Early on the first day of the week . . . that’s how our story begins . . . early on the first day of the week . . . so begins Mary’s song, perhaps her finest one yet, early on the first day of the week. It was still dark, maybe the dogs had started to bark, maybe you could see that thin little slit of red in the East, maybe she looked that direction and remembered tales of a starin the East, a star of great promise, a promise that seemed to have been cruelly extinguished two days before . . . or maybe not, maybe she just trudged to the tomb from where she was staying in Jerusalem, head down, tears staining the cobblestone streets . . .
This is Mary Magdalene, make no mistake about it, the same Mary that has been maligned for 2000 years – by everyone from Hippolytus to Martin Scorsese – as being a prostitute. The gospels say nothing of the kind about this, and some people say – including a certain Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code – that the Roman church purposefully assassinated her character, maybe to make the mother of Jesus seem all the more pure. What the gospels do say is that she was one of a number of followers of Jesus who were women and, as Luke put it, “provided for him out of their substance.” That and apparently she was once filled with seven demons, who no longer cohabited within her . . .
And that’s it . . . not much information, we’re told almost nothing about her, and a blank slate is one that’s easily filled, easily chalked up with slander and speculation and lies . . . but one thing we know for certain is that she was there . . . both today, at the empty tomb, and two days ago, at the cross . . . And as she stumbles alone over the rough-hewn streets, she can’t help remember, can’t help look back in horror . . . the jeering crowds, the stone-pounded nails, the carrion birds, circling, cackling, waiting . . .
She can still smell death’s heavy perfume as she lurches along in the dark, and its memory brings back feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, despair . . . all she ever wanted had been on that cross, all her dreams and plans and expectations . . . they were all nailed to that tree, ridiculed, spit upon, mocked . . . and now as she draws near the tomb, she slows, stumbling if possible all the more, knowing what she’ll find . . .
But when she gets there, all she sees is a dark maw, a barren hole, and she is sore afraid . . . grave robbers have come – many of them, from the looks of it, and were they still there? Would she find them hidden in the darkness with the mutilated corpse of her beloved? So she runs, with ease now that she’s running away, now that cold light has risen in the East . . . she runs to where she knows Peter and the others are cowering in the darkness, where they’d been since they ran away on that awful day—so much for manly courage—and as she bursts in the door, as she rouses them grainy-eyed from sleep, she wails a hopeless lament: They’ve taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don’t know where they’ve laid him . . . we don’t know where to go to mournhim, where to construct a monument to our shattered dreams. We don’t know where to bring flowers in the Spring, to comfort one another around his remains, to build a durable legend out of our retreating memories. If we don’t know where he is buried, how can we do anything? How can we build a shrine, a pilgrimage-point, a rallying cry? Without a corpse, it’s over . . . without a body it’s as if it never were . . .
So they tumble off their mats, Peter and the beloved, and stumble through the door, and you’ve gotta know that there’s a little – how shall we say it? – friendly rivalrybetween them, and naturally, it’s the beloved disciple who wins – this isJohn’s version of the story, after all – and he peeks in the tomb, and his eyes adjust to the darkness and the musty tang assaults his nose, and there are the grave clothes, and he’s stopped in his tracks . . . but Peter – is he angry that he’s second? – pushes on past him, into the tomb, and there are the wrappings, but something else as well – the head wrapping, rolled neatly, and with care, in a place by itself . . . and did he wonder at that? Did he wonder why grave-robbers would be so neat and tidy? Did he perhaps rethink his estimation of just who took the body? And why would anyone remove the wrappings if they were going to rebury him? It would have been a puzzle had they stopped to think . . . but they didn’t. Because seeing isbelieving, and they believe what they see, they depart, troubled and heartsick, for they don’t understand the implications of the neatly-rolled-up bandage, they don’t get the message of the empty tomb. And so they go back to cowering fear.
But not Mary. Mary’s grief won’t let her leave his grave, it won’t let her leave the last place she had seen her master’s body . . . and she stands there and weeps, inconsolable . . . the men have come and gone, leaving her to her pointless vigil . . . her tongue still full of bitter Passover herbs . . . she stands there and weeps . . . Tied to that place of vacant death, with nothing to do— no body to anoint, no linen to arrange; she waits, forsaken . . .
We often make a big deal out of the fact that Mary, a woman, is the first, the first to find evidence of the resurrection – the empty tomb, carefully folded grave-clothes – and it’s true, but she’s alsothe first to disbelieve, to not understand the truly revolutionary, truly new thingGod has done in our midst, and she's certainly not the last . . . Peter and the beloved disciple, trudging back to the house, can’t even conceiveof such a thing, it is beyond their expectations, beyond the scope of their comprehensionthat such a thing could occur.
