Tag Archives: Mary Magdalene

Easter and Us

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A Sermon for 1 April 2018 – Easter Sunday

A reading from the gospel of John 20:1-18.  Listen for God’s word to us.

“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.  2 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.”  3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb.  4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.  5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in.  6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb.  He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.  8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.  10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.  11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.  As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 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.  13 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.”  14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.  15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?  Whom are you looking for?”  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.”  16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!”  She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).  17 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.’”  18 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.”

This is the word of God for the people of God.  Thanks be to God!

What does resurrection have to do with our lives – not just some day off in the future when our mortal flesh returns to the earth.  But today, on Easter.  And tomorrow.  And the next.  And any random day of the week, like three weeks from next Tuesday?  How does resurrection impact us every day?

We know how it impacted the life of Jesus, the Christ.  Arrested for sedition by a state that was colluding with religious folks who believed him blasphemous, Jesus was brutally executed.  Hung on a cross as were all those in his day who were condemned to die.  A handful of women – and, according to the gospel of John, the beloved male disciple – were the only ones from the throngs devoted enough to watch.  Joseph of Arimathea – who represented a dissenting voice on the Jewish high council – and Nicodemus – the Pharisee who once went to Jesus at night to learn of God’s undying love for the world – got his body off the cross.  The gospel of John records that they wrapped him with about a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes – which is a hole lot of powerful healing oils!  They placed their dead Rabbi in the linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews.  And because the Jewish day of preparation was fast-approaching, they laid his body in a newly hewn tomb in the garden near the spot where he had been crucified.  Night fell as the corpse lay stone-cold still, the ruah – the breath of Life, the spirit of the one called Jesus no longer there to animate his body.

Resurrection meant all the difference for that one!  Early on the first day of the week, after the celebration of Passover was over, in the dark before dawn; Mary Magdalene found her way back to the tomb in the garden.  Love’s redeeming work was done!  He was not there but had risen!  That very morning, he again called her by name.  Standing before her face-to-face; the Risen One charged her to go tell his brothers.  He was ascending – returning to the Source from which he had come.  Though he would appear to them all later that night.  Then one week following.  And again, when they had returned to the boats and nets.  The power of his life was not yet done.  The resurrection of his body confirmed all he had been teaching – the LORD of heaven and earth would have the last word, not death.  But Life for all and forever for those who would follow his path.

Resurrection changed the lives of those first rushing to the tomb.  Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John.  Mary his Mother, James his brother, Thomas and all the rest too.  To the ends of the earth eventually they would go.  Not scattered like scared sheep but sent with purpose to the far-reach of lands we now know as India, Africa, and Europe.  From that one little spot in a garden outside the walls of Jerusalem, a different kind of world-wide web would form.  The message over and over:  “I have seen the Lord!  The crucified, dead, and buried; lives forevermore!”  He is present with us.  In us, as we continue to walk the path he taught throughout his living and dying and living again.  . . .  Talk about an adventure!  All around their known-world they went to teach any who would listen everything they had seen and heard.  To give witness to Christ’s healing power.  To tell of his up-side-down understanding of the welcome of God.  To live in ways that showed yet the life-transforming effects of compassionate love.  Resurrection made all the difference in a world craving any seed of hope.

Resurrection is meant to change our lives too.  It shows us the pattern imprinted by the Creator in the creation.  Life.  Death.  Life again!  We too live forevermore.  Our days have purpose because of what we have seen – not just far off in the land where Jesus first lived.  Not even alone in the stories of scripture that we cherish.  But also in our very own lives.  Where the power of forgiveness has broken-open our hearts to heal.  To begin again.  Where the up-side-down welcome of God has allowed us to be – to accept ourselves in all of our foibles, because each part is accepted by God, redeemed by God, cherished not as weakness but as an opportunity for God to work wonders we cannot accomplish on our own.  In our own lives – I hope we have experienced and continue to be for others – people of compassionate love; those who consider the need in ourselves even as we notice the deep need in another.  Resurrection is meant to change our lives – to give us hope in a world where we’re taught to focus more on that which divides instead of seeing all the ways we are connected.  For we need one another.  And when we sit together to break bread, the mysterious Spirit of God is found binding us all into one.

