Nurturing Your Faith: Patient Urgency - Session Five (of 5): Suspended Endings
By: Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler
The possibility of God inviting us into His Word to consider it from a different angle is the theme of Nurturing Your Faith: Suspended Endings. Here a comparison is made between Virgil's Aeneid with its abrupt ending and the much debated ending of Mark 16. Does Mark's ending unsettle the reader if verses 9-20 aren't added? Or does it spur readers on to learn what happened next, inviting them into the dilemma, urging them to question the narrative's meaning?
The idea of a "suspended ending" (one that leaves you in suspense, and with questions) dates back to antiquity; it was used by secular and religious writers. It's a literary device that invites the reader into the text, prompting them to ask questions, to wrestle with an unresolved story situation. In Mark 16, scholarly comment after verse 8 tells readers how some biblical manuscripts do not have verses 9-20. Without these final verses, readers are left with an angel speaking to three women in Jesus' tomb. The women then fled the tomb, trembling and astonished, "for they were afraid."
Mark's final verses may have gotten lost or separated from the text, or the author may have finished his narrative at verse 8. At present, it's impossible to say. The Bible does feature this technique in the book of Jonah where, for instance, readers are left to wonder what finally happened to Nineveh. The abrupt ending to the Gospel of Mark at verse 8 may very well be for a Spirit-led, faith-inducing purpose, where readers are prompted into the text, into conversations with God and others, and into the startling event of Jesus' resurrection.