Who is this young man at Jesus’ empty tomb? Apparently hen is there solely to give information to these visitors because he doesn’t do anything and he doesn’t seem to plan on waiting — he tells them to pass the message along to the others.
Mark doesn’t identify him, but the Greek term used to describe him, neaniskos, is the same used to describe the young man who ran naked away from the garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was arrested. Was this the same man? Perhaps, though there is no evidence of it. Some have believed this to be an angel, and if so, it would match the other gospels.
This passage in Mark may be the earliest reference to an empty tomb, something treated by Christians as a historical fact that proves the truth of their faith. Of course, there is no evidence of an empty tomb outside the gospels (even Paul doesn’t reference one, and his writings are older). If this “proved” their faith, then it wouldn’t be faith anymore.
Such modern attitudes towards the empty tomb contradict the theology of Mark. According to Mark, there’s no point in working signs that would facilitate belief — signs appear when you already have faith and have no power when you don’t have faith. The empty tomb isn’t proof of Jesus’ resurrection, it’s a symbol that Jesus has emptied death of its power over humanity.
The white-clad figure doesn’t invite the women to look in the tomb and see that it’s empty (they appear to simply take his word for it). Instead, he directs their attention away from the tomb and towards the future. Christian faith rests on a proclamation that Jesus is risen and which is simply believed, not on any empirical or historical evidence of an empty tomb.
The women told no one, however, because they were too afraid — so how did anyone else find out? There is an ironic reversal here of circumstances because in the past for Mark women showed the greatest faith; now they are arguably showing the greatest faithlessness. Mark has previously used the term “fear” to refer to a lack of faith.
Implicit in Mark here is the idea that Jesus appeared to others, for example in Galilee. Other gospels explain what Jesus did after the resurrection, but Mark only hints at it — and in the oldest manuscripts this is where Mark ends. This is a very abrupt ending; in fact in Greek it ends almost ungrammatically on a conjunction. The validity of the rest of Mark is the subject of much speculation and debate.
