Misunderstood

 

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!”

—John 20:18

Throughout much of history, largely because of the proximity of their stories in the Bible, many scholars and other individuals have confused the identity of Mary Magdalene (or, Mary from Magdala) with that of another unnamed woman. In order to rightly understand this narrative portion of the earthly life of the Lord Jesus Christ, we must examine more carefully the exact identity of this important woman, Mary Magdalene.

In Luke’s Gospel (Luke 7:36-50) we read the story of a woman who anointed Jesus’ feet in gratitude and worship. She had lived a sinful life as a prostitute and came to worship Jesus for forgiving her.

At the beginning of the very next chapter, (Luke 8:1-2), we read about a different woman, Mary Magdalene, who became one of Jesus’ closest followers. The Scripture tells us that Jesus had touched her and cured her from the possession of evil spirits and diseases. She has a distinct identity from the unnamed woman described in the previous chapter of Luke’s Gospel.

Nevertheless, this godly woman, Mary Magdalene, has been portrayed by writers and filmmakers as Jesus’ wife, as in the motion picture, The DaVinci Code. At best, the play, Jesus Christ Superstar, portrays Mary Magdalene as a fallen woman now in love with Jesus, comparing Him to her other lovers in the song: “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.”

Even biblically knowledgeable Christians get the prostitute in Luke 7 confused with Mary Magdalene, out of whom Jesus called the evil spirits, setting her free. Mary Magdalene became a close follower of Jesus, sat at His feet, and traveled with His large group of disciples.

Throughout the New Testament, all four Gospel writers have mentioned Mary Magdalene only slightly fewer times than Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary Magdalene’s name appears in nine lists of women. And, it always appears first in those lists.

States a well-known writer, Carolyn James:¹

Mary’s real story is with the twelve apostles. Her relationship with Jesus resulted in the transformation of a useless, self-destructing life into a masterpiece of his grace. She became a key contributor to the advancement of his kingdom and someone to whom all Christians are indebted. Mary and the other women from Galilee were not incidental to the stories of Jesus’ male disciples either. These women had a profound, life-changing impact on the Twelve.

At the tomb on Easter morning, here sat Mary Magdalene, in despair, weeping over her crucified Lord. She, out of whom Satan was cast, became the first to celebrate the victory of the seed of the woman prophesied to Eve in the Garden of Eden. But, as Carolyn James points out, not only did Jesus show Himself first to Mary Magdalene:²

He authorized and commissioned her to proclaim the good news of his resurrection to his brothers, the eleven apostles… Distinguished men down through the ages have bestowed upon Mary the title “apostle to the apostles.”

Considering the life of Mary Magdalene should cause us to ask some questions of ourselves. Do we feel like a misunderstood Christian? Do others think of us more because of a past reputation that has been forgiven, rather than the godly disciple Jesus is making of us?

We must not be disheartened. Jesus has a way of coming near and speaking to us in unprecedented ways—ways that show His love and choice of us as His treasured followers. He has not misunderstood us. In fact, He understands us best of all. We must rejoice in that knowledge!

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1 James, Carolyn Curtis. Lost Women of the Bible. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing Co., 2005. Pp. 188, 197.

2 Ibid.

 

 

Accomplished

 

“Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned; For she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.”

—Isaiah 40:1-2 NKJV

“Hold on,” you say. “That’s a Scripture passage that we heard preached during Advent!” Or even, “Isn’t that passage referring to the exiled Jews in Babylon? Are you saying they could now come home to Israel? And, are you saying this is an Easter passage?”

Think about it. Couldn’t this announcement refer even more to the work Christ accomplished on the cross? And, couldn’t this be the rightful message He could proclaim to His disciples on that Resurrection Sunday? Jesus ended the warfare that has come against us because of our sin. He died in our place and God brought Him back to life.

Jesus’ last words from the cross can be heard in this passage when He spoke, “It is finished.” To respond, we need only to accept that pronouncement over our sins and accept the work that He has already accomplished for us. We can stand in the wonderful position of peace with God through Jesus. Romans 5:1-2 tells us:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.

This Easter, may we bask in the glory of the accomplished work of Christ, and sing with thanksgiving this now-accomplished Advent hymn:¹

Comfort, comfort ye my people,
  speak ye peace, thus saith our God.
Comfort those who sit in darkness,
  mourning ’neath their sorrow’s load.
Speak ye to Jerusalem
  of the peace that waits for them;
Tell her that her sins I cover,
  and her warfare now is over.

Yea, her sins our God will pardon,
  blotting out each dark misdeed.
All that well deserved his anger
  he no more will see or heed.
She hath suffered many a day,
  now her griefs have passed away;
God will change her pining sadness
  into ever-springing gladness.

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1 Olearius, Johannes (1671). Tr. by Winkworth, Catherine. Comfort, Comfort Ye My People. Public Domain.

 

 

The Wail

 

“And he [Joseph] wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it.”

—Genesis 45:2

“With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.”

—Mark 15:37

Other-earthly; prolonged and deathly; loud and terror-ridden. This sound came from Joseph’s body, up from the depths of his soul when he revealed himself to his brothers. This unnatural act of forgiveness came with a terrible cost: months and years of turmoil.

