Who knew? A second take? That can happen in many places in Mark—at heart it is a Wisdom tale.
But go, and say to his disciples and to Peter ‘He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.’”
to you is entrusted
an everyday still available
for you and more than youthe dead have been buried
you are to unearth the living
to trust rising togetheryou have said thanks
now comes living yes
welcome to G*D’s presence
With a strong command to “Go! Tell!” the Three Wise Women are given an apostolic (those sent forth) task to witness to the scattered men (Peter being their leader).
The women are to do so out of their experience of an “empty” tomb.
So often Jesus has instructed people who have experienced a mysterious return to life to remain quiet about it. Here what is to be told is a double announcement—we are leaving this tomb and claiming our life for Jesus is risen from this tomb. This double announcement about ourself and the universe is to be told.
What is to be told is that Jesus’ rising happened before the women arrive. It is already accomplished. There is no opportunity here for John’s story of Peter and another disciple beating Mary Magdalene into the tomb to be the first to note its emptiness. Nor is Luke’s version of bringing the men to the tomb to confirm its emptiness. Not even Matthew’s similar tale is sufficient as it still leaves the male disciples in charge a commission intended for all.
Galilee is a reminder that the last identifier of Jesus is that he is from Nazareth in Galilee. The Sea in Galilee is the locus of a first call to Simon and Andrew, James and John. Like the Geresene, they are not to follow Jesus away from everyday life, but return to their home base and tell what they experienced with Jesus—to incorporate the Wisdom, the Mystery of New Life, into their own—to move from student to a next teacher (not a replica or faint image but a full-partner or colleague). In terms of theosis, to become as that which is beyond.
The first effect of Jesus’ rising is a recapitulation of the last becoming first. The background of women, supportive in Galilee, has become a foreground of women. Women are transformed.
We might view this whole Day One as a trance such as a Day of Ecstasy. Such a state is etymologically connected with a G*D-initiated trance for a new beginning (Genesis 2:21) and covenant (Genesis 15:12). Walking through ordinariness to rising anew.