Many understand the rhetorical effect of the Gospel of Mark’s shorter ending to be that the implied audience should now take up the commands given to the failed followers in the story. But how is this possible? How is the implied audience to tell the disciples and Peter what was said at the tomb? Is the implied audience actually to go to Galilee to meet Jesus? It appears that placing the burden on the implied audience to do what the fallible women failed to do is less than satisfying as an intended rhetorical effect of the ending of Mark.
The rhetorical significance of the ending may be found through Marianna Torgovnick’s observation that, “endings invite the retrospective analysis of a text and create the illusion of life halted and poised for analysis.” Torgovnick further explains the concept of closure in relationship to the narrative as a whole: “The test is the appropriateness of the ending’s relationship to beginning and middle, not the degree of finality or resolution achieved.” Obviously, the ending of Mark does not bring about finality or resolution, but it does provide the audience with an opportunity to analyze the women, and to consider the significance of a reunion with Jesus in Galilee as announced by the young man at the tomb. The fallibility of the women shows the audience that no one is immune from falling off the way as a follower of Christ. The male disciples fled, and then the female disciples fled. Knowledge of the resurrection does not preclude the women, or the implied audience, from falling off the way. Accordingly, the portrayal of the women as fallible reaches back to the author’s earlier portrayal of the men as fallible providing continuity with the end and the middle of the Gospel.
However, in the midst of that fallibility, there is a picture and a message of hope. The young man pictures the restoration available to fallible followers, and his message about meeting Jesus in Galilee shows the way to restoration. Moreover, the “tomb” at the end of the Gospel functions, narratively, as the “wilderness” at the beginning of the Gospel positioning the audience for a new beginning. Torgovnick identifies this technique as circularity: “When the ending of a novel clearly recalls the beginning in language, in situation, in the grouping of characters, or in several of these ways, circularity may be said to control the ending. One of the most common of closural patterns, circularity may be obvious or subtle, immediately perceived or perceivable only upon retrospective analysis. A familiar and obvious kind of circularity is the ‘frame’ technique common in narratives. When language, situation, or the grouping of characters refers not just to the beginning of the work but to a series of points in the text, we may speak of parallelism as the novel’s closural pattern. Often less obvious than circularity, parallelism sometimes becomes clear only upon retrospective analysis.”
Everything occurs in the final panel in-and-around the tomb (μνημεῖον). This term is used four times in Mark 16:2–8 and six times in Mark 15:46–16:8. The term is only used two other times in Mark. In 6:29 the tomb is the place where the body of John the Baptizer was placed by his disciples, and in 5:2, the tomb was the place from which the demonized man came to meet Jesus. The tomb is a place of the dead, and a place where demons reside. These are thematic echoes from the prologue of the Gospel.
In Mark 1:1–14, everything occurs in-and-around the wilderness (ἔρημος). The wilderness is the place from which the words of Isaiah are to be proclaimed crying out to the nation to prepare the way of the Lord (Mark 1:3; cf. Isa. 40:3–4). John is described as the one in the wilderness proclaiming the way—repentance unto the forgiveness of sins (1:4). After Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit casts Jesus into the wilderness (Mark 1:12), and it is in the wilderness that Jesus is tempted by Satan for forty days (Mk 1:13).
The wilderness and the tomb have similarities: Both are uninhabited; both are the dwelling place of demons (Mark 1:13; 5:2); both have a movement in Mark’s story from the outside to the inside (Mark 1:12; 15:46), and from the inside to the outside (Mark 1:13–14; 16:16); both contain a messenger (ἄγγελος/νεανίσκος) with narrative comments about the messenger’s eschatological clothing, speaking concerning the advent of Jesus (Mark 1:3–4; 16:5–6); and both include a call to follow (1:17, 20; 16:7).
The significance of these similarities is in how the parallels function for the implied audience. By echoing themes of the wilderness at the tomb, the implied author is suggesting a new beginning to his Gospel. This new beginning is similar to the original beginning. The call to prepare the way is once again being made. This preparation will involve: the risk of death but the hope of new life (tomb/wilderness); a messenger calling recalcitrant followers to prepare themselves spiritually for the Lord’s coming; and spiritual attacks from demons. The epilogue at the tomb functions like the prologue in the wilderness by preparing the implied audience to join Jesus in Galilee (Mark 16:7; cf. 1:14) where repentance and belief must occur to bring about the Kingdom of God foretold by John in the clothing of Elijah, and the young man in the white clothing of the transfiguration. Even after prior and subsequent failure, the way of discipleship remains open. A new start from the threatening terrain of death awaits.