Acts 10:34-43

Psalm 118:14-29

Colossians 3:1-4

JOHN 20:1-18

 

THEREFORE, LET US LIVE

 

      What if Jesus had stayed dead?

 

      His life, if anyone later knew or cared anything about it, would have been lifted up as a timeless example by cynics – that Life crushes and destroys the best people, so why bother trying to be good, why bother trying to live for others?  Or, his life would have been lifted up as an example by the most idealistic existentialists, who would have said how noble it was to live a life loving others even though, ultimately, it didn’t help and didn’t matter.

 

      But he did not stay dead.  This completely surprised his closest followers, who did not in the least expect his resurrection, despite his three predictions of it to them.  The gospels are refreshingly candid about the cluelessness of the disciples, one of the things which make the gospels easier to believe.

 

      He did not stay dead.  Though no one, absolutely no one, was a witness to the process of the resurrection – when he passed over from complete death to new and greater life, “life2” – people who might believe that God’s love and power could turn around life’s most inevitable event, death, saw the results of Christ’s resurrection: the resurrected Christ.

 

      Jesus had gathered a motley bunch of followers during his ministry, from fishermen from “hick” towns to a tax collector to the Romans to a guerilla warrior against the Romans to a group of single women without important sponsors or lineage.  They were, in short, exactly the sort of people who would not have been considered impressive, reliable, in-the-know sources by The New York Times, CNN, Fox News, the BBC, Al Jezeera or any other prominent news organization had they existed in First Century Judea.  In fact, these news organizations would have been unanimous – a startling concept -- in not believing some or all of those people.  “The ultimate fish story from fishermen,” some low level reporter would have said, not even bothering to take notes.

 

      And of all those witnesses, who does God choose as the very first witness to the resurrection, the very first person to discover that the cynics were, unexpectedly, completely wrong and that life and love truly are stronger than death and hate?  Why, the “least credible source” of all, according to conventional wisdom: Mary Magdalene.

 

      There is absolutely no basis for the smear that Mary Magdalene had been a prostitute before she met Jesus.  That, I believe, is a legend started by male church leaders in the Middle Ages to try to discredit her and distract from her very real importance as a follower of Jesus and as the first witness to the resurrection of Christ.  Mary Magdalene’s important role – and the prominence of the other women disciples – have been belittled, covered up and denigrated by the institutional church over the centuries.  That part of The DaVinci Code is accurate.

 

      There is also absolutely no evidence that she was romantically involved with Jesus.  It is, in fact, curiously sexist to allege that – as though women can only become important if they have romantic attachments to the leading man in the drama, instead of being recognized as significant followers of him and leaders of women and of men in their own rights.  You notice that in today’s Gospel it is Mary Magdalene who leads Peter and The Beloved Disciple to Christ’s empty tomb – and they follow her there, though they leave and miss seeing Christ that morning.

 

      What we do know about Mary Magdalene is this, from Luke 8:1-3: “Soon afterwards, Jesus went on through cities and villages, bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.  The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and of infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from who seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Suzanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.”

 

      So, we know this lady was from the town of Magdala in Galilee in the north, that she was one of those who contributed to bankroll the “road trip” of Jesus and his entourage, that she was unmarried and “un-sponsored” (no husband or prominent father is mentioned), that she was listed first among all the women, and that before she met Jesus, she had been very, very sick.

 

      And Jesus healed her.

 

      All sorts of ailments and illnesses were attributed to demonic possession in First Century Palestine, but for Luke (a physician) to report that seven demons had been cast out of her she must have either had a multitude of ailments, or something both ‘way beyond the ability of First Century medicine to help and really, really scary.  My guess, and it’s only a guess, is schizophrenia.  That certainly would explain why the (male) disciples, according to Luke 24:11, considered Mary’s report of Christ’s resurrection unbelievable.  “You know Mary,” I can imagine them saying, “she’s still ‘not too tightly wrapped.’”  But she was.

 

      Perhaps the guys did not believe her because they had not experienced Easter in their own lives yet.  She already had.  She had been healed by Christ – profoundly transformed in some way into someone who was not only healthy in every sense but also profoundly devoted to Christ – and courageous.

