A sermon based on Song of Songs 3. 1-4 and John 20. 1-2, 11-18. A transcript of the full sermon can be found below the audio player.
The Gospel reading we just heard tells us something really important about Mary Magdalene which separates her from Jesus’ other followers, she stays, she remains at the tomb. She gets to them tomb, discovers that Jesus is gone and hurries to tell the other disciples, the reading we heard cuts out the next part where Peter and John come to the tomb with her and look inside. They see and believe, but they don’t yet understand, and in their confusion they go back home. But Mary stays, she remains at the tomb, and as a result becomes the first person to see the risen Jesus. This isn’t new, she’s also one of the few of Jesus’ followers to be at the Cross. When almost all the other disciples are hiding in their homes, or heading back to their old lives in fear and disappointment, it’s Mary Magdalene, Mary Jesus’ mother, John and a few others who are beside Jesus until the end as he hangs slowly suffocating on the cross. She’s different from the others, why? Because she stays. But why does she stay? What’s keeping her beside Jesus in life and death? It’s love. Upon meeting Jesus her whole life is changed. There’s a tradition that casts Mary Magdalene in the role of a prostitute before meeting Jesus, but there’s little to no evidence to support that view. What we do know is that Luke records in Chapter 8 of his Gospel account that she had had 7 demons driven out of her and now was one of the women who supported Jesus ministry out of her resources which seems to imply she was at least reasonably wealthy. Meeting Jesus seems to have turned her whole life of its head, or should that be set it back upon its feet. Her whole life refocuses, recentres around Jesus. She lives out in her life the words of Song of Songs we heard this morning, seeking Jesus wholeheartedly, not content until she is beside him once more. She loves him, more than anything else in the world. She’s all in, both feet firmly in Jesus’ camp seemingly right from the start, most of the other disciples are one foot in, some even right up until Pentecost, they’re not quite ready to risk everything. Now, again, there have been some, including recently Dan Brown in the DaVinci Code series who have attempted to portray this love, this dedicated, all or nothing love as romantic or sexual in nature. Not only does this idea have zero supporting evidence in any of the early Christian and other writings, and is widely dismissed by scholars, it also creates a real problem for us if that is how we decide we want to read the passages where she appears. Firstly it feeds into our cultural obsession with marriage. The world around us sees marriage as this great fundamental right, and as Christians we see marriage as a great good, a God given union, but if we put it up on a pedestal, even wanting to insist that perhaps Jesus was married we undermine a large swathe of the New Testament. Marriage is a wonderful thing, I happen to be very happily married to Katy, so I can attest that marriage is a great God given gift. But singleness is a great God given gift too, I’m sure it hasn’t escaped anyone’s attention that Jeremy isn’t married. Marriage and singleness aren’t competing ideals, they aren’t in a hierarchy with one being better than the other. Instead they witness to Christ in equal yet different ways. They each give us a window into what it is to follow Christ. If we toy with the idea that Jesus may have been married, is it betraying some underlying assumption in us that Jesus couldn’t have lived a full and joyful life if he was single? That he should have been married to be complete? The second problem that this idea that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married creates is that it makes their relationship an exclusive one. A relationship which only the two of them shared, unique and special but in no way applicable to us. But Jesus time and time again invites us to have that same relationship with him for ourselves. Mary Magdalene models for us how we are to wholeheartedly and single-mindedly love and pursue Jesus, we too are called to live out those words from Song of Songs. I mentioned that marriage and singleness both give us a window into following Jesus, I just want to briefly expand on that. Marriage witnesses to the relationship of Christ to his church. In marriage we are meant to see a picture of Jesus and us, his people. Of self-sacrifice and devotion. It’s a high calling. Singleness witnesses to a wholehearted devotion to and reliance upon Jesus, finding our needs and desires satisfied in Him. A life fully dedicated to him. That’s a high calling. But do you see what they have in common. They both witness to our shared calling, married or single, to give ourselves fully to Jesus. They both witness to the fact that only in Christ will we find our fulfilment, our joy and our satisfaction. In Life Explored these past 6 weeks we’ve been exploring the various idols that distract us from God. The little gods that we pour our time and effort into hoping that they will satisfy be they money, career, popularity, relationships etc. In our normal lives there are so many distractions around us that promise us so much but if we give our all to them they return so little. One of the results, perhaps even benefits, of the current pandemic is that many of these things have been stripped away, our lives have suddenly become much more stark, simplified, stripped back of all the things which keep us distracted. And I know that a number of those who I’ve been keeping in contact with have found this time has allowed them to refocus, to recentre their lives around Jesus. They’ve found themselves rediscovering or going deeper in their prayer lives, in their Scripture reading, in their relationship with God. The slowdown has allowed them to put Jesus back in his rightful place in the centre of their lives. But as lockdown eases, as things start to return to some semblance of normality, a new normal, are we at risk of going back to how things were before. Of slipping back into old patterns and habits. As the things that have been stripped away return, will we allow them to crowd out Jesus, to move Him off to some peripheral corner of our lives. ‘Thanks for getting me through the crisis Jesus, I’ll be in touch’. Or have we discovered something truly precious that we want to keep, that we will chase after and defend from the other demands on our attention and time. Have we, like Mary Magdalene, discovered a relationship which brings life, a relationship where our desires and needs are truly met? But perhaps that’s not you. Perhaps lockdown resulted in an even more packed schedule, an even more hectic way of life. Or perhaps the slowdown meant you had more time but you spent it bingeing Netflix, rearranging the shed, and finally tackling the wilderness that was your garden. None of these are bad things, Netflix has some wonderful shows and films on it, the shed probably did need a sort out, we are called to care for creation so caring for our little patch of it is a wonderful thing. They’re good things but they’re not the good thing. In my first year training at St Padarns we were split into groups who were rota’d to lead worship in chapel, and in one of the weeks when my group were leading worship in chapel a friend, who shall remain nameless of their own protection, was leading All-Age Worship. They decided to theme the service around putting Jesus at the centre of our lives. Now, this person loved their motorbike, they loved going for rides through the countryside on it, going off on adventures. For the service they moved the altar in chapel back against the wall and put their motorbike in its place, hidden behind a screen. And part way through the worship they revealed the bike, making the point that it could be easy for them to put that at the centre of his life instead of Jesus. Well that All-Age sent furious ripples through the community. People of all traditions, conservative and liberal, evangelical and catholic, couldn’t believe this outrageous thing that had happened, putting this motorbike where the altar should be. Perhaps you right now feel the heckles rising, some of that rage brewing in yourself. What everyone missed was that the point had been made perfectly, we are outraged when something else is placed where God should be, if you came back to church and found we had replaced the altar with something else you may be outraged. But do we feel that same outrage when we place other things in our lives in the place that God should be? Do we feel that same sense of discomfort and upset when things crowd God out of the central place in our lives? Does it even bother us? Do we, in examining our lives, notice that things like relationships, tv, money, success, have stopped us pursuing Jesus, have pushed him out from the central place, does that make us want to change, does that make us want to put things right? Or do we think that it’s fine, those things are good things, Jesus won’t mind. After all Jesus loves us, he’ll understand. But Jesus is the one who says if we love Him we will do as he commands, he’s the one who starkly warns us that anyone who puts a hand to the plow, starts following him, and looks back isn’t worthy of him. Jesus rightfully demands the central place in our lives. If you’ve got this far through the pandemic and you haven’t discovered or indeed rediscovered that joy of knowing Jesus, may I encourage you now, as lockdown eases, to take stock, to use this transition time to re-evaluate your life and your priorities. What will you leave behind in lockdown, and what will you take forwards, what needs to make way so that Jesus can come more fully into the centre of your life? The wonderful thing about following Jesus is that he doesn’t crowd out that other stuff, instead the other stuff in our lives find their rightful place, they come into harmonious orbit around the one who can truly hold our lives together. Now is not the time for one foot in, one foot out following. It feels oh so risky to put both feet in, to fully commit, after all then we have something to lose, it may cost us. But we are promised by Jesus that in following Him, in giving ourselves in wholehearted devotion to him, we find life in all its fullness. He presents us with the paradox that those of us who lose our lives, who risk everything to follow him, will find true life in Him. In Mary Magdalene we have the picture of someone who loves Jesus above all else, who single-mindedly pursues Him, whether that leads her to crowded streets of people longing to hear his teaching, thirsty for the word, or to crucifixion and death, or to the empty tomb and despair or even to risen life and insurmountable joy. She follows him wherever he goes, because in him she has found the one who can truly satisfy, the one who is the very source of life itself, the one who will never let her down. May the Holy Spirit stir up in each of us that same longing, that we would chase after Jesus wherever he leads us knowing that in Him we find true life, and at then at the last, with Mary Magdalene, see the risen Jesus for ourselves and rejoice for eternity. Amen
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AuthorAn Anglican Curate in my 20's I was raised in an Anglican Church, went to a Youth Club run by an Evangelical Church, attended a Baptist Church while at Uni and was a member of a New Monastic Community after graduating. As such my faith has been influenced by these experiences and traditions into what I hope is a more rounded viewpoint. Archives
September 2022
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