Summary
The Ending of Mark's Gospel
Mark's account of the resurrection closes with a line that has unsettled readers for centuries. After the women find the stone rolled away, hear the announcement that Jesus of Nazareth has been raised, and are told to go tell the disciples and Peter, Mark 16:8 reports: "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." The last word of the Gospel, in the Greek, is afraid.
Compared with the other evangelists, this seems strangely abrupt. Matthew narrates the women clinging to the risen Christ, the meeting on the mountain, and the Great Commission. Luke walks us to Emmaus, into the upper room, and up to the Ascension. John gives us Mary in the garden, Thomas's confession, and the note that all the books in the world could not contain what Jesus did. Mark gives us trembling women running in silence. The discomfort was felt so keenly in the early church that alternative endings—the so-called "shorter" and "longer" endings noted in modern Bibles—were composed by later hands to resolve what Mark had left unresolved. The textual evidence, both internal (grammar and style) and external (manuscript history), is nearly unanimous that these endings did not come from Mark's pen.
But what looks like a missing chord is actually Mark's own resolution. Throughout his Gospel, Mark uses two responses—fear and amazement—as theological signals that God Himself is at work. When Jesus delivers the demoniac of the Legion, the witnesses are afraid Mark 5:15. When the woman with the hemorrhage is healed, she comes "in fear and trembling" Mark 5:33. When Jesus walks on the sea, the disciples are terrified Mark 6:50. Even His teaching produces fear in His opponents Mark 11:18. Fear, in Mark, is not unbelief; it is the human creature standing before divine activity.
Amazement runs alongside it. The crowds are amazed at His authoritative teaching (Mark 1:22, Mark 1:27); they glorify God after the paralytic walks, saying, "We never saw anything like this!" Mark 2:12. So when Mark's resurrection account ends with women fleeing in terror and amazement, he is not trailing off—he is sounding his signature chord. The reader is meant to hear: this is God's doing, and it is astonishing.
That is the heart of Easter as Mark proclaims it. The empty tomb is God's doing. The acceptance of the sacrifice for sin is God's doing. The fulfillment of every word Jesus spoke about being mocked, scourged, crucified, and raised on the third day is God's doing. The conquest of death itself is God's doing. The fact that there is an Easter at all—shaping every life and stretching into eternity—is God's doing. The proper creaturely response is reverent fear and holy amazement.
And so, far from being deflating, the ending of Mark is good for the soul. The guilty fear that once accused us has been nailed to the cross; the wrath of God fell upon the Son in our place. What remains is the fear that is reverence and the amazement that lifts the heart. Our names are written on His hands. We have been ransomed, redeemed, and claimed as God's own children in the waters of baptism. We cry out Abba, and He hears. Mark ends exactly where faith continues to live—standing at the empty tomb, gripped by the divine activity of God, and rising in wonder.
Video citations
- "The Ending" 4-17-22 — Would you open up your Bibles, please with me today to mark the 16th chapter, Mark chapter 16 for our study on this Easter day. Easter Sunday, it's good for the soul, isn't it? The soul is such an…