On a whim…

Mark 16:8 NRSV

“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.”

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It ends there.

No appearance.

No explanation.

No resolution.

They run.

Not because they doubt what they have seen. Not because they have rejected it. Because something has happened that they do not yet know how to live inside.

The tomb is empty.

The body is gone.

The message has been given.

He is not here. He is going ahead of you.

And they are afraid.

We expect more from them.

We expect understanding. Composure. Something that resembles faith. We expect the story to move quickly toward clarity—toward proclamation, toward confidence.

It does not.

They say nothing.

Not because nothing has happened. Because what has happened has not yet become speakable. The world has shifted in a way that has no name.

Fear is not the opposite of faith here.

Fear is what happens when reality changes before we understand how.

We speak now with the advantage of distance. With language that has been shaped and refined and repeated until it feels settled. We say resurrection as if it were a word that resolves things.

It does not.

It unsettles them.

It unsettles everything.

The world is no longer something they can stand outside and make sense of. They are inside it now. And for a moment, there is no way forward except to run.

Mark does not fix this.

He does not soften their fear. He does not carry them forward into understanding. He leaves them there—mid-sentence, unfinished.

Because the story does not end with them.

It continues wherever it is being read.

We are not asked to move past their fear.

We are asked to recognize it.

Not as failure.

As the beginning of any honest response to a world that has already changed, even if we do not yet know how to live inside it.

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Prayer

God, meet me in what I do not yet know how to believe.