Philip Yancey perfectly expresses this occasion:¹

The brothers Joseph struggled to forgive were the very ones who had bullied him, had cooked up schemes to murder him, had sold him into slavery. Because of them he had spent the best years of his youth moldering in an Egyptian dungeon. Though he went on to triumph over adversity and though with all his heart he now wanted to forgive these brothers, he could not bring himself to that point, not yet. The wound still hurt too much.

I view Genesis 42-45 as Joseph’s way of saying, “I think it’s pretty amazing that I forgive you for the dastardly things you’ve done!” When grace finally broke through to Joseph, the sound of his grief and loved echoed throughout the palace. What is that wail? Is the king’s minister sick? No, Joseph’s health is fine. It was the sound of a man forgiving.

Now, change the scene. See Jesus during the last twenty-four hours of His life. In the Garden of Gethsemane, He fought in prayer with His Father: “Would You possibly take this dreadful task away from me? If not, I will bow to Your will.”

Jesus prayed until He could agree with the Father’s will. This death had to be died. This pain had to take its course. There was no other way. In order to fully love us, He agreed to the Father’s plan. On the cross, in torturous agony, Jesus gave Himself for the sins of the world.

What is that wail? Listen, and hear that horrible sound. It graphically illustrates that He came and willingly died for us all. The wail revealed the sound of this perfect Man forgiving—forgiving us!

Jesus asks us to forgive others as He forgave. We bow in prayer during this Holy Week to ask for His grace that will allow us the healing that comes from His wail and from our own.

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1 Yancey, Philip. What’s So Amazing About Grace? Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1997. Pp. 84-85.

 

 

Broken and Given

 

I say to you, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

—John 12:24

And when he [Jesus] had given thanks, he broke it [bread] and said, “This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

—1 Corinthians 11:24

By growing accustomed to our modern supermarkets and the plastic-packaged-machine-sliced loaves of bread we buy in abundance, we forget the raw materials and the deadly process that goes into such food. Of course, in Bible times, everyone understood what Jesus meant when He referred to broken bread. These people saw daily the practice of bread-making.

The wheat goes through a wounding process in which each grain gets ground down to the flour with which we make bread. In Jesus’ day, large mill stones crushed the grain and ground it. Using the image of broken bread, Jesus demonstrated the breaking of His own body by which the Father made Him food for us.

Even if we understand Jesus’ brokenness when we partake of the Sacrament of Holy Communion—the Lord’s Supper—we must realize that not only should we celebrate and remember Christ’s giving for us, He also wants us to give ourselves away in the same manner.

Here’s how author Ann Voskamp describes it:¹

Live Eucharist. Practice communion… Feel abundant life. All I can think is this: this is how you make the ever-present Christ fully present. This is the beginning of becoming the gift. Allow Christ in you to give away the gift of Himself right through your brokenness. God gives God so we can be the givers. The gift-ers. (emphasis mine.)¹

If we have felt the crushing of our hearts—most all of us have had such an experience—we must understand that Christ wants more from us than our single ripened grain of beautiful wheat. The way of the cross, on which His body was broken, has become a demonstration of God’s sacrifice for us. Now, He wants us to give our broken lives to others as bread, nourishment, and healing for them.

We can praise our risen Lord for the crushed body He gave for us. And, we can praise Him for the honor He gives us to demonstrate the same brokenness and sacrifice to a needy world in which we live.

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1 Voskamp, Ann. Be the Gift. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing Company, 2017. p. 57.

 

 

Cleansing the Temple

 

Jesus went into the temple and began to throw out the people who were selling things there. He said, “It is written in the Scriptures, ‘My temple will be a house for prayer,’ but you have changed it into a ‘hideout for robbers’!”

—Luke 19:45-46 NCV

Jesus came to the temple at the time of Passover and saw the following scene:

Filling the Court of the Gentiles, thousands of pilgrims stream past the animal enclosures and money tables, creating a babble of noise broken by shouting merchants and crying children. Cramped against each other in makeshift pens, lambs and goats and oxen mill in nervous circles, the smell of fresh dung scattered by their hooves. Dozens of pilgrims wait for [the man] to inspect their offerings—small lambs tucked under arms, goats led by ropes, doves in reed cages.¹

We have all read the story of Jesus coming upon this scene, angered by what He saw, and taking authority to overturn tables, scatter coins, and let loose the animals. He felt personally attacked because, unknown to the crowd, this was His temple on earth.

I often wondered what lesson God wanted us to learn from this account. How can we apply this to our world? I doubt anyone reading this has seen such a scene in their churches.

However, I am reminded of these verses from 1 Corinthians 3:16-17:

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

Pretty strong words, right? It begs the question, “What would Jesus in anger like to overturn, or throw out, of our lives?” What does He see in us that does not belong? What should be replaced with prayer, or with a strong healing touch of the Holy Spirit’s power? Have we become so accustomed to the sight, smells, and noise of sinful activity that we no longer notice?

Oh, Jesus, You who died so that we might become a temple in which You feel comfortable to live, to pray, and to serve, please have mercy on us! Reveal to us the sinful clutter, the bellowing din and smelly sins that crowd out Your “still small voice” and Your beauty. Cleanse us, purify us. Reveal Yourself in love, rather than in anger. And, heal us, that we may carry Your precious Spirit glowing with light and peace to the world. Amen.

______________________

1 Brouwer, Sigmund. The Carpenter’s Journey to the Cross and Beyond. Nashville: Countryman-Thomas Nelson Publishing Company, 1997. p. 31.