E-mail: lowell“at”revlowell.com

Date:      Easter Sunday

Texts:

Year A

Acts 10:34-43 or Jeremiah 31:1-6

Psalm 118:14-24

Colossians 3:1-4 or Acts 10:34-43

John 20:1-18 or Matthew 28:1-10

   Theme:     We honor Mary Magdalene for her unfailing love and attempt to repair her

reputation.  To those who love him as she did, in spite of inconveniences, anxieties,

doubts, and dangers, Jesus is alive.

  Subject:      love, faith, faithfulness

First, First, and Always: The Truth About Mary Magdalene [Solo:  “I  Don’t Know How to Love Him” from Andrew Lloyd  Webber’s  rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar.]

For nearly  two thousand years, Mary Magdalene has been revered by  the  Christian Church as the first person to see the risen Jesus.  But who was she?  Was she a reformed woman of easy virtue or a maligned, pious Jewess?

In numerous  works  of fiction, Mary Magdalene has become  a notorious  repentant sinner.   In Nikos  Kazantzakis’  novel, The Last Temptation of Christ, she  is  the  love  of Jesus’ youth,  embittered  because he has forsaken her for God. It  is  to  her  that Jesus comes for forgiveness before he can begin his solitary quest for his mission.  In  Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar,  Mary Magdalene  has all  the best songs.  It is Mary who sings “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.”   Again, she is  a  woman with a past, who has given up her sinful ways to care for  Jesus  during his wandering ministry. 

Does  such speculation find any support in the Gospel accounts?  Let us look  then  at what the Gospels have to stay about this intriguing woman.

Mary Magdalene in the Gospel According to Mark

In  Mark,  the earliest of the Gospels, Mary Magdalene is one of  a group  of  women who watched  the  crucifixion of  Jesus “from a distance”  (15:39).  We  note  that Mary Magdalene’s  is the first name mentioned—as is the case in similar lists throughout  the Gospels.  It is clear that she was somebody in the early church.  Mark  tells us  that  “in Galilee  these women  had followed  him  and cared  for  his needs,” and  adds, “Many other women who had come up with him to  Jerusalem  were also there” (verse 40).

When  the  body of Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea in a  tomb cut  into  the rock and  was  sealed with  a large stone, it was Mary who  “saw  where  he  was  laid” (verse 46).

When  the  Sabbath was over, it was <ary who came with spices and linen,  to  anoint their  teacher’s  body.   Mark tells us that she discovered that the stone  had  been  rolled away  and that  they  encountered a mysterious young man  in  white who  told  them: 

“Don’t be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified.  He has risen!   He is not here.  See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his  disciples  and Peter, ‘He  is  going ahead of you  into Galilee.  There you will see him,  just as  he  told you.’” But, says  Mark,  she was too frightened and bewildered to tell  anyone,  and  so she said nothing.

The  picture of Mary Magdalene we gain from Mark is straightforward.   Her  reputa-tion  is unsullied.  This Mary was a Galilean.  Her name tells us that  she was  from  the village of  Magdala  on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee  near Tiberias.   She  had followed  Jesus  from the beginning of his public ministry and cared for his needs.   She was  there at  the  end  of  his life. She was a devout  Jew,  who would  not  violate the Sabbath to care for his body. 

Mary Magdalene in the Gospel According to Matthew

Matthew  (chapter  27:54 and following) adds little to our knowledge.   He  also  puts Mary near the scene of the crucifixion, concurring with Mark’s description of her as one of the women who had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs. According  to  Matthew, Mary Magdalene was more than a furtive discoverer  of  the tomb of Jesus.  He adds that she seated herself opposite the tomb when it was sealed -- a brave thing to do at the grave of a felon executed for sedition and blasphemy.  In  Matthew’s account, Mary was there at dawn when a violent  earthquake signaled that  an  angel of the Lord has rolled back the stone.   While the guards  were paralyzed with fear, the angel spoke to her:

“Do  not  be afraid, for I know that  you are looking  for  Jesus,  who  was

crucified.    He  is not here; he has risen, just as he said.  .  .  . .go  quickly

and  tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the  dead and is going ahead  of

you into Galilee. There you will see  him.’”

According  to  Matthew’s report, Mary was not the least bit intimidated.   She  rushed to tell  the others what she had witnessed, only to be stopped by none other than  Jesus himself,  who addresses her almost nonchalantly, “Kairete,” which means, “Good  day.   I am glad to see you.”  He instructs her not to be afraid and sends her to tell “his brothers” that they should go to Galilee where he will meet them later.  The  picture that  emerges  from Matthew’s depiction  of  Mary Magdalene  may  be summarized in two words: constancy and bravery.

Mary Magdalene in the Gospel According to Luke

It  is  Luke who adds to our knowledge and prepares the way for  the  confusion that has  forever hounded the memory of Mary Magdalene.  In chapter seven of  his  Gospel, Luke tells us of a sinful woman who interrupted Jesus’ dinner at the home of Simon  the Pharisee,  washing his feet with her tears, kissing them, anointing them  with  ointment, and wiping them with her hair.

The Pharisee was shocked that Jesus would welcome the attentions of such a woman.  Jesus  seized the occasion to teach Simon a lesson about love and forgiveness.   He  con-cluded: “I  tell  you, her many sins have been forgiven  -- for  she loved  much.  But  he who has been forgiven little loves  little.” 

Immediately after telling the story, Luke comments:

     After  this, Jesus  traveled about from one town and  village  to  another,

    proclaiming  the  good news of the kingdom of God.   The  Twelve  were

     with him,   and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits  and 

     diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had   come

     out;     Joanna the  wife  of Cuza,  the  manager of  Herod’s   household; 

Susanna; and many others.  These women were helping to support  them out of their own means (8:1).

