Overcoming fear

The final verse of Mark’s gospel as rendered in its earliest manuscripts was perplexing and incomplete:

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. (Mark 16:8)

Eugene Peterson says, “What kind of ending is that? The resurrection has just taken place.

“The salvation of the world has been set in motion with a few well-prepared men and women recruited as witnesses and participants. Then, ” because they were afraid.” It is not an ending that inspires confidence.”

What is God doing here? How will it end? One thing He’s doing is leaving the ending for us to write with our lives.

The book of Jonah, a book about a reluctant missionary, ends the same way—unresolved, incomplete, mid-story.

But life is messy, the incarnation was messy, and our turn at incarnating Jesus to the people in our lives will be messy too.

It defies a simplistic, tidy resolution.

How will we respond? is the point.