Sermon 4/8/07
Mary - John 20:1-18
(view lectionary notes for this text)
I hate to steal Peter’s thunder, but at Easter, it is really Mary Magdalene whose story is important. We may hear more from Peter throughout the gospels, and know more about his discipleship, serving Jesus during Jesus’ ministries, following Jesus’ path after Jesus’ ascension . . . Peter may be one of the ‘official’ twelve disciples, and he may be the one Jesus called the ‘rock,’ upon whom Jesus said he would build the church. And Mary – what do we know about Mary? Not much. In fact, we probably think we know more than we do. Mary Magdalene is mentioned only rarely in the gospels. In fact, Mary Magdalene is mentioned only one time outside of accounts of Jesus’ death and resurrection. In one passage in Luke, there is mention of the fact that Mary Magdalene had been cured from possession by demons by Jesus, and that she was traveling with him along with some other women and the Twelve as he was teaching and preaching. Other than that, Mary Magdalene is only mentioned in the context of being at the scene of Jesus’ crucifixion, helping the women with burial rites, and then, of course, here at Jesus’ resurrection. She’s mentioned nowhere else, despite popular beliefs. She is not the woman caught in adultery. She is not a prostitute. She is not the woman who anoints Jesus’ feet. She is not the Mary who is sister to Martha and Lazarus, not the Mary who is praised for simply sitting at Jesus’ feet. All we know is that she was following Jesus, that she witnessed his crucifixion along with other women who were followers.
And we know one more thing about Mary Magdalene. We know that she is the very first person to witness the resurrection. She is the very first person to experience Easter. She is the very first person to announce the gospel that Jesus is living. Why Mary, I wonder? Why did Jesus appear to her first? Speak to her before anyone else? Peter and John and the others probably wondered the same thing. The testimony of a woman in those days was not considered legally valid. Why trust such an important message into Mary’s hands? Why not give the message first to the very ones that would be leading the followers in the first churches?
But it is Mary Magdalene to whom the first Easter comes first. We may never know fully why, but suspect that Jesus was aware of how fully Mary and the other woman committed to a path of discipleship, even if it went mostly unrecognized by their peers or the gospel writers. Their following Jesus from town to town would have come at a much great cost, much greater risk in reputation than for the men. But they were there. And at Jesus’ crucifixion, when some of the twelve had denied and betrayed or abandoned Jesus, Mary and the women were there, with Jesus. So perhaps it is only right that they were there, that Mary Magdalene was there, for the resurrection too. Mary had always been there – mentioned or overlooked – and so she is here today, in the garden, at the tomb.
And maybe Mary is more ready to experience resurrection than any of the twelve anyway. Of course, all the disciples experienced a dramatic change in their lives when Jesus called them to follow him, but the one thing we do know about Mary Magdalene is that she was healed by Jesus from being possessed by multiple demons. We might not know exactly what this means, because I’m guessing with our medical knowledge today we would have some other word for what Mary Magdalene experienced. But I can imagined that something described as many demons living inside of someone can be no less than a constant personal living hell. Jesus freed her from this, and her life was completely different. She had already experienced resurrection – new life – in her own life. Mary knows already that new life is really possible. So maybe it is easier for her to see, hear, recognize the new life in Christ on this day.
Even still, Jesus’ resurrection still takes a while to sink into Mary. She takes “small steps toward resurrection.” (2) She experiences it slowly – with confusion, without understanding at first, with hesitation and doubt before believing finally comes. When she first comes to the tomb, she sees that the stone is rolled away, but she doesn’t explore any further. She runs to get Peter and the other disciple, and tells them what she believes – someone – maybe the chief priests? Maybe the guards? – has rolled the stone away and taken Jesus from the tomb. The two accompany her back to the tomb – they go in, look around, but we read that they don’t really understand. And then they returned home, of little apparent help for Mary. She stays behind, weeping, and finally sees the messengers of God, who wonder why she is crying. She tells them she doesn’t know where Jesus has been taken, and then she turns, and finds herself face to face with him. But she doesn’t recognize him in the haze of her grief. Jesus finally speaks to her, calling her by name, “Mary!” And the haze clears – “Rabbouni! Teacher!” She answers. After a few more moments together, Jesus sends Mary to tell the disciples, to announce the good news, “I have seen the Lord!” Finally, she understands – finally, she experiences the resurrection.