Later centuries would confuse Mary Magdalene, who was cured by Jesus of maladies not specified  in  the biblical record, with the unnamed sinful  woman  of  the previous chapter.  It was an easy leap from this mistake to lumping in the account found in  some manuscripts  of  the  Gospel of John of the woman taken in  adultery and  pardoned  by Jesus with the exhortation: “Go now and sin no more.”

The early church was careful to distinguish Mary Magdalene from the mystical Mary

of  Bethany  and  from the  penitent  woman whose  sins  Jesus forgave.  It  was  Pope

Gregory I in about the year 600, who forever endangered Mary Magdalene’s  reputation

by insisting  that the three women were one and the same person and by adopting  the

veneration of  “St. Mary Magdalene, the repentant prostitute to whom  the  risen Christ

first appeared.”

Luke repeats  the  story of angelic visitors at the empty tomb but tells us  that  it was

the angels  and  not Jesus who upbraids the women for seeking  the  living  among the

dead and sends them to proclaim the resurrection to the apostles.  Luke informs us  that

several women were present, but once again it is Mary Magdalene who heads it.

Luke  has  added one  significant detail to our image of  Mary  Magdalene.   She  had

been healed  by Jesus of several afflictions—perhaps psychological as well as  physical

maladies.  Mary  Magdalene  was not only constant and brave; she  was grateful.   And

from her gratitude came a life of service.

Mary Magdalene in the Gospel According to John

The Gospel  of John again places our Mary near the cross.  But in  the community  to which  John belonged, she had dropped in the listings.  Three  women  including Mary the  mother  of Jesus  are  mentioned ahead  of  Mary Magdalene.   Yet  John validates Mary’s  claim  to having  been  the first to whom  the  risen Jesus  appeared.   He even provides  the  missing details in an account replete with personal touches that  he  could only have learned from Mary herself. 

Mary, relates  John, mistook Jesus for the cemetery gardener.  She did  not recognize him  until he called her by name.  She tried to embrace him, to restore their  relationship to  what it had been during his ministry. But he rebuffed her and established with  her the  relationship  that  he  would have with all  his disciples  throughout  the centuries.  Henceforth,  he would be more than their teacher or rabbi; he would be their  Lord and his Spirit would comfort and guide them. 

Mary Magdalene in Tradition and Myth

According to  Eastern  Orthodox tradition, Mary accompanied  the Apostle  John  to Ephesus, where  she died and was buried.  Later legends maintain that she  was John’s wife.

Mary  was  important to  the Gnostics.  These early Christian  heretics  believed that matter  is evil and redemption is attained by an enlightened elite who possess  a special divine  revelation.   They regarded  Mary as a medium of  a secret  wisdom.   Medieval Catholics believed that she had been the first to preach the Gospel in Provence.  Well  into   the present century, Mary Magdalene continues to appear in  our  imagin-ings,  dreams,  and visions.  In 1912, C. Austin Miles, received a strange  challenge  from Adam Geibel,  the  music publisher and hymnist.  Geibel asked Miles to  write a  hymn that  would be “sympathetic in tone, breathing tenderness in every line; one that would bring hope to the hopeless, rest for the weary, and downy pillows to dying beds.” One day as Miles sat in the dark room where he kept his photographic equipment, he opened his  Bible  and his  eye fell upon the twentieth  chapter  of John  --  his favorite chapter.   As he thought about Mary Magdalene’s meeting with Jesus, he felt  as  though he  had faded into that scene, as though he had traveled back through time  to the  first Easter morning.  Miles recalled:

I  seemed  to be  standing at the entrance of  a garden,  looking  down a gently winding path, shaded in olive branches.  A woman in white,  with head  bowed,  hand clasping  her  throat, as if  to  choke  back  her sobs, walked slowly into the shadows. It was Mary.  As she came to the tomb, upon  which  she placed her hand, she bent over to look  in,  and  hurried away.

He  saw  John appear,  “looking into the tomb”; then  came  Peter,  “who  entered the tomb,  followed  slowly by  John.”  He watched as they departed,  then as  Mary  reappeared. He reported:

.  . . leaning her head upon her arm at the tomb, she wept.  Turning  her-

self,  she  saw Jesus. . . . .  She knelt before him,  with  arms  outstretched

and looking into his face cried “Rabboni [my teacher]!”

 Suddenly  the  scene faded  away.   As though he had  just  wakened  from a  dream, Miles  found himself again in the dark room.  A strange tingling sensation  ran through his  body.  In a matter of moments the words of a poem based on his experience  formed in his mind.  In hours, a melody flooded his consciousness.  It was the hymn that  Adam Geibel had asked him for, the only hymn for which C. Austin Miles is known, one of the most  popular and  moving  gospel songs ever written.  It is  a hymn  about  Jesus and Mary  Magdalene.   It is a song about you and me as we come to the risen  Jesus, as  we hear  him call us by name and meet him “in the garden.”  “In the Garden”  is,  of course, the  name of Miles’ song.  In a moment, we shall join our hearts and voices as we sing  it together.

Who  was  Mary Magdalene?   She was the one who  was  always  there  when Jesus needed  her,  who paid the price for being there.  I honor her for her  spirit of  gratitude that overflowed into a life of service.  I honor her this Easter morning not as a  reformed sinner  but as the constant companion whose devotion never wavered—not even in  the face  of  death.   I honor her and all like her, who nurture, encourage,  and  enhance the daily existence of their fellow human beings. 

To  those who love him as she did, in spite of inconveniences, anxieties,  doubts, and dangers,  Jesus is alive.  In the lives of those who receive his healing touch and  dedicate their lives to healing others, Jesus lives.

Alleluia!

Amen.

[Concluding song: “In the Garden]

--LDS

[2000 words]

[20 minutes]