“He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.” — Mark 16:6
Mark 16 is the morning after. Three women come to a tomb with spices to anoint a body that is no longer there. An angel speaks. A message is given. And then, depending on which ending of Mark you are reading, the story either breaks off mid-sentence at verse 8 — with the women running away in terrified silence — or continues with a longer ending that records appearances, a commission, and an ascension. Whatever the textual situation, the core witness is undeniable and it echoes through every verse that follows: he has risen; he is not here.
The Women at the Tomb (verses 1–8)
When the Sabbath is past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome buy spices so that they might go and anoint him. These are the same women who had watched from a distance as he died, and watched where he was laid. They have done what they could — they have waited out the Sabbath, and now in the first light of the first day of the week, they are going to finish what the burial on Friday had to leave unfinished.
Very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they go to the tomb. They had been saying to one another on the way, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” The stone is enormous, and they are three women. It is a real problem, and they are walking toward it with no answer.
When they look up, they see that the stone has been rolled back — it was very large. Entering the tomb, they see a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they are alarmed. He says to them: “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.”
Notice the tenderness. Tell his disciples and Peter. Peter, who denied him three times before the rooster crowed twice. The risen Lord has not forgotten him. The failed disciple is named specifically so that he will know the message is for him too. There is room at the empty tomb for the one who broke down and wept.
And the place is pointed to. See the place where they laid him. The women had watched the burial. They knew exactly where the body had been placed. The point is not that they had come to the wrong tomb. The point is that the right tomb is empty.
The message is clear: he is going before you to Galilee. Not waiting for them in Jerusalem, but already on the way back to where the ministry began. The Servant King is moving again.
They go out and flee from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
A Word on the Endings (textual note)
Verse 8 is where the earliest and best manuscripts of Mark actually stop. The ending is abrupt. The women run. They are terrified. They say nothing. It feels unfinished because it is unfinished — not because the story did not continue, but because Mark has handed the continuation over to the reader. The message has been given. The command is on the table: go to Galilee; there you will see him. Whether the women will eventually speak, whether the disciples will follow, whether you and I will go — that is the open question Mark leaves us sitting with.
Early Christian tradition also preserved what is called the longer ending — verses 9 through 20 — which most Bibles print but which most scholars, ancient and modern, recognize as a later addition that is not part of Mark’s original text. The longer ending is a true summary of what the other gospels record — Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene, then to two disciples on the road, then to the eleven — followed by the commission, the ascension, and the promise of signs. None of it is untrue. It just is not originally Mark’s.
The Longer Ending (verses 9–20)
Reading the longer ending as the canonical Christian tradition received it: Jesus first appears to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She goes and tells those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. But when they hear that he is alive and has been seen by her, they do not believe it. He appears to two of them in another form as they are walking into the country. They go back and tell the rest, but they do not believe them either.
Finally he appears to the eleven themselves as they are reclining at table, and rebukes them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen him after he had risen. Then comes the Great Commission: “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
Signs are promised to accompany those who believe — casting out demons, speaking in new tongues, protection from harm, healing the sick. And then: the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.
Whatever view you take of its textual status, the longer ending harmonizes with the other gospels and with the book of Acts: the risen Christ is seen, doubts are answered, the mission is given, the ascension to the right hand of the Father happens, and the church goes out to preach with the Lord working alongside them.
Reflection
Mark 16, however it is read, lands in the same place. The tomb is empty. The young man in white has spoken. He has risen; he is not here. And the Servant King who was killed is the same one who is now going ahead of his disciples to Galilee — which is to say, going ahead of them into the ordinary ground of ministry, back where it all started, so that the rest of their lives can be lived in the light of the resurrection.
It is worth pausing at Mark’s abrupt ending at verse 8 and feeling what he was doing. Every other gospel ends with appearances and commissions and triumphs. Mark ends with three women running away in terror, saying nothing. It is the most realistic portrait of what meeting the risen Christ actually does to a human being. Terror is the right first response. Astonishment is the right first response. The tongue-tied silence of someone who has just seen the impossible is the right first response. Mark leaves us there because Mark trusts the resurrection to do its own work. The terrified silence does not last. The women eventually spoke. The disciples eventually believed. The gospel eventually went out to the whole world. But it started with three women who were too frightened to talk.
And the longer ending, whether original or not, preserves what the whole New Testament after this agrees on. The tomb is empty. The risen Christ was seen. The commission was given. The ascension happened. The church went out and preached. The Lord went with them. And the signs followed.
Which means the question at the end of Mark is the question the centurion’s confession made unavoidable in chapter 15, and the question Jesus himself put at Caesarea Philippi in chapter 8. Who do you say that I am? If the answer is that he is the Christ, the Son of God, then the empty tomb is the vindication of every claim he ever made — and the command to go to Galilee is still in effect. He is going ahead of you. He told you he would. Go and see him. And then go and tell.
The gospel ends where it begins. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God — Mark 1:1. The beginning. Not the end. The resurrection is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of everything that comes after. And that story is still being written — in the lives of the disciples who eventually did what they were told, and in the lives of every reader who has stood at this empty tomb in their own way, heard the angel’s message, and had to decide whether to go to Galilee.
He has risen. He is not here. He is going before you. Go.