Skip to main content

Mary Magdalene


Today is the feast day of Mary Magdalene. We read part of her story in John 20. Mary came to faith in the resurrected Christ through tears. Mary visited the tomb in the darkness of early morning, between 3 and 6 am. All she wanted to do was weep over the body of the man who had cast seven demons out of her. Faith had died; hope had died; but her love for her Lord had not died.

As Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as Jesus spoke to her, she could not recognize him at first because of her tears. Secondly, she could not recognize him because she was facing away from him toward the tomb. However, when Jesus called Mary’s name, her tears turned to joy. When Jesus called her name, Mary experienced her own resurrection, a resurrection of hope and faith.

In 1872, the poet Christina Rossetti wrote a poem that only appeared after her death. About thirty years later, Gustav Holst set the poem to music and it was originally entitled simply: A Christmas Carol. Today, we know it as In the Bleak Midwinter.

However, there is a fascinating back-story to this beloved Christmas carol. Rossetti was a devoted follower of Christ who for many years volunteered at the St. Mary Magdalene house of charity, a refuge for women coming out of a life of prostitution. In the Victorian Era of Rossetti’s day, economic forces often caused women to eke out a living by selling their bodies. Some of these women were as young as twelve years old. Rossetti’s poetry often reflected her concern to offer Christ and help the poor, like these marginalized women she served.

For example, Rossetti’s Christmas carol pictures a Savior who entered our world of suffering and brokenness—a world much like “the bleak mid-winter” of Rossetti’s native England. “Heaven cannot hold … nor earth sustain” Jesus, and yet “a stable-place” and “a manger full of hay” sufficed for him.

In light of Christ’s great power and love, Rossetti’s poem asks: “What can I give him, poor as I am?”

This question would have weighed heavily on women struggling to come out of a life of prostitution. With their broken lives, what could they possibly give to Jesus, especially since “Heaven cannot hold him”?

According to Rossetti’s poem, there is one thing that all of us can give Christ—no matter who we are. She wrote:
If I were a shepherd,I would bring a lamb.If I were a wise man,
I would do my part.
Yet, what I can I give him?
Give my heart.
Despite our tainted past or our present struggles, there is one gift that Christ wants more than anything else—he wants our hearts. Regardless of who we are or where we have been we can give him that much.[1]

Some of us may be like Mary in any number of ways. We may feel like we have nothing to give to Jesus in response to what he has done for us. There are so many demons in our past we wonder whether we will ever be truly free of them. We may feel unworthy of the love of the Savior.

Others of us may be grieving the loss of a loved one through death, or the loss of a spouse through divorce, or the loss of a job through lay-offs. We may find it hard to share in the joy of the resurrection at present. Our tears blind us to a vision of the risen Christ.

However, when we hear Jesus call out our name: that changes everything. Once Mary heard Jesus call her name, she also heard that Jesus had a job for her to do: “Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Then we read that Mary did go to the disciples and she gave them the good news: “I have seen the Lord!” Mary Magdalene became the first missionary.

Once we have seen the face of Easter, that of the resurrected Christ, then we have good news to share. In fact, if we really believe that he is alive, we cannot help but share it with others.

What is the best news you have ever heard? One of the best pieces of news I ever received was at 3:30 on Easter morning in 1993. I was lying in bed, fast asleep, next to my wife Becky who was nine months pregnant at the time with our first child. She shook me awake and said, “It’s starting!”

By dawn, we knew she was really in labor. The contractions were coming at regular intervals. We were so excited. Our first child was going to be born on Easter. We just had to share the news with someone.

The first person I called was my father. When I told him the news, he choked up and had to hand the phone to my mother. Then we had to call our senior pastor and tell him we would not be there to participate in the Easter Service.

We went to the hospital at 10:30 that morning and James was born at 5:30 on Easter night. When I saw the face of my first-born child, I thought it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

By Easter evening, our entire church knew about James’ birth. One family after another visited us in the hospital. They all thought it was rather amazing that a preacher’s kid would be born on Easter. One of my nieces put it best when she said, “So two people rose up on Easter!”

The point is: when you receive truly great news then you cannot help but share it. When through faith you see Jesus’ risen face, you will not be able to keep the news to yourself.


[1] Matt Woodley, managing editor, PreachingToday.com; source: Karen Swallow Prior, “The Best Christmas Gift Ever”, Her.meneutics blog (12-22-10)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

C. S. Lewis on Homosexuality

Arthur Greeves In light of recent developments in the United States on the issue of gay marriage, I thought it would be interesting to revisit what C. S. Lewis thought about homosexuality. Lewis, who died in 1963, never wrote about same-sex marriage, but he did write, occasionally, about the topic of homosexuality in general. In the following I am quoting from my book, Mere Theology: A Guide to the Thought of C. S. Lewis . For detailed references and footnotes, you may obtain a copy from Amazon, your local library, or by clicking on the book cover at the right.... In Surprised by Joy , Lewis claimed that homosexuality was a vice to which he was never tempted and that he found opaque to the imagination. For this reason he refused to say anything too strongly against the pederasty that he encountered at Malvern College, where he attended school from the age of fifteen to sixteen. Lewis did not rate pederasty as the greatest evil of the school because he felt the cruelty displa...

Fact, Faith, Feeling

"Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods 'where to get off', you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith." Mere Christianity Many years ago, when I was a young Christian, I remember seeing the graphic illustration above of what C. S. Lewis has, here, so...