I think we, like Mary was, are “still working resurrection out.” One pastor puts it, “If nothing more, may Easter be a scraping away of at least one layer of [ourselves,] that the mystery of life might shine through every attempt to explain and control it. We are still working resurrection out.” (3) We have to learn how to be resurrected people. Jesus said he was resurrection and life. And he promised that resurrection to us. And he said it was not for later, not for some other lifetime, not for heaven, but for now. Today is Easter. Today is resurrection. Are we living it?
Last year, almost this same time of year, I was going through a very difficult time. I had found a lump in my collarbone. I’m a very private person when it comes to my health, so I shared this only with my family, and of course, my doctors. My mother was, as ever, optimistic, hopeful, encouraging me to be so too. But I couldn’t be. I just had a bad feeling about things. I was very worried. Stressed to the max. A big black cloud hanging over my head. It made the months of March and April very hard and very long, and I hate feeling that way - like I just can't wait to get to the next period of time. Life goes quickly enough as it is without us rushing and wishing it by.
I had an exam with my doctor, who recommended a CT scan. I had a scan, then a second, which showed several nodes that were slightly enlarged. One doctor wanted to do surgery, a biopsy, right away. But at the last minute, he wasn’t able to do the procedure, and I had to see another surgeon. He wanted to wait. He thought it was an infection that would resolve. And so I waited, six weeks of waiting. It was a long time to wait. And in those six weeks, I found I’d become something of a hypochondriac. I worried about everything, and wasn’t really enjoying anything. But finally, the six weeks passed, and I got good news. News I hardly dared to hope for. All the lymph nodes were smaller. I walked out with a clean bill of health.
Only, I didn’t seem to feel much relief. My good news was too hard for me to believe. I had been so convinced that something was wrong that I kept forgetting, actually, that I'd had this good news. I kept checking my collarbone, feeling the node, worrying. I'd been in such a funk for so long that I kept wanting to feel and react as if I hadn’t had the good news yet. I wasn’t quite ready to believe that the news could be so good.
And then I read the Easter story, in particular the account from Luke where Luke describes the disciples as “in joy disbelieving.” And I got it. I was disbelieving, but I was missing the joy. And yet, if I never got to the joy part of all of it, my good news would hardly be worth it, would it? If I knew the good news, I had to live like I knew the good news. You'd think that would be easy, but it's actually harder than it sounds. Suddenly Easter made a lot more sense to me. The disciples were “in joy disbelieving,” but they ended up going with the joy, and not the disbelieving. Can we do the same? Or are we unable to really believe the good news, and so unable to really live new lives?
I'm trying to lean towards the joy. I’m trying to be like Mary, who believes in resurrection, Jesus’ resurrection, and her own resurrection. Easter is about new life. We know pain, and we know grief. Mary knew it, lived it, experienced it in her own life. But everywhere we look, everywhere we turn, we see signs of new life, despite the pain and grief we know. New life is offered to us in Christ. God offers us this gift. Mary took it. Mary let her life be changed. Mary let herself know the meaning of resurrection.
Today is Easter, and we are Easter people. Maybe it will take a little bit for it to sink in. Maybe we don’t realize it fully yet. Maybe we have to take small steps toward resurrection before we know what it means. Maybe we are still working resurrection out. But I pray that we get there soon. Today is a day of resurrection, and I hope that we let it seep through every part of us. New life is ours for the receiving. Let us go, and share the good news. Let us go, and live it.
Amen.
(1) Jeff Krantz and Michael Hardin, Preaching Peace, http://www.preachingpeace.org/yearc/easter.htm
(2) Paul S. Nancarrow, Process and Faith Lectionary Commentary,
http://www.processandfaith.org/lectionary/YearC/2006-2007/Easter.shtml
(3) Wesley White, Kairos CoMotion Lectionary Dialogue, http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007/04/easter-sunday-c4.html