Success in Failure

 

The Gospel according to Mark ends with the empty tomb and a young man in white telling some women to go tell the disciples of Jesus that he has been raised. The very last verse is "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." How is that good news?
Throughout his Gospel Mark shows the disciples as dense. They never seem to get what Jesus is driving at. In the end they run away. One young man is so anxious to get away that he slips out of the bit of cloth that he had around him and runs away naked. Originally the disciples left all to follow Jesus. He leaves all to get away from Jesus.
The message of Mark's Gospel is that God succeeds and accomplishes his purpose in the midst of human failure. Mark wants to console his original audience and us who may feel that we often fail as disciples. It was always thus. It is precisely in the midst of our failure that God accomplishes his plan. St. Paul, acknowledging his total dependence on God says, "When I am weak, then I am strong."
I was so impressed this morning when I saw these two tiny flowers and a shock of green grass making their way up through dead leaves and dead weeds and rocks. I've seen all that before. What stopped me short was that all this was taking place in a clump of mud on the road's surface, not off on the shoulder. Nature, too, will succeed and acomplish her purpose in the midst of human failure.