among us and in us, blessing the preaching of the Gospel of Life.

In the Gospel of Mark, the account of the Resurrection is much shorter than in the other Gospels; it fits into only twenty verses. And the basis of the account here, paradoxically, is the theme of unbelief or distrust toward the testimony of those who saw the Risen One (v. 8, 11, 13). It would seem that the apostles could and should have been glad to hear the news of the Resurrection, because only recently, just three days earlier, it had seemed to them that everything was already over and there was nothing more to wait for. Of course, there was an element of surprise and of the incredible in what was happening. But there was probably something else as well: unpreparedness to accept such a long-awaited surprise. Long-awaited indeed: most believing Jews of the Gospel era believed in the general resurrection on the last day and in the Last Judgment. In addition, Jesus had spoken to His disciples more than once about His death and about His Resurrection, which was to follow that death. And this very thing was least able to fit into the apostles' consciousness; that is why the news of the Resurrection turned out to be unexpected for them. Here, apparently, a general trait of fallen human nature shows itself: inconstancy. Of course, in principle none of the apostles would ever have doubted the general resurrection or the Last Judgment. Probably, in principle, even the resurrection of their Teacher would not have seemed impossible or incredible to them. But when it happened, it turned out that all this was precisely "in general" and "in principle." And not at all because the apostles' faith was weaker than the faith of their contemporaries or ours. It is simply that when centuries pass between a promise and its fulfillment, faith in what was promised becomes somewhat abstract. It ceases to be a concrete reality expected from day to day, as the first Christians expected the Second Coming promised by the Savior. What becomes the object of spiritual attention is not the promised event, but the expectation itself. It becomes the goal and content of religious life. And then it often turns out that, when what was promised arrives, those least ready for its arrival are precisely those who prepared for it longest and most actively. But when what has been awaited for so long does happen, each person has, as it were, to see and experience anew the new reality entering the world, a reality that brings an end to everything that came before, including the waiting itself. This is the last boundary; beyond it is the Kingdom.