Going Back to Galilee (Mark 16.1-8) - sermon by Teresa Morgan
Three of the four gospels tell us that after the Resurrection, one of the first things the disciples do, is to go back to Galilee. In Matthew and Mark, the angel at the tomb tells the women that Jesus is going on ahead and will meet the disciples there. In John, Jesus appears to a group of the disciples as they are fishing on the Lake of Tiberias.
The only gospel not to have the disciples going back to Galilee is Luke, and I suspect that Luke is trying here to be a bit too clever. He knows, and tells us at the beginning of Acts, that a few weeks later, the disciples are back in Jerusalem for Pentecost, where they receive the Holy Spirit. Luke thinks, why should they have gone to Galilee and then come back down south a few weeks later? It seems a bit odd, so he takes it out. He’s right – it is odd: so odd, that it’s hard to see why anyone should have invented it, so it’s probably true. But why was it important to go back to Galilee?
It’s not that there’s nothing else to do. On Good Friday, the disciples might have crept out of Jerusalem, shattered, and terrified that they would be arrested next. The vision they followed had been crushed by political reality; a world that seemed full of miracles, of hope and love, had disintegrated into something dark and terrible and wrong. But they didn’t leave then: they went to ground. For three days, they were like dead men. They abandoned Jesus’s body and did nothing. Even then the women finally came to the tomb, it was only to finish the burial. Then, before their eyes, the earth shuddered and roared and heaved, and flicked off the gravestone like a pebble. Lightening struck the rock, and in a thunderclap and a shower of light, an angel said: ‘Don’t be afraid. He is not here. Go and tell his disciples, he has been raised from the dead. You will see him in Galilee.’
We can’t begin to imagine what the women felt, standing there, speechless, in the cool morning air in the cemetery garden. But they did, eventually, go and tell the disciples. Did the disciples think – for a mad moment – let’s stay in Jerusalem? If the risen Christ stood on the pinnacle of the temple and revealed himself to the people – if he hammered on the door of the pretorium and summoned Pilate out to meet his God – who could stop him? Who wouldn’t follow him then?
The disciples could be forgiven for thinking that there was everything to do in Jerusalem after Easter Sunday. But Christ has refused that kind of power once, and he has no use for it now. He has something else in mind for the disciples. Go back to Galilee, he says. Go home.
There are two roads north out of Jerusalem – the western road through Samaria, and the more familiar route through Jericho, which runs alongside the river Jordan. I imagine the disciples taking the river road, turning off briefly perhaps at Bethany, to tell Martha, Mary and Lazarus what has happened. Pressing on past Jericho, keeping together on the lonely stretches, where Jesus set the story of the Good Samaritan. Passing the place where, what seems a
lifetime ago, John the Baptist preached and baptized people in the river. The
reeds will have grown back over the place by now. Passing towns with names
famous in Isarelite history – Succoth, Shechem, Jabesh-Gilead.
They will have arrived at the farm lands of the Galilee just as the fields were turning green with spring wheat. On the lower slopes of the hills, the terraced vines are coming into flower, and higher up, you can hear the bleating of lambs. The scent of apple and pomegranate orchards serenades the honey bees. The first place they reach is Nain, and here, perhaps, they bump into a young man, loading up his donkey for market. A young man with a widowed mother, who once was dead, and was brought back to life. Just an ordinary man.
The next village is Nazareth, where Mary leaves them, and goes home to her other children. The disciples don’t linger: Jesus was nearly killed here when he preached in the synagogue. They walk on to Cana, where perhaps they get a meal and a bed for the night from a couple whose wedding they attended. Except for Bartholomew, who goes home. But now everywhere is home for someone. Thaddeus, Thomas, Philip, Simon, sons of the hilltop villages with their rough roads bordered by dwarf oaks, and sparrows making nests among the vines. Up a ladder, there’s a man mending a roof, who used to be a leper. And in the field beyond, a man hoeing his vegetables who this time last year, couldn’t even walk. Ordinary people, living a life transfigured by the Kingdom of God.
Eventually, a few disciples will have reached the sea of Galilee, and walked along the shore, between the restless water and the quiet mountains. Maybe they sat down, in one of those natural amphitheatres where Jesus used to preach, and shared a loaf of bread. Smelt lilies somewhere nearby. Remembered Jesus stilling a storm, walking on the waves, telling them, when they were exhausted and miserable after a useless night’s fishing, to put out their nets again.
They arrive at Capernaum, which seems almost unbelievably the same. The market is busy, the tax collector at his table. Matthew walks quietly past, and is not recognized. Zebedee is sitting on the sea front, mending his nets. He looks up and there are his sons, James and John. The local centurion nurses a cup of wine outside the tavern. A little girl runs down the street in front of him. Her father’s in the synagogue – Jairus, still the synagogue’s leader, sitting debating the law with a couple of men who once were possessed by demons.
Finally, Peter finds himself alone, outside his own house. His mother-in-law inside, maybe, making bread. His wife spinning, the children playing on the roof. But he hardly sees their faces, or hears their shouts of astonishment and joy. Suddenly, vividly, he remembers the day he left, with Jesus.
And finally, here and now, for Peter, the Resurrection really begins: in the Kingdom landscape of Galilee, where Jews and Gentiles meet, the blind and
lame are healed, and sorrow is turned to joy. Where ordinary people have heard
the voice of God, and seen the heavens open and the Son of Man walking among them in clouds of glory. He hears Jesus again, saying the things he used to say: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven has come near. Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. I send you out, to proclaim the good news … cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment, give without payment… It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher.’
And for Peter, finally, it is enough.
Amen |