Resurrection has everything to do with us – with our living, with our dying daily, with our living again now and forevermore!  . . .  Happy Easter, Resurrection people!  When we depart from here, let us go to make all the difference!

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2018  (All rights reserved.)

Lent Lesson #4: The Way

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A Sermon for 18 March 2018

A reading from the gospel of John 12:20-36.  Listen for God’s word to us.

 

“Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks.  21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”  22 Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.  23 Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  24 Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.  25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.  Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.  27 “Now my soul is troubled.  And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’?  No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.  28 Father, glorify your name.”  Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”  29 The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”  30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine.  31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.  32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”  33 He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.  34 The crowd answered him, “We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever.  How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up?  Who is this Son of Man?” 35 Jesus said to them, ‘The light is with you for a little longer.  Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you.  If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going.  36 While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.’”

This is the word of God for the people of God.  Thanks be to God!

 

It was a wonderful Easter Egg Hunt yesterday!  So fun to see all the little ones coming together enjoying the hunt and the surprises inside when they opened up each egg to pile up their stash in the parlor!  A big thank you to all who helped make it happen.  From buying the candy, to being the helping hands filling eggs at the potluck last week, to assisting in the actual event yesterday!  Thank you for creating such fun!  . . .  It’s got me reminiscing about a few favorite games from childhood.  Remember Simon Says?  Rainy afternoons at Vacation Bible School, it was the go-to recreation activity in the church fellowship hall each summer.  The Rec Leader would pick one person to be Simon.  The rest of had to get in a line on the other side of the room.  Simon excitedly shouted out commands the rest of us were to follow – but only if “Simon said.”  You may remember that the trick was for Simon to try to get everyone to follow a command without saying “Simon says” first.  If you fell for it, you were out.  ‘Cuz Simon didn’t say to hop on one foot.  And either you weren’t listening attentively enough, or you just were tired doing the last command Simon did tell you to do like jumping jacks, or hand stands, or whatever crazy thing Simon would have the group doing.

Follow the Leader was a different game.  Instead of one person barking out commands the rest had to follow, Follow the Leader involved us all – usually behind one another in a line – doing the actual movement that the leader did.  In Follow the Leader, if the leader jumped up and down, so did we.  If the leader wiggled on the ground like a worm, so did we.  If the leader turned around to shake the hand of the person behind them, so did we.

As Christians we think we grow out of such games as we age.  But we don’t.  As we consider Christianity through the centuries, we likely see two factions:  those approaching faith as if it’s a game of Simon Says.  As if it’s just about doing certain commands passed on from:  God, the bible, the church, or maybe even the pastor.  Granted, there are certain commands we follow as members of the Body of Christ.  But thinking the life of faith is like Simon Says – carefully attuning to the commands of the Leader in order to do what is said, doesn’t seem to be what Jesus had in mind.  Over and over again he’s telling people to follow.  “Follow me.”  As in the gospel reading for today, when Jesus’ words are recorded as thus:  “Whoever serves me must follow, and where I am, there will my servant be also” (John 12:26).  Elsewhere in John, it’s recorded that Jesus said:  “I am the Way” (John 14:6) – the I Am statement of Jesus that was the focal point of our Sunday School class today.  You can think of that Way as a physical thing like a pathway.  As in Jesus is the Way:  the One who gains our salvation.  And it’s also possible to understand the statement as a process – a manner of doing something, like a way of putting together a puzzle.  As in I am the Way – the Way to live in this world.  The way to be in this life so that the typically-believed lines between heaven and here are blurred and the joys of abundant, eternal life begin now – every moment in which we are following the Way.  Way as a process leaves us understanding our faith not just as a special destination for someday beyond our physical death.  Way as a process is about faith that is a journey here-and-now and forever yet-to-be.

