Seeing Christ through tear-filled eyes
Easter[1], March 27, 2005
Pastor Joe
Fuiten,
1
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw
that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to
Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They
have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put
him!" 3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both
were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5
He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did
not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the
tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the burial cloth
that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate
from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first,
also went inside. He saw and believed.
9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the
dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to their homes, 11 but Mary
stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the
tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been,
one at the head and the other at the foot. 13 They asked her, "Woman, why
are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said,
"and I don't know where they have put him." 14 At this, she turned
around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was
Jesus.15 "Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you
are looking for?" Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if
you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get
him." 16 Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned toward him and
cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).17 Jesus said,
"Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go
instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your
Father, to my God and your God.'"
Mary Magdalene is a
remarkable figure in the story of Jesus.
She has the name Magdalene because she came from the
We know that Mary was formerly possessed by seven demons.[3] In many of the ancient writings outside the Bible, they speculate that she is the woman taken in the act of adultery and also the sinful woman who washed the feet of Jesus with perfume. We know that being demon possessed is one possible result of prostitution. She lost her innocence early in life.
Jesus released her from the demons and set her on a path of wholeness. Along with a group of other women, she financially supported him and traveled with his group.[4] From that I conclude that somewhere along the line she got some money.
Mary was one of those who stayed with Jesus, even at the foot of the cross.[5] She saw him suffer and she saw him die. While his male disciples ran and hid for their lives, this tough gal from the streets stood by him on the cross. She had suffered plenty in her life so she was not about to abandon Jesus when he was suffering.
Even after they put Jesus in the tomb, she was there. Matt 27:61 “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.” This was the day before the resurrection, the Sabbath. They just sat there, too stunned and numb to do anything more. She was there on Friday, there on Saturday, and there on Sunday. For Mary Magdalene, this was her way of grieving what she had lost.
John 20 tells us that she had gone to the tomb
very early on Sunday morning and was the first one to discover the empty
tomb. She returns to tell Peter and John
who come running. Peter leaves “wondering”
to think it all over. John sees the
empty tomb and immediately believes but also leaves the scene. Mary Magdalene is left once again at the
empty tomb. Now she is back to
crying. She has shed so many tears over
these last three days you would think she would run dry. But today she has more tears yet.
I don’t know what kind of tears
these were. I’m a guy and the Bible
doesn’t say, so how should I know.
Judging by the dialogues that follow, it seems that she does not yet
believe that Jesus is alive. She had
lived a tough life and was not used to happy endings. In her mind she may be reverting back to
earlier days. All I know is that the
guys are gone and she is crying.
In the midst of her crying she has
to look again into the tomb. “As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb…”
She has been in the tomb before, probably a couple of times, but she
needs to look again trying to absorb what had happened. Is this really happening? Through her tears she “saw two angels
in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at
the foot. 13 They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" I don’t know why they asked this question
unless it was because they were guy angels.
When
she answers, we start to understand what she has been thinking. She answered, "They have taken my
Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put
him." Having answered the angels “she turned around and saw
Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.15
"Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking
for?" Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have
carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."
There
is an irony here. She is intense in her
love for Jesus and she is deeply moved by losing him. The irony is that because of her grief, she
could not see the very one she was missing.
When we have lost someone we may want to think about heaven but it is
hard. We are so focused on our loss that
we might be more inclined to miss Jesus in it all.
In this text, they seemed to be
on the path of missed communication until Jesus spoke her name. She had heard him speak it many times
before. Something in the inflection or
tone of his voice broke through her tears and grief.
Jesus said to her,
"Mary." She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!"
(which means Teacher).17 Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not
yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am
returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"
Because she was there, Jesus made her his first messenger. His Father would be her Father. His God would be her God. It almost reminds me of what Ruth said to
Naomi in Ruth 1:16 “But Ruth replied,
"Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will
go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God
my God.”
But was she the messenger or the recipient of a message? Maybe both!
Certainly the preacher has the advantage in understanding the message.
She had been so closely connected with Jesus in his grief that she could now share the results of his resurrection.
Joyce Hollyday tells the story of a schoolteacher who was asked to work
with children in a large city hospital. Another teacher, knowing that she had
been assigned to the hospital, called and requested that she visit a child who
had been in her class. The teacher took the boy’s name and room number, and was
told by the teacher on the other end of the phone: “We’re studying nouns and
adverbs in class now. I’d be grateful if you could help him with his homework,
so he doesn’t fall behind the others.” What the teacher did not realize was
that the boy was in the hospital’s burn unit.
She was unprepared to find a young boy horribly burned and in great
pain. But she knew that if she fled from the room that it would frighten the
boy, and so she began somewhat awkwardly, “I’m the hospital teacher, and your
teacher sent me to help you with nouns and adverbs.” The boy was hardly able to
respond because he was in so much pain. It seemed so senseless and heartless
that the teacher could hardly force herself to go through the lesson. But the
next morning a nurse on the burn unit asked her, “What did you do to that boy?”
And before the teacher could say anything, the nurse said: “We’ve been very worried
about him. But ever since you were here yesterday, his whole attitude has
changed. He’s fighting back; he’s responding to treatment. It’s as if he has
decided to live.” Later, when the boy had recovered somewhat, he said that he
had completely given up hope until he saw the teacher. He realized something
very important. He said: “They wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and
adverbs with a boy who was dying, would they?”
Life wounds us, but Jesus heals us. Jesus said, “I have come that they
may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).
[1] Should we refer to this day as Easter? My answer is that Christians from the earliest of days have used that term for this day. Hippolytus called it Easter-day.[1] He lived between 170 and 236 AD. Not only is he early, but he is the disciple of Irenaeus who was the disciple of Polycarp, who was the disciple of the Apostle John himself. He is only the third generation after the Apostle himself. If it doesn’t bother him, it doesn’t bother me.
[2] The collection of Rabbinic writings that make up the basis of religious authority for traditional Judaism.
[3] Mark 16:9 “When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons.”
[4] Luke 8:1-3 “The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod's household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.”
[5] John
19:25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the
wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. .”
Matt 27:55-56”Many women were there, watching from a distance. They had
followed Jesus from