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Sermon preached on Mark 16:8 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 04/20/2025 in Petaluma, CA.
Sermon Manuscript
Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
Before we read today’s passage, you’ll notice that our pew Bibles include a note explaining that some of the earliest manuscripts do not include verses 9–20 of this final chapter in Mark. This is somewhat of a mystery. While the majority of ancient manuscripts do contain this longer ending, a few significant ones do not. Various explanations have been suggested. Perhaps Mark originally wrote two editions. Perhaps someone else finished the longer ending based on apostolic teaching. Perhaps a manuscript with the original ending was damaged, and later copies were made from that incomplete version. We don’t know for sure. While there are theories, we can appreciate that our pew Bibles draw our attention to this issue.
Too often uninformed unbelievers will make statements that the Bible is just full of copying issues and thus unreliable. But the facts are that there are relatively few manuscript issues, and when there are, modern Bibles will typically point them out like you see here. This allows us to clearly see that even in places where questions arise, no essential doctrine of the Christian faith is at stake. Even if the longer ending of Mark were not original, no core Christian teaching would be lost. That’s because the core teachings of Christianity are taught in various passages throughout the Bible, not just in a single passage.
Personally, I find that this kind of transparency about the manuscript evidence strengthens my confidence in the Bible. The more you examine the details, the more trustworthy it proves to be. I’m thankful that our pew Bibles draw this to our attention.
All that being said, the focus of my sermon today will be on verse 8. And so, I’ll be reading verses 1–8 now, as our sermon passage for this morning.
He has risen! That’s verse 6. Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, conquering sin, Satan, and even death itself! That proclamation should excite us! It should fill us with joy! It should make us want to go tell all the world the good news. Yet, that was not the immediate reaction of those who first heard that Jesus was risen. I would like us to consider this initial reaction of fear, trembling, and astonishment that seized these first eye-witnesses to the empty tomb. It’s a reaction we can both relate to and learn from.
Our passage describes how these women disciples faithfully went to visit Jesus’ tomb early on that Sunday morning when he rose from the dead. Jesus had died on a Friday and they did not have time to fully prepare the body for burial before the Sabbath. They were now intending to go and anoint his dead body with spices according to customary burial practices. They wake up early in their zeal to get there as soon as they can. They don’t even know how they will roll away the stone from the entrance, but they want to be there, so they go. Yet, praise be to God, they see the stone already rolled away. At the tomb, they are greeted by a young man in a white robe. Other gospel accounts explain that this was an angel. At the sight of this angel and the empty tomb, they are already getting alarmed. But the young man tries to dispel their fears and tells them that Jesus is alive! He then gives them instructions to go spread the word to the rest of the disciples, and especially to Peter, that Jesus will meet them in Galilee as he promised.
That’s a summary of the passage leading up to verse 8, which is the verse I want to focus on today as we consider the emotions and reaction of these three women. Let us first consider how these women were seized by these emotions, using the language there in verse 8. Now that is a rather colorful way to describe what is going on here, to say that they were seized by these emotions of trembling and astonishment.
That’s not the most literal way to translate the Greek here. The verb translated as “seized” by our pew Bibles is a fairly common word generally translated as “to have” or “to hold”. But the construction in Greek is emphatic if you think about it. A literal translation would be, “Trembling and astonishment were holding them.” Like in the English translation, that makes trembling and astonishment the subjects of the sentence and the women are the object. It personifies the emotions and describes them as the actors. These emotions take hold of the women.
So, this is an emphatic way to speak about being emotionally overwhelmed. Trembling grabbed hold of them. Astonishment grabbed hold of them. Their emotions had them right where they wanted them. We know, ideally, we should control our emotions, not the other way around. Yet, we also know that sometimes our emotions do get the better of us. These women are so emotionally struck by what they see and hear that, at first, their emotions control them. This is a kind of emotional paralysis.