The gospel of John especially seems to be interested in understanding the life of faith as a Way to live in this world – becoming, as Jesus says in John 12:36, “children of Light.”  As this gospel tells the story, Jesus has returned to Jerusalem for what will become his last Passover pilgrimage.  A week before entering Jerusalem, he’s just outside the city in the little town of Bethany.  He’s been there at least once before – though likely he’d often been to the home of his friends Lazarus, Martha, and Mary.  By the way, this is the same Lazarus he raised from the dead.  . . .  When Jesus went to see them six days before his last Passover in Jerusalem, the gospel writer records that Mary – perhaps Lazarus’s sister who many scholars today believe is the same Mary elsewhere named Mary Magdalene.  Mary lovingly anoints her Lord with a pound of pure nard – a costly essential oil you can get on Amazon today for about $50 per ounce or $800 for a pound.  Jesus says she’s getting him ready for burial.  Which is code for us to know that Jesus knows the Way he’s living in this world is not at all popular.  The gospel of John records that the next day he enters into Jerusalem to crowds waving palm branches as they shout out “Hosanna!  Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the LORD!” (John 12:13) – but we’ll get to those details next week when we gather for a similar palm parade as the week we call Holy begins.  In Jerusalem, the religious leaders are in a whirl again because the crowd sees something in Jesus they refuse to.

Some Greeks who are in town too for Passover request a visit with Jesus.  It is at this moment, Jesus declares, the hour has come.  The time is fulfilled.  It’s important to realize, about the Way, that this is NOT the first time Jesus is preparing to die.  All along his path, he has been dying – dying to his own personal way in order to live the Way of God he came to embody.  In The Meaning of Mary Magdalene by Cynthia Bourgeault – an Episcopal priest whose scholarship I’ve made reference to in these past few weeks – because I find Bourgeault’s reading of scripture a fresh way for us to make sense of Jesus.  Bourgeault writes of the three key elements of Jesus’ Way.  She names them kenosis or self-emptying, abundance or seeing the “dance of Divine generosity that is always flowing toward us” (p. 104), and singleness – which has nothing to do with being unmarried but singleness in the terms of seeing “the world through a single lens of wholeness” (p. 106).  Not this or that, but one unified whole.  . . .  Knowing Jesus, we can see how he did in fact inhabit this world daily through such self-emptying, abundant, singleness in seeing it all as one interconnected whole.  Bourgeault reminds us that we see Jesus’ Way already from the temptations in the wilderness.  She writes:  “In each case Satan asks Jesus to take (feed yourself by turning stones into bread; display yourself by drawing on your divine powers; advance yourself by letting me set you up as ruler of the entire world).”  Bourgeault writes:  “Jesus responds simply by letting go of the bait being dangled, content to rest in his emptiness” (p. 103).  He lives among us in a way that continuously is letting go.  Allowing.  Content to remain empty of himself that God might fill him up.

As recorded in the gospel of John, when the Greeks come to visit him Passover week; Jesus reminds of the truth of the grain – which is a beautiful way for Jesus to point to the wisdom all around us in this world.  “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus says, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).  Every farmer knows the truth of the seed.  The necessary dying.  The descent into the darkness that has to come for new life to grow – for resurrection to take place.  Jesus has been living this Way everyday – some might even say he’s been doing it in preparation for the big death, the moment he breaths his last in trust that he again will be lifted up.  Bourgeault beautifully writes:  that in his crucifixion, Jesus was wagering “his own life against his core conviction that love is stronger than death, and that the laying down of self which is the essence of this love leads not to death, but to life.”  She continues:  He was proving “that the spiritual identity forged through kenotic self-surrender survives the grave and can never be taken away.”  It reminds us “that it is not only possible but imperative to fall through fear into love because that is the only way we will ever truly know what it means to be alive” (The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, Cynthia Bourgeault, p. 186).

It is the Way Jesus – who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life – calls us all to follow.  The Way he invites to be, that we too might Live – truly Live.  Emptying ourselves so that we approach life less as a clenched fist and more as an opened hand.  Trusting in the abundant generosity of God that perpetually flows.  Seeing everything as one, unified whole – each of us interconnected with it all.  Thus we follow our Leader every step of the Way, as children of the Light.  Living his Way.  Dying his Way.  Living again forevermore.  May it be so.