C. S. Lewis Tour--London

The final two days of our C. S. Lewis Tour of Ireland & England were spent in London. Upon our arrival we enjoyed a panoramic tour of the city that included Westminster Abbey. A number of our tour participants chose to tour the inside of the Abbey where they were able to view the new C. S. Lewis plaque in Poets' Corner. Though London was not one of Lewis' favorite places to visit, there are a number of locations associated with him. One which I have noted in my new book,  In the Footsteps of C. S. Lewis , is Endsleigh Palace Hospital (25 Gordon Street, London) where Lewis recovered from his wounds received during the First World War.... Not too far away from this location is King's College, part of the University of London, located on the Strand, just off the River Thames. This is the location where Lewis gave the annual commemoration oration entitled The Inner Ring  on 14 December 1944.... C. S. Lewis occasionally attended theatrical events in London....

The Shepherds' Perspective on Christmas

On December 21, 2015, the following headline appeared in the International Business Times: “Bethlehem Christmas 2015 Cancelled”. To be fully accurate, religious celebrations of Jesus’ birth went forward last year in Bethlehem, but many of the secular celebrations of Christmas that usually surround it were toned down due to instability in the area. Looking back a decade, there was even one year when Christian Arabs canceled community celebrations of Christmas in support of the Palestinian uprising. However, the Jewish government would have no part of that, so the Israeli military sponsored its own holiday celebrations in the area. It is also interesting to note who celebrated the first Christmas and who didn’t. The first Christmas was not celebrated by the emperor Caesar Augustus, nor Quirinius, the governor of Syria, nor was it celebrated by the lowly innkeeper. But Christmas was celebrated by a few lonely shepherds along with Joseph and Mary and the angels of heaven. How ...

C. S. Lewis on Church Attendance

A friend's blog written yesterday ( http://wesroberts.typepad.com/ ) got me thinking about C. S. Lewis's experience of the church. I wrote this in a comment on Wes Robert's blog: It is interesting to note that C. S. Lewis attended the same small church for over thirty years. The experience was nothing spectacular on a weekly basis. For most of those years Lewis didn't care much for the sermons; he even sat behind a pillar so that the priest would not see the expression on his face. He attended the service without music because he so disliked hymns. And he left right after holy communion was served probably because he didn't like to engage in small talk with other parishioners after the service. But that life-long obedience in the same direction shaped Lewis in a way that nothing else could. Lewis was once asked, "Is attendance at a place of worship or membership with a Christian community necessary to a Christian way of life?" His answer w...

A Prayer at Ground Zero

Does the Bible mention treating animals with kindness?

When I solicited questions to be addressed in this series, a member of the congregation wrote this to me: “Animals are mentioned in the Bible as beasts of burden and sacrificial animals.  Is there any mention of treating animals with kindness?” The short answer to that question is: yes. However, it is important to note that what the Bible says about caring for animals comes in the midst of a great narrative. It is a narrative of  Creation, Fall, and Redemption.  Let’s look at these three great acts in the narrative play of world history one by one. First, let’s look at creation. Creation At the very beginning of the Bible, in the book of Genesis, chapter 1, verses 26 through 28, we read this: Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing th...

Christmas Day Thought from Henri Nouwen

" I keep thinking about the Christmas scene that Anthony arranged under the altar. This probably is the most meaningful "crib" I have ever seen. Three small woodcarved figures made in India: a poor woman, a poor man, and a small child between them. The carving is simple, nearly primitive. No eyes, no ears, no mouths, just the contours of the faces. The figures are smaller than a human hand - nearly too small to attract attention at all. "But then - a beam of light shines on the three figures and projects large shadows on the wall of the sanctuary. That says it all. The light thrown on the smallness of Mary, Joseph, and the Child projects them as large, hopeful shadows against the walls of our life and our world. "While looking at the intimate scene we already see the first outlines of the majesty and glory they represent. While witnessing the most human of human events, I see the majesty of God appearing on the horizon of my existence. While...

Glenmerle

Glenmerle in the 1950s In 2013 I published a biography on one of my favorite authors, Sheldon Vanauken. If you are interested, you can learn more and/or purchase a signed copy here:  Signed Copy  or an unsigned copy here:  Amazon . One of the things that got me writing the book was my search for the location of Glenmerle, Vanauken's childhood home, so lovingly described in his book, A Severe Mercy . A visit to Van's alma mater, Staunton Military Academy, alerted me to the fact that Van grew up in Carmel, Indiana. Then, with the help of a local historian, we identified the location of Glenmerle.  Because Van had suggested, in my first conversation with him, that Glenmerle was destroyed, I naturally assumed that the house no longer existed. However, another one of Van's fans recently contacted me to let me know that she believed she had found Glenmerle still in existence. I was able to look up the house on a real estate web site and compare current interior p...

Sheldon Vanauken Remembered

A good crowd gathered at the White Hart Cafe in Lynchburg, Virginia on Saturday, February 7 for a powerpoint presentation I gave on the life and work of Sheldon Vanauken. Van, as he was known to family and friends, was best known as the author of A Severe Mercy , the autobiography of his love relationship with his wife Jean "Davy" Palmer Davis. While living in Oxford, England in the early 1950's, Van and Davy came to faith in Christ through the influence of C. S. Lewis. Van was a professor of history and English literature at Lynchburg College from 1948 until his retirement around 1980. A Severe Mercy tells the story of Davy's death from a mysterious liver ailment in 1955 and Van's subsequent dealing with grief. Van himself died from cancer in 1996. It was my privilege to know Van for a brief period of time during the last year of his life. However, present at the White Hart on February 7 were some who knew Van far better than I did--Floyd Newman, one of Van...