Mark 16
1When the Jewish rest day was over, Mary Mag-da-lean (Magdalene), Sal-o-me (Salome), and Mary the mother of James went to buy some nice smelling oil. They wanted to put the oil on Jesus' body to bury him the right way.
2Early on Sunday morning, when the sun was just starting to come up, the women went to the cave.
3While they were walking along the road, they said to each other, “Who will roll that big stone away so that we can get into the cave?”
4But when the women got there, they looked up and saw that the really big stone was already rolled away from the door.
5When they went into the cave, they saw a young man wearing really white clothes sitting on the right-hand side. The women were amazed and frightened.
6The man said to them, “Don't be frightened. You are looking for Jesus from Nazareth, the man that died on the cross. God has made him come alive again. Look, his body was here, but it is not here now.”
7And then the young man said, “Go back and see Peter and the other followers and say to them, ‘Jesus is going to Galilee. Go there, and you will find him. Remember, before he died, he told you that you would see him in Galilee.’”
8The women were so amazed and so frightened they were shaking. They ran out of the cave, and did not talk to anyone. We think that this is the end of Mark's story about Jesus. There is more to this story but we are not sure who wrote it. In those days people wrote their stories on long pieces of special paper. We do not have the paper that Mark wrote, we only have copies of it. Some copies have a short extra ending that have verses 9 and 10. But other copies have a longer extra ending that goes from verse 9 to verse 20. Those women went and told Peter and the other followers what had happened. Then Jesus met his followers and sent them out everywhere. He sent them towards the east, and towards the west. His followers told people in all those places the good news about Jesus. They said, “Jesus can save you so that you can live with him forever.” That message is really special, and it is true. And you can read this story in Matthew 28:9-10; John 20:11-18.
9Early on the day that Jesus came alive again, Mary Mag-da-lean was the first person to see him. She was the one that used to have 7 bad spirits in her but Jesus sent them all away.
10Mary saw Jesus and then she went to see his followers. They were all very sad and they were crying.
11Mary said to them, “Jesus is alive. I have just seen him.” But they did not believe her.
12Later on, 2 of Jesus' other followers were walking out from Jerusalem into the country. While they went along the road, Jesus started to walk with them, but the men did not know that it was Jesus. He looked really different.
13Then, after they found out that it was Jesus, they turned around and went back to Jerusalem to tell the other followers. They said, “We met Jesus on the road.” But again, the followers did not believe them.
14Later on, the 11 close followers were eating food together, and Jesus came into the room. He growled at them and said, “You mob have got hard hearts. Why didn't you listen to those people that said I was alive again? What they said was true. Why didn't you believe them?”
15Then Jesus said to them, “You have to go everywhere in the world and tell people the good news about me.
16I tell you, anybody that believes my good news and has that special washing ceremony called baptism will be saved and they will be in my family forever. But God will not save people that do not believe my good news. He will say they are guilty and he will punish them.
17And the people that believe in me will do great things with the power that I will give to them. They will send bad spirits out of people, and they will talk in different languages that they never learned.
18When they pick up a cheeky snake, it will not hurt them. And if they drink deadly poison, it will not kill them. They will put their hands on sick people, and those people will get better.” And you can read this story in Luke 24:50-53 and in Acts 1:9-11
19When Jesus had finished telling his followers all those things, he went up into heaven and sat down at the right-hand side of God.
20Then his followers went everywhere and told people the good news about Jesus. And the Lord was with them as they used his power to do great things. When the people saw those powerful signs, they knew that everything the followers said was true.