Nov. 2, 2025 | Word Out!
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Sermon – Pastor Dan Peterson
With God All Things Are Possible
November 2, 2025
READINGS
First Reading: Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18
1 In the first year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head as he lay in bed. Then he wrote down the dream: 2 I, Daniel, saw in my vision by night the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, 3 and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another.
15 As for me, Daniel, my spirit was troubled within me, and the visions of my head terrified me. 16 I approached one of the attendants to ask him the truth concerning all this. So he said that he would disclose to me the interpretation of the matter: 17 “As for these four great beasts, four kings shall arise out of the earth. 18 But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever—forever and ever.”
Second Reading: Ephesians 1:11-23
11 In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14 this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.
15 I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may perceive what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. 20 God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. 22 And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Gospel: Mark 16:1-8
1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to 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. 7 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.” 8 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.
Sermon:
Grace to you and peace from God, the source of life, and from Jesus, who is that light and life in the world. Amen.
Over the last few weeks, we have covered a lot of territory. Two weeks ago, we discussed the hymn by David Bjorn, “Ask the Complicated Questions.” We learned that God is not only big enough for us to ask questions, but also that God’s grace frees us to ask these questions.
Last week, we turned from asking complicated questions to “Changing the Narrative.” We learned that human beings are narrative by nature—we make sense of our lives through stories. The trouble is, we often don’t know our story as Christians. And so, we revisited the Apostle Paul, who speaks in First Corinthians of how God changes the narrative by becoming present to us in a way we would least expect, namely in the midst of suffering and vulnerability.
Today, I have a confession. I changed the narrative—literally. Our lectionary reading, mentioned at the outset of our service was Luke 6: 20 and following, that is the Sermon on the Plain—which is Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount—where Jesus offers a set of teachings that both challenge the tradition he receives and give hope in the case of Luke’s account, to not only the poor in spirit, but the poor, who are hungry.
I changed it to Mark 16:1-8, which is the original ending of the Gospel of Mark. And I did so because, of course, today is All Saints Day, and I wanted a Gospel reading to complement our Second Epistle, which talks about the resurrection.
So, you might be asking, why did I choose the Gospel of Mark? Well, for one thing, my assisting minister today is not Luke, Matthew or John, he’s Marc. And so I thought it would be a nice way to say thank you for your service, and thank you for all of you who served the church in various ways.
Not only that, I chose Mark because among the four Gospels, it was the first to be written. Most scholars date it around 70 CE of the First Century. Mark is the first Gospel to be written. It’s the shortest; Matthew and Luke rely on Mark and elaborate on the stories and sayings of Jesus in Mark. And that is especially the case in Mark’s account of the resurrection. It is the shortest, as I said: eight verses, chapter 16.
So how does Mark’s account differ from the gospel narratives of the resurrection that follow? Well, in the case of Matthew, who was dependent on Mark and wrote probably 10 or 15 years after Mark, the story picks up where Mark ends. The women, who are terrified yet amazed by what they see in the tomb of Jesus—namely, nothing—leave, and guess what? Jesus greets them on the road to Galilee.
Then the disciples are told to go to Galilee, to the mountain, where they will see Jesus. And this, of course, according to Matthew’s Gospel, is an important detail, because the mountain was symbolic to Jewish people. That’s where Moses encountered the divine. And so now the disciples of Jesus are encountering the new Moses, namely Jesus Himself, at the top of a mountain.
Luke also depended on Mark, and also written, probably 10 to 15 years later, adds other details as well. Peter, for example, confirms the women’s story that the tomb was empty. There are two disciples who travel on the road to Emmaus, who experience Jesus as a stranger whose identity becomes clear once they break bread together with him. We also learn in the Gospel of Luke, of how Jesus stands among his disciples after he’s been raised, that they can touch his wounds, that he eats with them, and then finally, that he ascends to heaven from Bethany.
And then we get to the Gospel of John, which was not directly reliant on Matthew, Mark or Luke. This is the last of the four Gospels to be written. Yes, it affirms the empty tomb. But you all know what happens, according to John: after the tomb is discovered empty, Mary meets him outside and confuses him with the gardener. Jesus then stands among his disciples in a locked room. He invites them to touch his wounds. He shows up a week later and invites Thomas to touch his wounds. And then he shows up at the Sea of Tiberius, where he makes breakfast for the disciples, and then has an extended dialog with Peter.
In my view, it’s possible that at least Matthew and Luke felt that Mark’s ending was too abrupt, so they added extra details to make the story more compelling.
This may also explain why two additional endings were added to the Gospel of Mark in the second century. Audiences like you probably found the ending of Mark to be too abrupt, and so we have additional tales about how the disciples experienced the risen Christ in a variety of ways.
Now you’re probably wondering. You’re probably on the edge of your seat. You’ve probably never been so excited to hear the answers to this question that I’m about to tell you:
Why does Mark end so abruptly? Why is it the case that the women encounter an empty tomb, there’s a young man sitting there in a white robe. (He’s probably Lutheran.) He tells them to go to Galilee, and that, essentially, is the end of the story. Why is the story so abrupt? Well, there are a number of reasons scholars give for why Mark concludes this way, but I’ll just touch upon, briefly, three.
First, it’s possible the author was martyred before he can complete the story. You remember I told you a few minutes ago that Mark was probably written around 70 of the Common Era. Well, Nero, the emperor famous for persecuting Christians, dies in 68. So it’s possible that Mark got the proverbial “tap on the shoulder” that said, “you’re done writing, it’s time for you to witness Christ through martyrdom.” Wow. That’s one.