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2018  (All rights reserved.)

Opposing Energies

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A Sermon for 16 April 2017 – Easter Sunday

A reading from the gospel of Matthew 28:1-15.  Listen for God’s word to us.

“After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.  2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.  3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.  4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.  5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.  6 He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.  Come, see the place where he lay.  7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’  This is my message for you.”  8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.  9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!”  And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him.  10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”  11 While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened.  12 After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, 13 telling them, “You must say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’  14 If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.”  15 So they took the money and did as they were directed.  And this story is still told among the Jews to this day.”

This is the word of God for the people of God.  Thanks be to God!

If you are here today, you likely have heard this story.  What happens when Sabbath rest is over and the followers of a brutally crucified man go to be with his body.  Few of us have experienced a week quite like theirs.  Those who loved this great teacher, those who followed and took hope from all the words he spoke, those who had seen miraculous things taking place in others and in their very own bodies.  Those who gathered at a festive meal just a few nights early though they did not understand it would be his last.  Those who had the courage to watch what would be done to him and those who scattered in fear as soon as the guard came to Gethsemane to take him away.  All of those whose hearts were crushed when the nails ripped through his flesh and at last the sword pierced his side showing all the world he was, in fact, dead.  A handful of those lovers of that One cannot bear it any longer.  The morning after Sabbath rest is over, they go to see the tomb.

Certainly you’ve heard the story before, though perhaps you’re not familiar with the details unique to the perspectives of the four different authors of the gospels who record the happenings as they had come to know it.  It’s the gospel of John, the latest of our recorded gospels that tells of Mary Magdalene heading off to the tomb alone.  Only to return with news something was amiss, which set off the apostles Peter and John in a foot race to see for themselves just what was going on.  It’s the gospels of Mark and Luke that have a group of women early the morning after Sabbath, taking spices to the tomb to properly tend the broken body of their beloved Lord.  Mark names the women from the start:  Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome; though Luke leaves out that specific detail until the end of the story when the group is named as Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women too.  It’s Mark in which the women wonder together who will roll away the stone for them – as if they hadn’t laid out their anointing plan all that very well.  All the gospels tell of some sort of angelic being – either one or two come to deliver an important message to the woman or women, depending on the version of the story.  In Mark the women flee from the tomb and find themselves too amazed to tell anyone.  In Luke, the apostles believe the women’s words to be an idle tale.  John and Matthew include an appearance of the Risen Christ come to meet Mary Magdalene as it’s told in the gospel of John, and Mary Magdalene and the other Mary too as it’s told in the gospel of Matthew.  And it’s Matthew alone that makes mention of an opposition party at the tomb.  The guards.  Stationed there at the pleading of the religious leaders; for they were worried the disciples might try something tricky like stealing away the body after three days in order to deceive everyone that he had been raised from the dead.  According to Matthew chapter 27, Pilate grants the wish.  Guards are stationed in the graveyard and the stone of the tomb is sealed extra tight so the living cannot get in and the dead cannot get out.

The gospel of Matthew alone is also the one that tries to explain what happens.  How the earth itself shook and a mighty angel of the LORD descended to roll back the stone with ease before hopping up on it in victory to sit in all God’s glory.  Supposedly it all took place right after Mary Magdalene and the other Mary arrived at the tomb – before their very eyes and those of the guard’s as well.  Which leaves us wondering if it ever would have happened had not at least these two followers believed God yet could make the impossible possible.  Matthew doesn’t include a mention of women and spices and the duty of an early morning anointing of a beloved one’s dead body.  He simply states:  “After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb” (Mt. 28:1).  Could it be they believed and had to see for themselves what their Lord had been telling them all along?  . . .  It’s the contrast lifted up by the gospel of Matthew.  As if in these characters of Mary Magdalene, Mary, and the guards of the religious leaders; we see the energies that war within us all.  The parts of us that hope and the parts of us that fear.  The parts of us that dry up like dead men, as the guards do in terror; and the parts of us that hold on to experience the absolutely amazing, as the women do when they nearly knock over the Risen Christ on their excited dash to deliver the incredible news.  It leaves us wondering what role we have to play in God’s resurrecting work.  Are we, as the gospel of Matthew seems to portray, necessary participants in the process?  So that the stirrings in us that something incredible yet can take place are exactly what is needed for new life to have a shot.

