John 20:1-18 The Resurrection of Jesus
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary
Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the
tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom
Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and
we do not know where they have laid him.’ Then Peter and the other disciple set
out and went towards the tomb. The two were running together, but the other
disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and
saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter
came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying
there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen
wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who
reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they
did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the
disciples returned to their homes.
Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
But Mary
stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the
tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been
lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why
are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not
know where they have laid him.’ When she had said this, she turned round and
saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to
her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to
be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me
where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’
She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus
said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the
Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and
your Father, to my God and your God.” ’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to
the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these
things to her.
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Here is a riddle
for you. A father gives a new car to his 16-year-old son and they head out
together to try it out. They are involved in a terrible accident. Tragically
the father is killed immediately. The son is taken in critical condition to the
hospital. He is rushed into surgery. In the operating theater the surgeon looks
at the boy and says, “I can’t operate on this boy.” Why can’t the surgeon operate? The answer is that the boy was her son, Her son. Some of you
may have heard this puzzler before. But our tendency is to get a little stuck
because we still, even now, don’t think of surgeons as women. Despite the fact
that there are now almost as many female doctors as male doctors, our secret blind
spots come out. Our sermon series
title points out that same basic bias. We are asking, “Who were these guys?”
And we are looking at the early followers of Jesus and we are assuming they are
guys. (Actually we just liked the
casual sound of the title.) But today we are looking a woman who followed
Christ, Mary Magdalene.
Mary
Magdalene is the follower of Christ that is mentioned more than many of the
disciples. This is what we know about Mary Magdalene. She was called Mary
Magdalene because she came from Magdala, the western coast of the Sea of
Galilee. There is Magdala just a few miles from Gennesaret where Jesus preached
from a boat. There is Magdala right within walking distance of so much of Jesus
ministry. It makes sense that Mary was an early follower. She was in the right
location. From the gospels, we know these things about Mary Magdalene. In Luke
8, Jesus, at the beginning of his traveling ministry, heals Mary Magdalena. She
was healed of seven demons, whatever that means. As a result of this healing, she traveled with Jesus and the
12 and a group of women. The women, one of who was Mary Magdalene, provided for
Jesus and the 12 out of their own income. So we know that Mary Magdalene had an
income and an income large enough to share. Mary Magdalene and these other women made the traveling ministry
of Jesus possible. Mary Magdalene
is present in every one of the gospels at the crucifixion. Only Mary Magdalene
is present with Joseph of Aramathea at Jesus burial. She arrives with the other
women before dawn to anoint Jesus body on the 3rd day and she is
present in every one of the Gospels at the resurrection. She was the first to
see the risen Christ. And she was the first to go and tell the disciples that
Jesus was raised. Because of this
St. Augustine and Pope Gregory and Bernard of Clarveaux all call Mary Magdalene
“The Apostle to the Apostles.”
Of
course when we speak of Mary Magdalene that brings up two issues, prostitution
and conspiracy. In popular culture, Mary Magdalene seems to be defined by
legends as much as scripture. The
most commonly held belief is that Mary M. was a prostitute. The western church,
the Roman Catholic Church has defined Mary M as a penitent prostitute. The Eastern Orthodox Church never
defined Mary Magdalene this way. How did Mary Magdalene the prostitute all
start? The earliest trace comes
from Ephraim, the Syrian in the 4th century and then again in a
homily by Pope Gregory the 1st in 591AD. These ideas came from a little creative addition to the
biblical stories. In Luke and in
John a woman anoints Jesus feet first with her tears and then with costly oil.
Luke says she was a loose woman, but John says she was Mary of Bethany. Later Christians just joined or
conflated those incidences to create Mary Magdalene the penitent
prostitute. But the stories don’t
name Mary Magdalene. The problem is that there were just too many Mary’s. In
Jesus time if you dropped a rock from the tallest building in Jerusalem it
would hit ten Mary’s before it hit the ground. There was Mary Magdalene, Mary
of Bethany (sister to Lazarus and Martha) Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary, the
mother of James and Mary Salome. To confuse things further there was a famous
St. Mary of Egypt in the 4th century who was a repentant prostitute.
The scholars call this story of the prostitute Mary Magdalene “the composite
Mary problem.” It wasn’t until 1969 that Pope Paul separated out this composite
Mary problem in a Roman Missal and declared Mary Magdalene not to be a
prostitute. But regardless, the
thought of a sexy Mary Magdalene has more spice than a faithful disciple Mary.
So even modern stories, like Jesus Christ Super Star and The Last Temptation of
Christ, the storytellers continue to paint Mary scarlet.
The
other conspiracies have Mary Magdalene as Jesus lover and wife. There are
fragments of early texts that are not in our bible, that tells of Mary
Magdalene. These are The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Phillip, and The
Gospel of Mary. These were writings that date from late 1st century
to the 4th century. The stories and the conspiracies are complicated
and convoluted. But after reading through them all, there were good reasons why
they didn’t make the cannon. Conspiracies are fun but in the end they seem
conjecture, not fact. I don’t take them as scripture but the fact they exist
shows that Mary Magdalene probably was a leading figure in the early church.
