Those who have spent a long time studying Mark bracket verses 9-20.  The scholarly consensus is that Mark’s own original account ends with verse 8.  At some later time—not necessarily years and years later, but definitely later—verses 9-20 were added.  It’s not hard to see why: verse 8 leaves us with the women running from the empty tomb in terror, telling no one about what they had seen or what the angel had told them to go and say.  It’s a great cliffhanger, but we can’t leave it there!  But isn’t that how it is with us, all too often?  We want to say something to someone about Jesus, and don’t.  We’ve been asked to speak, and we don’t.  Maybe we aren’t so terrified by the thought of speaking to others about Jesus—and maybe we are!  Something hinders us.  We don’t think our words would be welcome; we’d just be laughed at, asked hard questions that leave us feeling foolish, or, worse, on the receiving end of someone’s anger.  We’re reluctant, unsure, afraid, so we don’t say anything.  Go proclaim my name: well, we do that here, with one another, where it’s safe and we’re not very afraid.

If you take a look through verses 9-20, you might start thinking you’re hearing things you’ve heard elsewhere in the New Testament: John and, particularly, Luke and Acts.  Mark’s is understood to be the earliest telling of the Gospel account; Matthew and Luke (along with Acts) came along later.  John’s is understood to be the last and latest of the four, recorded towards the end of that apostle’s long life.

It’s verses 9-20 that inspire the snake-handler sects, dancing around with one coiling around each hand, but I’m not aware of any poison-drinking sects.  An early legend tells of how St. John was either offered a cup of poisoned wine or else forced to drink poisoned wine but was not harmed by it.  That legend isn’t in the Bible, but the early church knew of it, and that legend seems to have shown up in verse 18.  The point isn’t that Christians are miraculously invulnerable to things that ordinarily harm and kill other people.  The point is that God will do extraordinary things through those who witness for Christ, because the Spirit will be with the faithful for this very purpose.  The Spirit is the wonderworker.  The most miraculous wonder is always just this: faith.

In the last two verses of the “late addition” to Mark’s account, Jesus ascends, to sit at the right hand of God: crown him with many crowns; rejoice, the lord is king; truly, Jesus shall reign; all hail the power of Jesus’ name.  Christ is made the sure foundation; how firm a foundation.  We know what Jesus was doing during his time on earth: Mark, Matthew and Luke, and John tell us.  We’re also told that Jesus, forty days after his resurrection, left.  “After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven” (16:19).  He wasn’t here anymore.  He wasn’t dead—very much alive, as they all could see quite plainly.  He wasn’t exactly gone, and he was no longer here.  He came; he spoke.  He ascended, returned.  The Son is with the Father.  The Father is Spirit.  The Son is Spirit, and incarnate in Jesus, raised from the dead and very much alive in his glorified, spiritual body.  We don’t know all that that means, really, except that it’s the power of God to make alive, and forever, and it’s wonderful, marvelous.

Jesus left for heaven, from whence he had come years before at Christmas.  He came to speak with us, call us, teach us, save us, offer himself for us.  The Messiah had a message and was the Message.  He died to rise; he arose and rose again to God.  It’s not quite precise to ask where Jesus is.  We say heaven and conceive of heaven as a place—Revelation seems to paint for us a picture of heaven, yet to speak of heaven as a place isn’t quite on target.  It’s not quite a where, because God is infinite.  It’s not the case that God is there but not here.  Heaven is not exactly a when—on that day or at that time—because God is eternal.

God is not so much above, outside or beyond our experience or our ability to perceive as He is, someway, blessedly, alongside this existence.  We don’t know God’s being, but we experience God’s being through Christ in the power of the Spirit.  The Spirit communicates; the Spirit connects; the Spirit communes.