A prayer simply titled Common Prayer, could be the summary of the gospel of Matthew’s telling of resurrection possibility.  It goes like this:  “There are only two feelings.  Love and fear.  There are only two languages.  Love and fear.  There are only two activities.  Love and fear.  There are only two motives, two procedures, two frameworks, two results.  Love and fear.  Love and fear.  Love and fear” (Common Prayer, by Leunig.  Quoted in books and speeches by Alan Jones).

According to the gospel of Matthew, there are two energies at the tomb that morning after Sabbath after fear had worked its mighty magic.  The earthquake, the flash of some mystical messenger, the site of an empty tomb.  Does it leave us shaking in fear?  For if this thing which defies human logic actually could be – this Life after death thing really something within the Divine’s reach – then what does it mean for us?  For our dying, even before our physical death; in order to truly Live.  . . .  And if this dying, even before our physical death; in order to truly Live is the Way as shown here in full in Christ; then . . . wow!  We indeed have absolutely nothing to fear.  . . .  With the women, we’re left to fall down in worship before this One.  To open wide our hearts in overflowing love; for the Way of the Living God.  For there are only two feelings.  Two motives.  Two activities.  Two results.  . . .  Because of Easter morning, which one will you choose?

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2017  (All rights reserved.)

“New Creations”

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A Sermon for 6 March 2016 – 4th Sunday in Lent

A reading from the second epistle of Paul to the Christians in Corinth (from 2 Corinthians 5:16-21). Listen to this good news not only with those brothers from Jesus’ parable in mind. But also listen for the way God works in us all. . . . Listen:

“From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he (God) made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him (Christ) we might become the righteousness of God.”

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

Last year on a trip to the monastery our retreat series heads to at the end of the month, I picked up a cute little icon in the bookstore gift shop. The icon features slender figures. A bit dark-skinned, with angled faces. One figure in the icon appears to be dressed differently than all the other figures who collectively appear through an opening in a wall with a majestic skyline in the background. Eleven sets of eyes peer at that figure who is dressed differently – in red that covers from head to toe this one who is the tallest figure in the icon. A finger is raised – as if in mid-sentence – and the eleven other figures look on at this one who obviously is talking. Interestingly, the figure at the lead of the pack is stern-faced and holding up a hand as if to indicate no. At the top of the icon, above the people, above that opening in that wall, a rainbow arcs over all. . . . The point of an icon is to tell the story in picture form – initially the form used to pass on the gospel in a world where few were able to read and write. Today, we have the privilege of knowing the names of icons, in case our eyes can’t read the truth the icon creator intended when they wrote the picture. By the way, icons are written, not drawn, though all they typically are is a scene of something in our faith. It’s an elaborate, deliberate process to proclaim a very intentional message. . . . And can you guess the message of this little icon? The eleven in the opening of the wall would be: the Risen Christ’s disciples. The rainbow tells us it’s the advent of a special new day – all creation knows it. The tallest figure in red outside the wall to whom every eye instantly is drawn is Mary Magdalene. The sentence she’s obviously in the middle of saying is: He is risen! Christ is risen indeed! On the back, the icon is entitled: Mary Magdalene Announces the Resurrection.

I’m not sure we think enough about those first disciples during the season of Lent. That is until the dramatic events of the Last Supper where Christ washed the feet of them all and gave the command that they love one another as he loves us. But what about Mary Magdalene and all the others a few weeks prior to that fateful night? Three Sundays before Easter, where were they and how had their lives already been changed?

