St. Edmund's Church, Crickhowell
Encounters with Jesus -The Last Encounter |
GONE AHEAD |
This study is unique among all the encounters we have looked at because Jesus doesn't appear at all. As the young man said, "He is going ahead of you."
Have you ever arrived at a place and found it quite different from what you had expected? As Danny Abse found in his "Return Journey" to Cardiff:
the mile-wide Taff now a stream, the castle not as in some black,
gothic dream, but a decent sprawl, a joker's toy façade.
What was your experience? Disappointment or suprise?
Read Mark 15:42 - 16:8.
Most of the men involved in the final part of the life of Jesus do not emerge in a very good light. But there is one exception.
A number of suggestions have been offered to explain the empty tomb:
Stuart Blanch discusses these in his book, but before the leader tells you what he wrote, what do you think?
All we know about this chap is contained in verse 5. Who was he?
Much more important than who he was, was what he said.
Almost no-one thinks that Mark wrote verses 9 - 20 of chapter 16. They were probably cobbled together at a later date to provide a tidier ending.
If verse 8 has the last words written by Mark available to us then did he finish there or did the ending that he did write go missing? We will never know.
If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
[1 Corinthians 15: 19 KJV]
Well we haven't, have we? So we're not, are we? Let's celebrate and gives thanks!
10/10 pgm Last updated 29.11.2004