When you read the gospel of Mark, there’s a bit of a dilemma with the way it ends. In fact, there are three completely different endings. The oldest copies we have of the gospel end with the women fleeing from the empty tomb in absolute terror. No good news. No risen Jesus. Just three Jewish women grapping up the hems of their robes and running away from the empty tomb just as fast as they can in total fear and panic. Other ancient copies of Mark’s gospel have different endings tacked on; one of which at least has a resurrection appearance of Jesus. But of the three different endings of Mark’s gospel, I like the one we heard today the best because it tells it like it really was. “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.”

Who can blame them for being afraid? Mary Magdelene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome had every reason in the world to be afraid. The dead body that had been in the tomb is no longer there. In Mark’s telling of the story, the Risen Jesus is not there to greet the women and calm their fear and panic; he is not there to show them his new risen life. All they know is that the tomb that had a body in it no longer does. He is not there. Fear is their first response.

We too understand being afraid of things we cannot see for ourselves. We too understand being afraid of things that go against our previous experiences of the way things are supposed to be. Like the two Marys and Salome, we understand what it means to be afraid because we too are afraid of a lot of things.

We’re afraid, you and I, of things big and small. We get scared for personal reasons and we get scared for global reasons. We’re afraid because of the dive of the stock market. Those who have retired have seen the money they planned to live on for the rest of their lives disappear as stock market prices have plunged. We’re afraid because the job market is so uncertain and more people are now out of work than have been so in decades. Those out of work worry about what they will do when unemployment benefits end and struggle to keep a positive attitude when each new job lead heads to a dead end.

We’re afraid because too many countries in our world, including our own, have nuclear, chemical and biological weapons on hand. We’re afraid that if we don’t take firm steps soon to control our insatiable desire for energy, that the realities of global warming will destroy our world more effectively than any precision guided missile ever could. We’re afraid that despite our best efforts, terrorists still have access to our towns and cities, our waterways and airways. We’re afraid on behalf of our children and teens - we worry about the future they will be growing up into. We’re afraid for our health, for our security, for our well-being. Yes, we understand what it is to be afraid. We have many reasons, big and small, to be afraid.

But we’re also afraid because we forget. In Mark’s account of the resurrection, the young man the women find sitting in the tomb tells them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” Just as he told you…

Jesus had told the women, just as he has told all of us – “I will be crucified and raised on the third day.” Jesus had told the women, just as he has told all of us, “I will be with you always – I will not leave you alone.” Jesus had told the women, just as he has told all of us: “I have come that you might have life in abundance.”

What goes on to happen in the story of the Resurrection is that the women and all the disciples who are afraid finally meet their Risen Lord. The initial fear and panic at the evidence of the empty tomb lead to sheer joy as they finally catch up with their Risen Lord. Remember the story of the disciple Peter who, having been scared out of his wits, denies knowing Jesus the night before Jesus was crucified. The same Peter who lived in fear when Jesus was arrested will meet the Risen Lord. And we know that Peter’s fear turned into solid certainty that Jesus was alive. We know that is so because otherwise, Peter would never have had the courage to utter publicly the words we hear in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles. Peter makes a speech to the people of Jerusalem, speaking with fearless and passionate conviction: “They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.”

The tomb is empty indeed. The questions for us today are: “Have we seen the Risen Lord?” Have we remembered what Jesus told us? Are we still running in fear and panic like Mary Magdelene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome, or have we, like Peter, met the Risen Lord? Do we know of our own saving – of our own salvation? Have we acknowledged that in Christ, God the Father has overruled death and our own deepest fears? Do we know that in the midst of the danger and uncertainty of the world we live it is, in fact, God who rules?

In the first week or so of the war with Iraq, I read an article by a Lutheran pastor that helped me gain equilibrium in my own struggles with fear and anxiety. This pastor used the powerful image of the church as a prism to remind us that our role as followers of the Risen Lord is to hold steady in the most scary and uncertain of times. He writes, “On a day when the sun beams through my window I can hold this prism in my hand and light up the walls and ceilings with spectacular light. When I look upon the people in our congregation, I sometimes imagine them as a palette of gorgeous colors – an array of talents, ideas and experiences – all waiting to make a difference in illumining the world. As for the white light that first strikes the prism, I think of that as symbolizing the light of Christ and the comforting presence of God, beaming their way into the center of a community.”

This pastor goes to talk about how important it is for the church – meaning us - to hold steady in times of fear and uncertainty, because, remembering the prism – if we become shaken and tossed – “the white light of Christ at the heart of the prism will never diffuse with the magnificence it deserves.”

The tomb is empty indeed. And what that means is that we are not alone. While there is plenty in our own lives and in the state of the world to scare us, we are not alone. The tomb is empty. The Risen One is alive - at work in our lives and in the world – that white light at the heart of the prism that allows each of our colors to illumine the world with hope and beauty and brightness.

As a church community we believe that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and that Christ will come again. As a community of believers, we know that we are not, nor will we ever be alone. And in the beautiful prism of colors that make up the community of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, we believe that the light of Christ is in the hearts of all of us and is the single and abiding force that allows us, literally, to shine steadily in an unsteady world.

In just a short while, you will make your way to the altar rail. There you will receive bread and wine, the very elements that Jesus promised us we would always find him in. The tomb is empty. Jesus is alive! His presence today is to be found in bread and wine. His spirit today is to be found at the center of each of our hearts. His dazzling resurrected light enlightens each of us, enabling us to shine with his refracted glory. His death-defying love takes on all our fears, all our worries, all our mistakes and transforms them into new life, new hope, and new promise. Oh – Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!