So then, consider with me the two emotions that so controlled them, trembling and then astonishment. Trembling is a form of fear. Indeed, the verse ends by specifically saying that they were afraid. This word for trembling describes someone who is shaking or quivering because of fear. Such fear can cause a literal trembling of the body. Emotions can do this, they can literally affect us physically. A similar physical reaction is what we describe as being “petrified.” That’s when someone becomes so afraid that they become stiff, like a rock. A petrified forest is made up of trees that literally turned into stone. Likewise, someone who is greatly afraid can become stiff like a rock, or as in this case, tremble and shudder. You surely don’t physically tremble if you are just a little afraid. To tremble in fear is what happens when you are very afraid!
Think of why they might be so greatly afraid. They showed up to the tomb and it didn’t meet their expectations. They came expecting a closed tomb with Jesus’ body inside, but it looked more like a crime scene. Imagine coming home from vacation and seeing your front door wide open. Then you look inside and see things missing. Fear would hit you fast, and that’s what these women experienced. They likely feared that graverobbers had broken in, desecrated the tomb, and stole Jesus’ body.
They then encountered an angel. Such experiences are often terrifying in the Bible. It’s not everyday that you personally encounter a supernatural being. Often, people in Scripture fear they are about to be judged when that happens. Even if they didn’t realize right away that he was an angel, here was a man sitting inside a tomb that appeared disturbed. Again, imagine walking into your house and discovering someone inside after the door has been kicked open. Fear is going to come on quickly.
Then they hear those awesome words that Jesus is alive. He is raised from the dead. That’s why his body isn’t there in the tomb. That’s such an amazing announcement, but it can still evoke fear at the sheer greatness of it. Back in chapter 4, when Jesus calmed the storm, the disciples became more afraid afterward than before. They asked, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” Likewise, these women had seen and heard so much from Jesus, his teachings, his miracles, his power. But now, when he does the impossible, rising from the dead, the greatness of it overwhelms them. What fearsome wonder!
In addition to the trembling, they were also astonished. Astonishment gripped them by what they saw and heard. This word for astonishment comes from the Greek ekstasis, from which we get the English word ecstasy. The word literally means to “be out of place.” It can describe the result of some awesome experience that is so intense that it leaves someone beside themselves or temporarily out of their right mind. Often in the Bible it’s used in response to miraculous events. For example, in Mark 5:42, Jesus raises Jairus’s daughter, and the witnesses “were immediately overcome with amazement.” That’s the same word. I appreciate how this contrasts with their trembling. We saw that fear can affect you physically, in things like bodily trembling. Here, we see how something awesome can affect your mind and soul, leaving you so astonished that you are internally unsettled. So while trembling describes a physical reaction to fear, astonishment describes a mental and spiritual reaction to awe.
Indeed, what they just experienced was truly awesome in the full biblical sense of the word. It started with a stone rolled away they knew they couldn’t move. It continued with a messenger that turned out to be an angel. Then they found that the tomb was empty, because Jesus was alive. Jesus had died a horrible public death on a Roman cross, but now he is alive again, wondrously alive from the grave. Up from the grave he arose, and now they hear that they are going to be able to see him even. After all the pain and sorrow they had at his crucifixion, after all the mourning and sense of loss, can anything be more wonderful? Can anything be more amazing? Are all sad things coming untrue (credit: Tolkien)? Is the kingdom of heaven finally here? Is paradise finally being restored? What all does this mean? It’s wonderfully bewildering and emotionally overwhelming! It is ecstatic indeed!
So then, we’ve seen two strong emotional reactions, trembling and astonishment. How do the women respond to these strong emotions? What is their response to their emotional reaction? Look at verse 8 again. “They fled from the tomb… and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” And so, their immediate response is to flee and say nothing to anyone.
Think of their fleeing. To flee, means they ran away. They left the scene of the crime that wasn’t a crime, so to speak. Like we say in psychology, it was a classic fight-or-flight response. Faced with fear or stress both humans and animals respond with either fight or flight. You either combat the danger or you run away from it and hide. In this case, the women’s response was flight. Faced with fear, some creatures choose to fight. Others choose flight, to run away, to seek refuge away from the perceived danger. These women initially respond by fleeing.
Think also of their silence. Not only do they run away from the tomb, but we see that, at first, they say nothing to anyone. They are scared speechless. The language in Greek is emphatic, literally, they “say nothing to no one.” Fear and awe had a paralyzing effect on them. Maybe they thought: “Who would believe us?” “Would they think that we desecrated the tomb, or that we stole Jesus’ body?” “Are we going crazy?” “Was this real, or just a hallucination?” “Did I eat some bad meatloaf, and now I’m seeing things?” They might have concluded: “We should just keep this to ourselves.” That’s the power of such frightful awe.
We can understand their reaction. But we must also acknowledge that this is not what the angel instructed them to do. He told them to go and tell the disciples this good news. Instead, they run away, and, at first, say nothing.
If the original ending of Mark did end abruptly with verse 8, it would be a striking cliffhanger. Think of the rhetorical effect it would have. It would leave us with their frightful awe and their emotional paralysis. But it would also leave us, the reader, with a question: How will you respond to the resurrection? Will you remain silent in fear? Or will you go and tell? Regardless of whether Mark originally ended with verse 8, that is still the question we are confronted with today. How will you respond to this good news that Jesus is risen? Will you hide away this good news? Or will you embrace it and run to tell it to others?
Well, I’m thankful to report that these women didn’t stay paralyzed in their frightful awe. We know from the longer ending of Mark and from the other Gospel accounts that they did eventually speak. They did go to the disciples. They did share the good news that Jesus had risen from the dead. Maybe you can relate to them? Maybe you’ve kept silent when you should have spoken? But that doesn’t mean you must stay silent. Even if you’d been too scared to speak up for Jesus in the past, that doesn’t mean you can’t start spreading the gospel now.
So let me practice what I’m preaching by right now addressing any here today who are not yet followers of Jesus. If you’re visiting today and have not yet trusted in Christ, please listen carefully to what I’m about to say, because I’m speaking directly to you. I want you to personally deal with the emotions of all this for a moment. Think about the fear and the awe. The Bible says we all deserve hell if we are not forgiven of our sins. That should make anyone fear. God has repeatedly proven his message to be true with so many signs and wonders. The greatest sign is that Jesus rose from the dead. The resurrection leaves us in awe because we realize the Bible’s message is true. Take that fear and awe together. May this fear and awe take hold of you right now. Don’t run away from the truth. Instead, may this fear and awe lead you to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So then let me tell you that gospel, the good news: Jesus came into this world and died so you could be saved from your sins. At creation, our first parents, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God and plunged humanity into sin. We’ve all been sinning and falling short of God’s glory ever since. But God promised to send a redeemer, and that redeemer is Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. He died on the cross to pay for the sins of all who will repent and believe in Him. He rose again to show His victory over sin and death. He calls you to turn to Him in faith, to follow Him as Savior and Lord. Those who do will rise again with Him to everlasting life, at eternity of blessedness with our Lord. Those who don’t will face a fearful judgment when He returns. That judgment will be frightfully awesome, but you won’t need to fear it, if you trust in Jesus. Believe on Jesus and be saved, even today. This is a free gift from God, why not receive it? But, let me be clear, if you’re not trusting in Jesus, there’s no reason to celebrate His resurrection today. But you can rejoice in his resurrection, if you will turn to Him in faith.
In conclusion, we’ve seen that strong emotions can hinder obedience, especially in sharing the gospel. But the lesson applies to more than that. Ask yourself, what strong emotions have been controlling you instead of you controlling them? Emotions are powerful, and they have a place, but they’re not meant to master you. Don’t let fear become a phobia. Don’t let awe become apathy. Let fear give way to faith. Let awe inspire action.
And so in conclusion, if you’re not yet a Christian, don’t let fear keep you from faith. Don’t let awe remain idle. Trust in Jesus today. And if you are a Christian, then live boldly for Christ. Have faith to know that God’s way is the best way to live, even when the world tells you otherwise. The gospel is astonishing, and it demands your zeal.
Christ is risen, and that changes everything, even how we feel and respond to the world around us.
Amen.
Copyright © 2025 Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
All Rights Reserved.
