We come to the eighteenth and final podcast of our Reading Mark in Advent series.
After the agony of Our Lord’s crucifixion and death, we conclude with Jesus’s glorious Resurrection.
Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome went at sunrise on the first day of the week to the tomb so that they might go and anoint Jesus.
But the stone was rolled back and a young man tells them not to be alarmed and that Jesus has risen. He sends them to tell the disciples and Peter that Jesus has gone before them to Galilee.
Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene and two of the disciples who were walking in the country.
He then appears to the eleven themselves and issues the Great Commission.
“Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
The disciples went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.
Reading Mark in Advent is an 18-part podcast series that sees us upload a chapter of Mark’s Gospel each weekday of the season.
With a global pandemic sweeping the world and lockdowns and restrictions placed on our everyday living – not to mention patterns of worship and prayer – this is very much “the Word in Lockdown”.
But the Word of God is never locked down, isolated and contained. As Pope Francis says:
“The word of God is alive and active (Hebrews 4:12); it does not die, nor does it age, but it remains for ever (cf. 1 Peter 1:25). It stays young in the presence of all that passes away (cf. Matthew 25:35) and preserves those who put it into practice from inner aging.”