In fact, the biblical record is filledwith disbelief, with doubt about the resurrection . . . in Luke’s account, when Mary and several other women tell the gathered disciples, they are not believed, because “their words seemed to them like nonsense." Later on in Luke, Jesus himself appears to a couple of travelers on the Emmaus Road, and they are “prevented from recognizing him” (by what? Their inability to comprehend?) and then he appears to the eleven, and chastises them for their unbelief “Why do doubts arise in your hearts?” And of course, poor ol’ Thomas – known formerly as “The Twin” – will go down in history as the “Doubting Thomas” because of his insistence on proof.
And there were others . . . Porcius Festus, governor of Judea screamed at Paul “You are out of your mind! Your great learning is driving you mad!” Peter was accused of propagating a clever lie, and Paul rebutted Corinthian skeptics who insisted that “there is no resurrection of the dead,” for anybody. The inclination has always been to disbelieve, to doubt, so this notion that it’s only recently that we’ve become too sophisticated to believe in the resurrection is nonsense. It has always been easier to disbelieve . . . and neo-atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and even Christians like John Shelby Spong, who ought to know better, condescendingly insist that it’s somehow primitive to believe in the resurrection these days, since the wonders of science have banished such superstitions from our rational minds . . . since we’ve advanced beyond those poor, primitive schlubs back in 33 AD. Outside of the fact that there were folks in Greco-Roman society far more sophisticated than the likes of Dawkins or Harris or Spong – heard of Plato or Aristotle or Seneca, boys? – the fact of the matter is that they were no more likely to believe in a resurrected corpse thenthan we are today, there were plenty of disbelievers to go around . . . and the first was Mary . . .
And she doesn’t even get the picture after a couple of angelsappear to her . . . “Woman,” they say – angels apparentlyaren’t especially empathetic – “Woman, why are you weeping?” As if they don’t know, as if they aren’t awareof what is going on . . . or maybe they are aware, but couldn’t comprehend her unbelief . . . like Woman, why are you weeping? Don’t you know the prophecies? Don’t you believewhat you have been told? Why are you weeping? But it is apparent that she doesn't . . . she repeats her lament “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him,” but just as she says it, she senses a presence behind her, and it is Jesus, but she doesn’t know it's him . . .
And he repeats the question “Woman, why are you weeping? For whom do you look?” And yet she still doesn’t believe, she thinks he’s the gardener, “If you have carried him away, tell me where he is, and I will take him away . . .” She is frantic to dofor him, to anoint him, to provide the services that only a close relative can provide . . . she cannot believe the unbelievable, she cannot fathomthe unfathomable . . . somebody musthave carried him away, if not robbers, if not angels, then maybe this unassuming man in front of her, this rough-hewn servant she thinks is a common labourer . . .
And then he speaks, he speaks, and in that instant, all the scales fall away from her eyes, all the doubts vanish . . . and does it hit her right between the eyes? Is there suddenly opened up for her a space of possibility, a room with a view toward resurrection? He says just one word, he calls her name – Mary! – and she knows . . . Rabbouni, she responds, which means – John oh so helpfully tells us – Teacher! And Mary – first to the tomb, first to disbelieve, to misunderstand – is also first to believe. Mary, the gardener says, Teacher,she replies.
And Behold! It’s when she hears aWordthat Mary believes, and thus John’s gospel begins and ends with the word, which was after all made flesh and to dwell among us, made flesh to speak to his mother Mary about the production of wine, made flesh to speak to the disciples about a mansion with many rooms, and made flesh to answer Mary’s song with just one word: her name. It’s not just any word thathe breathes to her, is it? It is light as a feather, intimate as a caress . . . in ancient thought a name contained a person’s essence,it is a word of power, of knowing,and Jesus uses that word with Mary, and the scales fall from her eyes.
And as we enter this most blessed season, we can be assured that Christ—in response to the song of our lives, in answer to the high notes of joy, and the low bass growl of pain and disappointment—in answer to all of our life-songs, all of our heart-songs, Jesus calls our name. Can you hear it? Can you hear him as he whispers your name into the stillness? Mary . . . Chris . . . Vincent . . . Elizabeth . . . Jesus, whom we call the Christ, answers the melody of our lives with all-encircling love, vast compassion and knowingthat we celebrate at this season. Hallelujah! Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment