“So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

What? How can it be the end? The story of Jesus in Mark's Gospel stops here. None of what we modern day listeners expect from the other Gospels is in it. In Mark, Jesus never appears again to the disciples, to Mary, or to anyone else. In Mark there are no visits by Jesus to a locked room. No Doubting Thomas. No sending the disciples out to preach and baptize. No giving of the Holy Spirit. No eating fish on the beach.

The story of the life and death of Jesus in Mark's story--which otherwise rushes along without hesitation as if it were eager to get to some important destination--just stops.

All that momentum, all that head of steam, brings us to a death, an empty tomb, a young messenger in white. We are like a real-life road-runner-chasing Wylie Coyote, whose road has run out at the edge of the cliff, and who is now finds himself standing on nothing.

The story is incomplete. Like a mystery unsolved, or a tune unresolved, or a trial without a verdict. It is so upsetting that in later centuries more than one writer tried to tack on more satisfying endings. But what we heard today is what appears in the oldest versions of Mark's gospel: this sudden ending, the silent fear of Mary Magdalene and Mary, mother of James.

The resurrection stories in Matthew and Luke and John are much more appealing. They tie off loose ends with interesting and helpful stories. They give better answers to our questions about a resurrected Jesus. They talk to us about inevitable doubts. They comfort us with promises of a helpful divine companion who will watch over and guide us. They put the death of Christ in scriptural and prophetic context. They give authority to Peter and, say some, to later bishops.

They are helpful to us as living followers of Christ, they give us clues to his nature and his expectations, and they reassure us. After the cross, they let us down easy.

It is true that Mark gives us little of what the other Gospels give us. But it's enough. Mark gives us enough. Mark is sufficient. Jesus has been raised, as he told you. That's enough. Neither the faith of the early Christians nor ours depends on those other helpful stories. They fire our imaginations, but they are not the foundation of our hope. They are not evidence. They are neither sufficient nor necessary to convict. To convince.

The women who come to the tomb looking for Jesus are terrified. A better way to say this is that they were overwhelmed. The word means to tremble, not necessarily to be afraid. There was more there than they could figure out. We should not be surprised or fault them. It was not figure-out-able.

And they were amazed. They were flabbergasted. To be amazed is also to be overwhelmed, but often in a more pleasant way. The word Mark uses is the root of the word ecstasy. The feeling. It means literally to be out of position. To be knocked off one's feet.

Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James were seized by amazement. They were knocked off their feet. It was something that was done to them, not something they did. Amazement held them. They were possessed as one friend possesses another, as one lover possesses another.

To be amazed is to be open to hopeful possibility. Eyes wide open. Amazement is the flavor of Christian experience. It is a sign of life and joy in God. The opposite of amazement is not indifference but certainty.

The women approached the tomb with certainty. They knew what they were about. They were prepared, coming with sure knowledge of the death of their leader and teacher. They left amazed, open to something they were perhaps afraid to hope for. An end to death.

The other Gospels give us surprise and delight and doubt. Mark gives us amazement. Mark's open-ended story is in some way more devoted to Jesus than the others, more loyal. And more trusting of us, who hear it. For unlike the others, it does not try to explain things or wrap things up. Mark trusts us to carry the story into the future. And Mark's urgency drives us to.

The Gospel of Mark opens with these words: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The whole story is not the whole story, just the beginning. Mark is like a portal, an entrance, a doorway into a new kind of world, one which is guided by God.

It is a story of life and death. Sometimes it feels as if death will win. Life, compassion, love for friends and enemies seems hard to come by. We mourn sickness and sorrow. We fall into despair. We lose patience even with God, who has promised us abundant and joyful life.

But the good news, in Mark's Gospel as in the others, is that life wins. Hope conquers despair. Freedom conquers obsession. Forgiveness conquers anger. Jesus is not here, says the young man. You will see him, just as he promised. Life conquers death.

Every Sunday is resurrection worship. Every Sunday is a little Easter. Every Sunday we are renewed, every Sunday we are reminded that life wins. Every Sunday we come on purpose to be amazed. To see an open future with abundant life, justice, and peace. And we in it.

And on Easter day, on this Easter day, we celebrate the beginning of that good news. We celebrate Mark's story which closes not with “The End,” but with “To be continued.”