History hasn’t always been pretty to this Mary of the New Testament who is believed to be from Magdala – so, often referred to by us, as Mary Magdalene. The gospel of Luke is the only gospel to make mention of Mary Magdalene before we get to the events of Holy Week and Easter morning. Luke alone states in chapter 8, verse one: “Jesus went on through cities and villages bringing good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evils spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources” (Luke 8:1b-3). As Mary is the first person named in Luke chapter 8, and as this portion of scripture directly follows the time when Jesus forgave, at the home of a Pharisee, a woman of the city who was named a sinner – though the text never says what her sins were; somehow a Sixth Century Pope took all that, mushed it together, didn’t quite read the text closely enough, and labeled Mary Magdalene – well, you know what they call women of the city who are sinners (prostitutes). . . . For whatever reason, Pope St. Gregory the Great started telling a particular tale of her that ended up sticking pretty well (The Wisdom Jesus, Cynthia Bourgeault, 2008, p. 81). No evidence exists – even in the New Testament writings to draw such racy conclusions about what kind of a woman Mary Magdalene was. If we trust the writer of the gospel of Luke’s account of Mary Magdalene, then we know her as one who presumably Jesus has healed of whatever spirits held her captive – the text doesn’t even make those details very clear. What all four of the gospels do consistently tell us of Mary Magdalene, and her alone, is that she is the only one with Jesus through every step of the crucifixion, burial, empty tomb, and, as my icon accurately tells of the gospel’s record: Mary Magdalene not only is the first to whom the risen Christ appears, she is the first to go blurt out to all the rest who are hiding out in fear that she has seen the Lord! He is risen! He is risen indeed!

The Nag Hammadi scrolls which were unearthed in the Egyptian desert in the 1940s include manuscripts believed to be written by Mary Magdalen herself – or at least recording her perspective of the trek with Jesus all over Palestine, to that last week in Jerusalem, and beyond (Ibid., p. 1, 22). The New Testament, in addition to these recently unearthed treasures, makes it clear that whatever Mary of Magdala saw in this Jesus called the Christ, whatever she experienced in her life because of him: from the first day meeting him on, her life never ever would be the same. She became a new creation. A sought after voice for believers in the early days after the resurrection, though the manuscripts that were unearthed in the 1940s tell of one or two run-ins with Jesus’ other follower Peter throughout the years their paths crossed. One author writes of that first encounter of the Risen Christ on Easter morn: that it is “a powerful moment of pure love” (Ibid., p. 85). In her distress from witnessing with her own eyes the entire Holy Week drama, Mary Magdalene goes and does what those who most love a dying person would do. She stays by his side every step of the way. Even weeping at an empty tomb, she demands to know where her beloved Lord’s body has been taken. When at last he speaks her name, and I quote again that same scholar: “she recognizes him and throws herself at his feet with an ecstatic cry . . . Easter Sunday begins with the energy of this encounter; it reverberates with two hearts reunited” (Ibid.). Nothing in her ever would be the same again.   She was a new creation.

They all were. What of Peter and James and John? What of little known to us Thomas, who I once was schooled about by a member of a church I served. She was a devote Christian woman from India who proudly explain to me that her family lineage traced all the way back to the Apostle Thomas himself, as is common in many of the Christians in the land to which Thomas took the good news just a few decades after Christ’s resurrection. If I was taught that in all my years of school, I hadn’t remembered the trajectory of Thomas’ mission outside of the Roman Empire all the way to India. When I did a little fact checking, I found it indeed to be so. If you’ve been to Italy, perhaps you’ve visited the chapel in his honor that contains relics from him that were found in India (www.gcatholic.org/churches/Italy/0164.htm). Or if you’ve been to India, perhaps you’ve visited the Basilica of the National Shrine of St. Thomas, were one of the three known tombs of Christ’s first apostles still exists – that of Thomas, of course. Peter’s being in Rome and the tomb of the Apostle James being in Spain (www.velankanni.in/stthomas.html). All of them were entirely NEW CREATIONS! They met Christ, they followed him, they learned from him, they grew to love him more and more each day, and their lives NEVER, EVER were the same again.