Jesus is now with the Father, as before he came to us: “and he sat at the right hand of God” (16:19).  What’s he doing there?  Is it like clouds and harps and lounging around wondering what to do, today, all day, every day?  Jesus is enthroned, at the right hand of God: that’s the place of honor and authority; Jesus is ruling and over-ruling.  He is listening.  He is looking—Jesus is very observant and doesn’t miss a thing!  He is loving his own to him.  He is praying for his own.  He makes continual intercession for us, and how we need him to speak a word on our behalf!  Jesus has accomplished what it was necessary to accomplish among us in the flesh.  We’re told his raised, glorified body still bears the marks of his achievement.  Now, he is achieving what it is necessary to accomplish at God’s right hand.

There are several definitions for the right-hand man: helper, assistant, support, reliance.  The version I like best speaks of the one at the right hand as indispensable and invaluable for carrying out a task.  Irreplaceable help.  The one at the right hand is just right for the job, perfect: in a sense, the task couldn’t be done without the right-hand man.  As Christ faithfully carried out his ministry and mission here on earth, so too, now, he is faithfully carrying out his heavenly task.  We can trust that, just as Christ was here for us, so, now, he is always there for us.

Let that knowledge, that confidence, that faith, empower us, still here with work still to be done.  This is exactly what is going on in what we read in the last verse: “Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere” (16:20).  Where?  Everywhere.  Everywhere they went; everywhere God sent them.  Where is God sending us?  Out.  What does God want us to do, out there?  Preach.  Well, we got a preacher, such as he is, bless his heart.  Preach—that’s public proclamation, letting people know.  Oh, everyone knows all about Jesus.  Yes, and too few know Jesus: they don’t love him, don’t trust him; they don’t go to him, don’t rest in him or make room for him—no matter that they may give all assurances, even irritably, that they do, in their way.  They don’t have the time, don’t have the interest; they don’t really see the point: he just isn’t for them.  To put that more accurately, they aren’t for him—yet.

We’re sent to make him known; we’re sent by the Spirit, with the Spirit.  We don’t go without ability.  That last verse also reminds us, for encouragement, for emboldening, for hope, that “the Lord worked with them” (16:20).  When we go to make Christ known, God is with us, working alongside us and within.  It’s when we remember and believe that God is working with us that we go, despite all quivers and quavers of fear: we go in trust, and we don’t let ourselves get daunted or dejected by rejection, ridicule, or blank indifference.  Of course all that will happen!  But not always.  Not every time.

I don’t know if it’s the biggest objection, anymore, but there are always those unbelievers who hesitate, balk, or laugh at us because so much of what the Bible says just doesn’t seem real to them: it just can’t be true.  It’s all been cooked up!  And why can’t all this Jesus stuff be true?  Because it can’t be.  There’s airtight reasoning.  I think, often, what’s really going on inside that mind, heart, and soul is that all this about this Jesus and God and the Bible stuff just can’t be true, can’t be real because, if it were, I’d have to change, and I know I can’t and sometimes I don’t even want to, or, yes, I want some changes in my life, but not that change!  I don’t need God, don’t need Jesus, and certainly don’t need any Bible telling me what to do, how to live my life.  I’ll decide; I’ll choose.  It’s my life: butt out.  My religion, to the extent I have any is: oh, just do what you want whenever you want, and, if there’s any God, it’ll all be alright, because God loves you no matter what you do, or something.  And when the church also sells this staggeringly watered down substitute for Christianity, who is being served by that?

That last verse we heard today assures us that Jesus, now reigning in heaven forever, “confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it” (16:20).  Signs.  Like miracles?  These were what impressed people in the time Jesus was on earth.  They were looking for signs and often would not even consider the question of believing without a sign.  After the Ascension, it was these signs that stunned people after the Spirit had outpoured upon the believers: the little Church that could—sign me up!  But Jesus never emphasized the jaw-dropping works: these could amaze but never, by themselves, convince, much less convict.  What is the sign that confirms the word, which assures us that all this is real and true?  Faith.  Beloved, I have said before and you will hear me many a time yet say that the greatest miracle is faith.  The greatest work of power is faith: for it is from faith and through faith that all the rest happens, in us, for us, and through us.  Faith is the Word-confirming sign.  Yes, faith “is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).  Your faith is God’s power at work in you, for you . . . through you.

And now, to the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, be honor and eternal dominion.