“I have seen the Lord!”
John 20:1-18
March 23, 2008
Easter Sunrise
During the last seven weeks leading up to today, we have been busy preparing to celebrate the pivotal point of our faith. We call this holy collection of moments Lent. It is a time that is pregnant with symbols. Ashes are placed quietly on foreheads. Penitent acts of sacrifice such as fasting are accomplished. Additional devotional studies take place. Palm branches get waved. A meal of wine and bread is shared. Feet get washed and feet with nails driven through them are remembered as the collective memory of broken hearts is experienced.
All of it leading up to a radiant sunrise; an empty cross and an empty tomb. This is Easter… the day of resurrection.
However, all of the preparation… and none of the symbols mean a thing… without developing a relationship with the one they point to - Jesus Christ. The symbols are empty if we fail to experience what the "new" covenant through Christ is all about.
Quite simply… It is about God's unconditional love for us.
And when we grasp the reality of God’s unconditional love we become whole. We can become, as Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, "a new creation."
"...If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation...”
I would offer that no one else in scripture has experienced with such depth the one we call The Christ, and no one else in scripture has understood how transforming, God’s unconditional love can be, than Mary Magdalene. Here was a woman who had experienced Jesus first hand. She had been healed of demons, cared for and fed Jesus and the disciples, even paying their expenses. She suffered with Mary the mother of Jesus as the Christ was nailed to the cross. Followed as Christ was taken down from the cross and placed in the tomb, returned to discover that death had been beaten and was the one to whom Christ first appeared.
Oh, to have been her!
To have experienced a fraction of the emotions and to have witnessed even one of the miracles that she had experienced in knowing Jesus. What a transforming event that would be.
Mary Magdalene - now there is a name that conjures up a variety of images! Hair that is long and in total disarray, clothes that are too revealing and usually torn, or at the very least a little dirty. Hollywood and Sunday school classes have done a real number on her image, building upon years of speculation and unfounded interpretation. Through those years, she has gotten the reputation of being a whore, and one who is wasteful of precious perfume. She has been offered up as the kind of person that we would just as soon not be around. At least… not if any one else might find out about it.
It's interesting, and quite sad, how we attach certain stigmas to people, without really knowing them. Interesting, also, how we place people in a role or group, assuming we have an insight as to their worth. We judge their financial, intellectual, or even spiritual worth, without even speaking to them. It is kind of like carrying around a black box in our heads, into which we drop either a white marble or black marble, voting yes or no to accept them. Trying to keep it secret how we voted, but making it very clear by our actions toward them that they don't quite fit into our world concept.
I happen to think Mary, the woman from Magdela, has gotten a raw deal from the press and from us. Nowhere, in the Bible, does it say that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. In point of fact, the Bible really doesn't say much at all about her. What we have done is assume certain stories are about her; like the story of the woman in Luke 7:36-39.
Luke 7:36-39 Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is--that she is a sinner."
Another story also accuses a Mary of wasting precious oil, pouring it on the feet of Jesus. It can be found in John 12:1-8, but that is Mary the sister of Martha. You may remember that they are the sisters of Lazarus who Jesus raised from the dead. You can read about Lazarus in John chapter 11. It is the Bible's version of "Return of the Mummy." But it doesn't shed any light on the Mary we are seeking to know.
The fact is we have no idea who Mary Magdalene was, or what she has been. The glimpse we get, however, through a few short comments found in the scripture, is who she has been freed up to be.
Matthew records those who kept vigil, while Jesus hung on the cross: None of the male disciples were present, but chapter 27 verse 55 reports "There were many women there...among who were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee." In Mark 16:9 we read that after the resurrection, "[Jesus] appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons." And in John 20:18, part of the reading for today, "Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, `I have seen the Lord.'"
We may not have a clue as to her previous identity, but we are given some very powerful images of how she lived out her faith, after having experienced the One-who-transforms.
In all of the stories about that first Easter morning, and the events leading up to it, Mary Magdalene is the one constant presence throughout Jesus’ ordeal. Yes, she saw Jesus. But even more important is to realize that no matter what had occurred in her past - real or imagined by others, whether there had been seven or seven hundred demons, Jesus saw her. Jesus saw her. Jesus accepted her and trusted her enough to come to her first, as the risen Christ. Trusted her enough, to send her to the others and proclaim that God was not dead, but alive!
Oh, to have been her!
But wait a moment.
Aren't we in the position to experience Jesus with the eyes of Mary Magdalene? Aren't you and I modern day Magdalenes having struggled with our own demons? Some of us have battled far more than seven demons. Some, if not most of us, are still struggling? Haven't we too battled the assumptions and preconceived images of who we are that have been placed on us by others and even by ourselves? And aren't we continually being offered God's accepting, transforming Grace, through Jesus Christ?
Even though the others at first didn't believe her, Mary was the absolute best one for the Risen Christ to first appear to. She could share the Good News because she had lived it. She had lived the relationship that the symbols point to.
What about you? Have you experienced the relationship that these symbols point to? Have you experienced the Good News of God's accepting Grace? Have you experienced the power of the resurrection? I tell you today that your sins are not only forgiven - they're forgotten. The stone blocking you from a life of wholeness has been moved.
The full impact of the Easter message can only be shared with others by someone who has lived it, someone who has lived the story like Mary of Magdela… someone who has lived the story like you and me. Reminiscent of Mary we too are being sent to others to share the message that Jesus lives and because Jesus lives we too can live! Like Mary Magdalene, we too can say that “We have seen the Lord.” We too can share in the joy of the risen Lord.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, Jesus lives!
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