I think that’s what Paul, in his second letter to the Christians in Corinth, was trying to say. “So if anyone is in Christ,” he writes “there is a new creation: everything old has passed away” (2 Cor. 5:17). Our love for him – Christ’s love for us really – changes us. How else would anyone of us even know each other? Why else would the path of our lives lead us to wherever your path as a follower of his has led you? Do you think you would deliver meals on wheels in this neighborhood if you never had heard of the gracious love of God, who in Christ was reconciling the world – seeing us as beloved, scot-free sinners to whom God has entrusted the very same message that God was about in our flesh and blood as Christ Jesus our Savior and Lord. Listen to what Paul writes in that beautiful text about us: not counting trespasses against any, but entrusting the message of reconciliation to us, so that we now are ambassadors in this world for Christ! (paraphrase of 2 Cor. 5:19-20a). NEW CREATIONS! Every last one of us.

Because of him we love the children who come to us on Wednesday nights. We open this building to be a place of communion, healing, and growth for an eclectic array of people from beyond this church who come here as if it too is their home. We feed those who come here hungry. Through your Good Samaritan ministry, you ensure families have heat and senior adults have water to clean and bathe themselves. You love and care for one another and you go into the everyday places of your homes, neighborhoods, and professional lives to live differently because Christ has made you a new creation! . . . I love that those first followers of him come to us in this season of Lent and I don’t know, like me, don’t you want to know more about the wild and crazy turns of their lives because they met and followed and learned from and loved Christ Jesus our Lord? Don’t you want to know their absolute determination, their unstoppable courage, their amazing ingenuity to navigate the waters of whatever culture they eventually found themselves in? I mean, India had to be VERY different from Palestine in the First Century – an exotic land so far away from the place where Jesus lived and died and lived again. Spain was like a land no one ever had heard of back then? What did James do to learn the lingo of the people he met there so that they too would come to know the life-changing love of Christ? We know he did because some of the oldest monasteries in this world began in Spain thanks to James’ efforts. And Peter? He didn’t care if he had to stand before the Holy Roman Emperor himself (which he supposedly did). He was going to find a way to pass on the good news of God’s unending love for us all as we know in Christ. . . . And you know, I just wonder. If they could do it; all those years ago. In a world that seemed absolutely foreign to them, among people who most probably seemed so incredibly different from them; then what about us? Why can’t we? . . . Why can’t we?

HPC: each and every one of us are NEW CREATIONS. We can leave behind the old and continue to forge a future as ambassadors for Christ some-20 centuries after folks first began it. Because it’s God’s work in those who follow and love and continue to learn from the One who revealed the heights and depths and lengths of God’s love for this whole world. We have in our DNA all we need to become what God needs us to be individually and collectively, today and tomorrow, for this community right here in the world around this building where we all come to worship each week. We can do it; for in us, God has made a new creation to be about God’s work right here and right now! . . . I know it’s still Lent, but that good news makes me want to shout already: Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! And Amen!

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen!

© Copyright JMN – 2016  (All rights reserved.)

 

And Then . . .

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A Sermon for 5 April 2015 – Easter Sunrise

Click here to read scripture first:  

http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrsa/john/passage/?q=john+20:1-18

John 20:1-18

Early in the day standing in the garden just outside the old city of Jerusalem, it is easy to imagine this morning. The world is hushed as the sunlight streams through the tree branches. All kinds of birds gloriously sing. Little flowers open their petals as if to proclaim their own alleluias. Of course, it’s impossible to be there alone these days what with the millions of pilgrims who make the trek to the Holy Land each year. The good news is that this treasure of the Garden Tomb is less crowded than the Church of the Holy Sepulcher inside the old city walls where Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians have built a massive structure over what they claim to be the sites. Not so in the garden – there’s none of that holy bling there. Just an authentic sense of a quiet spot only a stone’s throw from a rocky hill that literally looks like the shape of a human skull. Archeologists claim that was the site, the Place of the Skull, where Rome would have crucified insurrectionist as it was along a main thoroughfare out of the city and right over the spot previously used for religious stonings.

“’Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here! Look, there is the place they laid him.’” (Mark 16:6) The Empty Tomb of Christ at The Garden Tomb, Jerusalem. Photo by JMN, March 2014.

“’Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here! Look, there is the place they laid him.’” (Mark 16:6) The Empty Tomb of Christ at The Garden Tomb, Jerusalem. Photo by JMN, March 2014.