 

      Let’s remember, when Christ was on the cross, all the male disciples except for The Beloved Disciple made themselves very scarce.  The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene and a few other women were there.  That took courage as well as devotion.  Identifying yourself to the Roman army as a friend and follower of someone who had just been crucified as a dangerous enemy of the Emperor was about as  safe as standing next to a dead body which a Tyrannosaurus Rex was taking an active interest in.  You might become the Empire’s next victim.

 

      So Mary, a courageous, devoted leader among Jesus’ followers – and the “least credible” witness according to the standards of her time – was chosen by God to be the first witness of the most wonderful surprise in history.  The (male) disciples who later wrote, inspired or were sources for the Gospels recorded her crucial role – and their own faithlessness – not to make themselves look good or to make the Gospel accounts more believable to potential believers who had never known Jesus before his death, because Mary Magdalene’s role and the guys’ skepticism wouldn’t have done either of these things.  Quite the opposite.  The only reason for the story being recorded as it was was because it was true.  There is no “spin” here to accommodate God’s truth and actions to skeptical First Century – or 21st Century – ears.  This is the way it is: believe, or don’t.

 

      And what are we asked to believe?  Not that Jesus’ followers had a vision of him leading a blissful experience in heaven as they were anointing his dead body.  That might have been more easily believed, but no one claimed that experience.  Not that Jesus’ followers had been visited by a ghostly apparition of Jesus; that also might have been believed.  Not that Jesus had been brought back to normal, mortal life like Lazarus, to live to the age of 95 dispensing wisdom to his followers from a mountain-top retreat remote from Roman garrisons.

     

No, instead, the New Testament tells us the least expected news from the so-called least credible witness.  Jesus is alive – tangible, like Lazarus leaving no body in the tomb, but unlike Lazarus able to appear out of thin air in locked rooms and to travel miles without anyone seeing him do it.  Not a ghost, not a vision, not a resuscitated corpse, and not the first-born from the dead in a general resurrection starting the same day and signaling The End of History and the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth fully and immediately.

 

Instead, Christ was raised to new, more life-filled life – life2 – and his followers were invited to believe, to spread the word, and then to understand what it might mean.

 

      Here is some of what it might mean.  First, God doesn’t give two cents for human standards of prestige and credibility.  By choosing Mary Magdalene as the first witness to the resurrection, God makes that clear, and this: everyone matters to God.  There are no “second-class citizens” to God.  Male or female, single or married, rich or poor, Ph.D. or G.E.D., “hick town” resident or city sophisticate, doesn’t matter: everyone matters to God.  In fact, Jesus’ second utterance after his resurrection was to call Mary by name.  Everyone matters personally to God.

 

      In fact, while God doesn’t give two cents for human standards of prestige, God gives everything for human beings.  God the Son became human that he might take the punishment due for the sins of the whole world, for the misdeeds that would otherwise block or warp all peoples’ relationship with God and with each other.  He died so that we and all people might have a second chance at life, and rose again to show us the way to new life.

 

      New life includes the hope for life after this life.  This life is important – but it is not all there is or all there will be.  “The best is yet to come.”  Therefore, because we can look forward with confident hope based on God’s control over the personal destiny of every human being and over the ultimate fate of the world, we do not need to fear death.  Oh, there are some ways of dying I certainly fear, but death itself is different, much as I love this life with gusto.

 

      And that also is the point: because Christians can live life not in denial of the reality of death, nor thinking that life is ultimately futile, nor believing that the whole universe is going down a dead-end street, and not pretending that this life is all there is, we can commit ourselves with gusto to making this life better for others.  Including and especially those people who godless people say don’t matter.  Everyone matters to God – so everyone, everywhere should matter to us.  So we cannot only believe in heaven, but also strive to make the world a little more heavenly by our words and deeds.

 

      Christ is alive, so that we may live.  Therefore, let us live.

 

The Rev. Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Monmouth Junction, New Jersey

March 27, 2005