A second theory suggests that this is a literary device. Remember that the women are told to “go to Galilee.” Well, where is Galilee? “Galilee” for an audience hearing this story—most of them would have been illiterate—is in the first chapter of the narrative. So the congregation or audience is invited to hear the story over again, to go back to the beginning, and be invited further into the mystery of what God is doing in the person of Jesus Christ, who is proclaimed God’s son in his death.
A third possibility is that the author did this on purpose, that the ending is deliberately abrupt; that the author leaves things open because you and I are supposed to complete the story. You and I are supposed to complete the story. Now, as a pastor, 20 centuries later, I prefer the last of these options.
And here’s the stunning part. Wait for it… Wait for it... There is no resurrection account in the Gospel of Mark, just an empty tomb.
According to one commentator: “There is no scene of Jesus’s resurrection. One cannot clearly say that Jesus’s promise reached fulfillment. The male disciples are in hiding, and the only witnesses are women. (This is only a problem for for male scholars), and that the work ends in uncertainty and silence.
In essence, this commentator concludes, the problem is that these elements create a narrative that has no tidy ending. The ending is ambiguous and uncertain. Indeed, it challenges a logic of fulfillment. It challenges a logic of fulfillment. Indeed, the final verse of the gospel could be translated as follows: “And going out, they fled the tomb, for trembling and ecstasy possessed them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were filled with awe.”
They were filled with awe. A closed and certain future, namely the finality of Jesus’s death, and with it, the end of his ministry, had suddenly broken open.
Now, I want you to imagine for a moment that you are one of the women at the empty tomb, according to Mark’s story. There is no proof that he has been raised. There is no body to touch, no wounds to feel; just an empty tomb, a young man, and a promise that “if you return to Galilee, you will see him.”
How do you feel right now? I don’t know about you, but I would feel confused. There is no precedent for this kind of thing in Jewish tradition. Sure, we have the reanimation of certain individuals, going back to the Prophet of Elisha, but there is no precedent for bodily resurrection in the Jewish faith. Not only that, while Jesus mentions it briefly in the Gospel narrative, it’s never emphasized. So if I was one of those women who discovered an empty tomb, I would be perplexed. I would be confused.
And it is here that I think that we have the most genuine reflection of what faith can be in the whole New Testament. Why? These women are suddenly opened, now, to an uncertain future. They are open to a future that they assumed was closed. They are open such that now, with God, “all things are possible,” which is something Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew while discussing salvation with the disciple Peter.
Now, I want to share something that moved me so profoundly when I read it, it brought tears to my eyes. At last week’s forum, I shared with the group that I have serious doubts about life after death. My heart, you might say, has been hardened, and there are points where I am certain that this is all there is; that there is nothing beyond the grave, and that I will never, ever see my loved ones again, including, as some of you know, my mom, who died over two years ago.
It was at this moment, like the women of Mark’s Gospel, that my certainty was suddenly “cracked open.” You see, I was reading a book by another Lutheran pastor and theologian named Eric Trozzo, whom I happened to meet while I was at Princeton in New Jersey. He writes, “What I find moving in this account is the way the rupturing silence breaks through any future certainty, even that of death.”
Think about it. When it comes to faith, there are typically two very loud extremes. On the one hand, there are people who are certain, rigidly so, that there will be a resurrection, that Jesus was raised from the dead. The Bible says it; they believe it; that settles it. At the other end of the spectrum, there are some people, including members of this congregation, who are certain that nothing happens after we die. The playwright Samuel Beckett writes, in “Waiting for Godot,” “They give birth astride the grave, their light beams an instant, and it’s night once more.”
Both mindsets share one thing in common: they are closed. Closed to the future, closed to new possibilities brought about by God, closed to opportunities for renewal in this life and life beyond the grave. Both sides—and again I’m speaking here with regard to extremes—pretend to see in full, even though, as the Apostle says, “we only see and know in part.” They are—and again, I’m talking about the extremes—hardened, rigid and resolute.
But faith, the kind we see in the women at the empty tomb, according to the Gospel of Mark, resides somewhere in the messiness of the middle. It “looks for the resurrection,” to quote the words of the Nicene Creed, it lives, as the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said, “in the midst of objective uncertainty, without despair.” It remains open to the possible, instead of being certain about the impossible.
Now let me share two quick stories here with you, and then I’ll close. When my mom died, my certainty about life after death wavered a little, but I remember speaking with a hospital chaplain who told me something that was very freeing. She said, “You know, life is a much bigger mystery than we think it is.”
Life is a much bigger mystery than we think it is. There are so many things that you and I don’t know.
Now, I have a PhD in theology. I have two other master’s degrees in theology. I have a bachelor’s degree from the great Jesuit University of Santa Clara. I know everything! And yet here, I was relieved of the burden of certainty. I was freed to live in the realm of mystery; to accept, indeed, that with God, all things are possible.
That’s story one. Story two is this: Some of you know Pastor Eric Wilson-Weiberg; he recently retired from Ballard First Lutheran. He and I were talking about this once, and he said, “You know, Dan, I expect to be surprised.” I love that. I thought, why didn’t I learn that in seminary? I expect to be surprised.
And that’s exactly what those women were at the empty tomb, according to Mark’s account: surprised. Their certainty was suspended. Their future was open to possibilities.
Let’s pray. Kind and loving God, on this All Saints Day, as we remember the dead, it is easy for us to settle into certainties, to be closed to signs of the resurrection that happen all around us, as well as the promise of a future resurrection that may happen before us. Give us the kind of faith that lies between the certainties; a middle path that trusts, as the women did in turning back to Galilee, that with God, with you, all things are indeed possible. In Jesus’s name, Amen.