What
we have in the biblical account shows us a lot about how Mary Magdalene
followed Jesus and can show us how to follow now. Mary was healed. Mary was healed completely and fully. Because
she was healed she gave. She gave in practical ways and in tender ways. She was both pragmatic and passionately
loving. She followed Jesus as closely as she could. And when Jesus called her
name she recognized the Lord’s voice.
We
first know of Mary Magdalene because she was healed of seven demons. We modern
people don’t know exactly what is meant by seven demons. But seven has a particular meaning whenever
it is used in the bible. For example, there were seven days of creation. In Exodus, you could only keep a slave
for seven years and then they were set free. In Leviticus, the seventh year was
a year of Jubilee when debts were marked paid, fields rested. In Revelation there are seven plagues
and seven angels. Jesus says to forgive not just seven times as Peter suggested
but seven times seventy. Seven has
special meaning. Seven is always used to show God’s completed action. God is intrinsically involved and God is
acting for God’s purpose and God’s plan. Mary might have been completely taken
over by demons, meaning a complex illness that might be a complete illness
including the physical, psychological and spiritual. So we can understand Mary as
a woman who experienced true and complete darkness. She knew complete
suffering. The bright light of God is that when Mary Magdalene was healed, she
was healed completely, forgiven completely and loved completely. By saying that
seven demons were exorcised scripture is telling us that Mary was completely
healed. God’s work was complete in her.
But
for us we want and yearn for healing in one area but we fence off another area
from God completely. We think in terms of a pie chart but God wants the whole
pie. We want God to take away our illness of the body but not the illness of
the spirit that might involve greed or hatred or unforgiveness. We might want
God to take our depression but we want to hold on to our grievances. God wants
the whole mess not just the bits and pieces we don’t like. Our problem is that
we just want some pieces healed but we want to essentially stay the same. The
truth is we aren’t really pie charts, with parts for us, parts for work, parts
for family, parts for God. We aren’t so clear and separate that one piece of
God is enough. If there is poison in one part of the pie, the poison is through
the whole pie. God wants complete
and whole healing. God wants a seven devil, all in complete work of God in
us.
When
Mary Magdalene was healed, she changed her life in practical ways and in tender
ways. She gave money. She gave time. She gave heart and emotions. She supported
Jesus and his disciples with her own income; she followed through villages and
towns trekking across Galilee and on to Jerusalem. Mary Magdalene knew the
price of a loaf of bread and how much a nights lodging might be. She knew spiritual
leaders still needed food and drink and concrete practical care. Mary Magdalene was present on sunny days
and on the darkest day of all. She was at the foot of the cross. Sometimes just
being present is the only practical comfort you can provide. After Jesus death, Mary Magdalene was
with Joseph of Aramethea as the stone was rolled into place. On the third day,
she and another Mary were there as dawn, the earliest time a woman could go
abroad. The women were there with spices and oils to perform that last act of
tender and practical and hands on love.
To prepare the body is both loving and practical.
Mary
Magdalene teaches us that loving tenderness often requires us to attempt the
impossible. The women had no way to roll back the heavy stone but despite
impossible obstacles they still showed up. Willing to do what they could do
even if it seemed impossible. After
angels had spoken and Peter and John had seen the empty tomb and left, Mary Magdalene
remained. She stayed. As though she could not and would not be separated from
Jesus, or from the last place she had seen him. Even when she thinks Jesus is
the gardener, she insists that if he knew where they had laid her Lord then she
could go and pick up the body of Christ and care for it with the last tender
service. Mary Magdalene as one woman wouldn’t be able to carry a full-grown
man’s body. But in loving tenderness she would attempt the impossible. Christ
followers attempt the impossible.
Someone
once said, “The greatest spiritual disciple isn’t hours of prayer or
intentional poverty. The greatest spiritual practice is showing up.” Mary Magdalene showed up even when she
didn’t or couldn’t know what to say, or to think or do. We think we have to know how it all
works. Or we think we need a complete understanding or all the answers. But
with our God showing up with love counts. When we love like that miracles
happen. The miracle happened to Mary. Jesus called her by name, “Mary” That
short name and at the sound of her name from the lips of her God Mary saw
Jesus. Earlier in the Gospel, Jesus said, “I
am the good Shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.” (John 10:14) Jesus also said, “My sheep
listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27)
Mary recognized immediately the voice of the good shepherd.
So
what do we learn about following God from Mary? Open up to God’s healing
completely. Don’t hold on to one or two slices of that messy pie. Let healing
change who you are and what you do. Be practical. Be tender. Be a good practical
supporter of Christ; give what you are called to give. Be at the foot of the
cross; be there even if you are in the face of violence and evil. Be willing to
do what seems impossible. Listen for Jesus’ voice calling you by name. And if
Jesus sends you, you go then you will be an apostle. These are the lessons we learn from Mary Magdalene.
Amen.