The day I was there last year with my pilgrim group, the garden was just beginning to bloom as the sun pierced the crisp morning air. I wandered around the garden trying to catch a glimpse of the Risen Christ standing among the fronds of palm trees or sitting among the greenery of what I think were eucalyptus bushes. . . . According to the gospel of John, Mary Magdalene slipped out of the Upper Room before dawn that first day after the Passover Sabbath was over. Presumably overwhelmed yet with grief, can you see her fumbling her in way in the dark along a narrow path. Down the steps near Caiaphas’s house where Jesus would have been held the long night before his crucifixion. Through Zion’s Gate and all the way from the southwest side of the city to just north of the Damascus Gate. Winding west of the Temple mount across the very same path today called the Via Dolorosa where they would have made him carry the heavy beam for his cross. It must have been a risky trek what with the city all a buzz from the swift action of Rome at the urgings of the religious leaders.

The gospel of John doesn’t explain why Mary of Magdala went to the tomb early on that next day, as some of the other gospels tell of spices to be bought for a proper burial anointing. John just says she went. She certainly got in a good workout that morning as she ran back to find Peter and another disciple before racing once again to the empty tomb. Peter and the other disciple are going to be the ones to go in first, into this cave in a garden very near to where their Teacher had been brutally killed by the state just a handful of hours before. The gospel of John makes a big deal about them seeing the linen cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ broken body at his burial. The cloth for his face even receives special mention, as if to note that no one would have raided the tomb to take away a dead body but stopped first to neatly roll up the cloth from his head and carefully place it alone in the tomb where his skull might have laid. No, the gospel wants us to know that his dead body hadn’t been stolen. Something miraculous had taken place. Like lying there in the absolute silence of death, when suddenly the breath of God returned to his lungs. Infused again in every cell with the force of life, almost how the buds of tree branches arouse from their winter’s sleep at the first hint of the warming spring sun. He found himself to be alive again and whether he unbound himself or if God made it happen some other way, it was like that day Jesus proclaimed about Lazarus: “Unbind him and let him go!” (John 11:44). Again in the wee hours before that dawn, he stood up.

I know it’s a tale many minds find difficult to fathom. You might too if in your day to day life you’ve not experienced such resurrection – such moments after the blows of life when you find yourself somehow, miraculously, again standing up. Maybe that’s why the gospel of John gives so much attention to the lingering Mary Magdalene. Peter and the other disciple are reported as leaving pretty quickly after they went into the empty tomb. But Mary of Magdala stood there weeping in the garden. If in fact it was the exact spot, then right there near the same spot I stood to take the photo of the tomb that is on the bulletin cover for today. We don’t know why she wept – if they were tears of anger. Tears of sorrow. Perhaps even tears with a hint of hope, wanting to be filled with great joy. When pressed on it, she simply says: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him” (John 20:13). When she turns to see who she believes to be the gardener, she makes the outlandish statement that if he knows where the body is, then just tell her and on the adrenaline in her own body, she’ll carry him away alone. Oh Mary! The Risen Christ must have been a little bit tickled at her impossible, impassioned plan. I wish we would been told if he giggled at her first before he finally spoke her name: “Mary!” Then, as suddenly as the Breath of Life must have returned to his body, joy flooded over hers. “My Teacher!” she exclaims. For even here in this empty tomb he is showing her the truth he’s been trying to tell them all along the way.

It doesn’t make rational sense – our logical minds can’t figure it all out. Which really is part of the gift. For in the world all around us, in those we love, and even in ourselves; Life happens again. It’s the underlying truth of it all for us simply to behold. To see. To trust. To wash over any doubt within until we’re left in total awe. The mystery of a Love that never will let death be the final word. Only Life. Life. Wonderful new Life. . . . In gratitude for such an amazing gift, from Mary Magdalene’s first thanksgiving through all the ages and even unto our own; let us join in the long line of great rejoicing. Christ is risen! Alleluia, Alleluia, Amen!

© Copyright JMN – 2015  (All rights reserved.)