Carlota put the book down and frowned. The book had been a page turner to the very end, but the ending was very disappointing. It didn’t bring the resolution that Carlota thought the book needed. Carlota didn’t need a “and they lived happily ever after” type of ending. She did, though, need more than “The End.”

People who read the gospel of Mark and came to the original ending at 16:8, were disappointed. They didn’t know what happened. Readers had the account of the empty tomb, but they didn’t see a resurrected Jesus. What they really wanted was a “and they lived happily ever after” ending, and that’s exactly how later editors changed Mark’s ending. The women told the disciples all that they had been commanded, Jesus himself sent the disciple out, and the gospel spread.

We all want to know what that ending is. The problem with us is that we aren’t at the end of the book. We still have days, weeks, months and even years that need to be written before we know the ending. So, each day begins as a mystery. The day could be mundane or it could be filled with surprises. The day could even become holy through an encounter with the divine. We don’t know what will happen. What we do know is the central plot—the gospel of the Jesus Christ the Son of God spreads. We also know that we are one of the characters in the book. Finally, we know that God walks with us through life’s paragraphs, pages and chapters.

Mark 16:8

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.