If we follow the rule concerning historical documents that a thing is more likely to be true if it is inconvenient to the larger purpose of the author, this account seems quite credible. The women didn't see Jesus. They weren't inspired or fell at his knees. This was no Pentecost with flames of holy fire. The empty tomb and the young man scared them out of their wits. They fled an evident display of God's holy power, and unlike Moses at the burning bush they did not bow down in worship. They ran. And in their terror, they told no one.
According to scholars, Mark 16:8 is the end of the original version of the gospel, so far as we know. If that is the case, it means that Jesus' followers initially greeted his resurrection with fear and silence. The accounts of the resurrection in the other gospels are much more inspiring, but this one seems more likely. It is consistent with a tendency found in the gospels to highlight the spiritual ignorance of Jesus' followers—an inconvenient truth that rings true down through the long years since. It is also consistent with how people of a time when there was a holy terror of things divine would react. It is also consistent with how three women might react in a male dominated society where they were used to being treated as "just women." Why risk ridicule? Finally, the reaction of the three women as Mark describes it is just plain typically human. Most of us most of the time prefer the known to the unknown, the safe way to the dangerous one; and it makes perfect sense that we do.
This is not the resurrection that the Easter crowd wants to hear about. It is not the resurrection preached from pulpits on that "glorious and wonderful morn." This is an account shorn of piety. In that sense, it may be taken as a call to a faith shorn of piety and the pretensions of religiosity. We run, we tremble, we keep quiet, but eventually we stop to catch our breath, calm down, and find our voice—eventually. Amen.
