Saint Mark’s Gospel ends so unsatisfactorily; . . . ends with the women fleeing from the empty tomb where the dead body of Jesus had been placed . . . to say nothing to anyone that Christ had risen; . . . Saint Mark’s Gospel ends so unsatisfactorily . . . that someone made up a more pleasing ending, . . . which you have heard today.

    But just because a portion of Holy Scripture has been invented doesn’t mean that it should be regarded as somehow inferior; . . . doesn’t mean that it isn’t the Word of God.  In fact, I believe that the portion of Saint Mark’s Gospel you have heard today is the Word of  God.  I believe it is the Word of God because it contains and conveys a very essential truth, . . . and we must listen to it.

    You see, after watching Jesus ascend into Heaven, the apostles return to the place they are staying in order to process what they have seen.  . . . And they say to one another, “You know, even with God’s Spirit to help us, . . . how will we convincingly bear witness for the Master, when we ourselves resisted His victory … at first.  . . . Because, Mary Magdalene knew of the Master’s Resurrection . . . but was too self-conscious to say anything.  . . . And then two of our number, living in Emmaus, actually saw the Master after He had been raised . . . but did not recognize Him; . . . so that the Master Himself had to come to us to reproach us for our incredulity.”  “If we ourselves could not be convinced short of a miracle,” the apostles fret, “how shall we convince anyone else?”

    . . . And then the Apostle James stands up . . . and says, “We shall never convince anyone of the Master’s victory.  . . . But that is not what He has commanded us to do.  . . . The Lord Jesus has commanded us to be witnesses for Him of the very things He has revealed to us; . . . to be witnesses of the nearness of Heaven to everyone who will be before God with Simplicity . . . with Chastity of mind and flesh and soul; . . . with Focus upon the Father’s love to be found in Commandment and Creation.  . . . And so, we must teach men and women to renounce the disordered affections which the world inspires; . . . to renounce the disordered affections of our own flesh; . . . to renounce the half-truths spoken by the devil for our deception.  . . . We must teach men and women to renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil and to embrace the love of the Father which the Master revealed to simply everyone upon the Cross.”  . . . “If we can do that,” James says; “If we can teach Simplicity, Chastity, and Focus, . . . then we will have brought men and women to the threshold of Heaven, into which our Master has ascended, . . . and He will greet them; . . . He will touch them, . . . and they will believe in His victory because they will know Him Who lives . . . and come to everlasting felicity by their faith.”

    That is what the invented conclusion to Saint Mark’s Gospel suggests to us to be the consequence of Christ’s Resurrection and glorious Ascension, . . . that we, Christ’s apostolic Church, are entrusted with the very same responsibility articulated by the first apostles.  . . . We are entrusted by Christ to be witnesses for Him of everything He has taught to us; . . . we are entrusted by Christ to be witnesses for the thing we call “the Three Gospel Counsels”; . . . to be witnessnes for a life of Faith that is Simple . . . Chaste . . . and Focused upon the Father’s love; . . . to live such lives ourselves so as to draw men and women to the threshold of Heaven . . . where they shall encounter Jesus.  . . . By our living lives which renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil; . . . by our teaching of habits of heart and mind and body which renounce the world’s authority over us, which renounce the authority of our own flesh over us, . . . and which renounce the devil’s lies . . . we lure men and women into the Presence of Christ where, as the Apostle describes it in his Epistle, . . . where the Risen and Ascended Christ might give them spiritual powers of wisdom and vision by which their inward eyes are illumined to see the hope and felicity which is lavished upon anyone who trusts Jesus enough to receive Him.

    . . . This glorious festival of Christ’s Ascension reminds us that we are more than we first suppose.  We are not purveyors of a made up gospel; . . . rather, we who are baptized into Christ’s Death and Resurrection are earthly angels who bring men and women into the Presence of the Risen and Ascended Jesus; . . . we are earthly angels upon whose faith and obedience both the joy of Heaven and the happiness of earth depend.