"Why didn't she recognize him in the garden?"
Knox, 8 May, 2011 © Scott McAndless – Christian Family Sunday
Romans 16:1-16, Psalm 20, Mark 16:1-8, John 20:11-18
I have always found it odd that, in the Gospel of John, when Mary Magdalene meets the risen Jesus on Easter morning outside the tomb, she doesn’t recognize him. Of all the people to see the risen Jesus, you would think that she should be the first to know him. I mean, the two disciples on the way to Emmaus – Cleopas and the other one who is not named and who many now think could have been his wife – may not have known Jesus really well. Certainly Cleopas is not mentioned anywhere else in the gospels and doesn’t seem to have been part of the inner circle.
But you can’t say that about Mary. According to the Gospel of Luke anyways, Mary had been part of the group of disciples, traveling with Jesus and the “boys” all over Galilee. (Luke 8:2) She must have known Jesus well and probably had many long conversations with him. So her confusion of him with a gardener seems very strange. But that is what makes her story so important. If someone who knew Jesus as well as that had a hard time recognizing him when he rose from the dead, what are the chances that we, who never knew him in the flesh, will really come to terms with the reality of his resurrection?
Before we answer that question, though, let’s take a moment to understand just how significant Jesus’ appearance to Mary Magdalene really is. What this passage in the Gospel of John is saying is that, of all the people that the risen Jesus could have appeared to, he somehow chose to go to Mary first. She saw him before Peter, before James and before any of the famous twelve. She is, in other words, the primary witness of the resurrection. Her – a woman! I know that this is not an entirely shocking idea to us today. “Why not a woman,” I can hear you thinking. And I certainly agree. But for much of Christian history this has been a very shocking idea.
After all, seeing Jesus after the resurrection gave a person authority. One of the reasons why Peter became such an important leader in the church was because the risen Jesus appeared to him privately apart from the other disciples. James led the church in Jerusalem for the same reason (and also because he happened to be Jesus’ brother). And the Apostle Paul based his entire claim to be an apostle on the fact that Jesus had appeared to him. But if Jesus appeared to Mary first – before all these others – does that not imply that she has more authority than them? Doesn’t that make her an apostle at least equal to them?
Of course, this story of a special appearance to Mary is only found in the Gospel of John. But all of the gospels agree on another surprising fact: that the women were the first to know about the resurrection. While all of the men were hiding in their rooms shuddering in fear and ignorance, the women already knew the incredible truth: that he was risen. And they were the first to tell this amazing news.
All of this suggests that women played a significant leadership role in the early church. And indeed it seems that they did. When we look, for example, at that passage we read from the end of the Letter to the Romans this morning we see the Apostle Paul sending greetings to some friends. They are all people with whom Paul has worked closely – significant people in that church. But did you notice that at least a third of those names are women’s names? Some of these women host church meetings in their homes, one is a “servant” or “deacon” of the church. And one of them, Junia, is even identified as an apostle.
All this seems obvious enough if you take the text at face value. But it is an obvious truth against which the church has struggled mightily over the years. Throughout much of its history, the church has resisted admitting that these women could have had such important roles. For centuries, for example, the church insisted that Junia (who is listed as an apostle in this text) is a man’s name despite the fact that nobody can find a single man in all antiquity named Junia but there are lots of women.
The church, living in a society completely dominated by men, was just too uncomfortable with the idea of women leaders in the church. And so the very notion was squashed and the status of these women diminished. And, of course, Mary Magdalene’s reputation has suffered more because of this than anyone else. All sorts of negative rumours were circulated against her down through the centuries: that she was a prostitute or maybe an adulterer (or both). The gospels never say any such things about her but if you ask many people, that is what they have heard. It seems that there was a concerted effort to limit her importance and influence. That is why I think it is very important that we never underestimate the importance of Mary or of her encounter with Jesus on Easter morning.
Mary is there outside the tomb – ready to receive her calling to be a key leader in the church. She is about to become an apostle. And that is true whether or not she actually ever officially bore the title of Apostle in the church which she may not have. Regardless of that, in this passage she definitely fulfils the role of an apostle by taking the Good News of the Resurrection and proclaiming it to the church.
Let’s look, for a moment, at why Mary gets the privilege of this very first appearance. Why is she even there? She is there because she went (with a few other women according the Gospel of Mark – though they are not mentioned in John) to take care of Jesus’ body. In that culture, women had a very special role to play in the grieving process: they were the ones who prepared a body for burial. But Mary and the others had been unable to do that for Jesus because he had been buried in such a hurry. They came on Sunday morning to complete what they couldn’t before.
So Mary and all the women understood the great importance of the grief process. Grief can be a very unpleasant thing, of course, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a bad thing. As it says in the Book of Ecclesiastes, “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting.” (Eccl 7:2) Sometimes mourning can be a good and very necessary process. And it was the very necessity of mourning that put Mary Magdalene in the right place at the right time to experience the resurrection of Jesus.
Mary’s encounter with Jesus while she is taking care of the business of grief suggests something to me: that those who “go to a house of mourning” – that those who deal with grief and loss well – are those who are positioned to best understand and ultimately experience the power of the resurrection.
But before Mary can experience that incredible power, there is one stumbling block that must be overcome: she doesn’t recognize the risen Jesus. And perhaps the reason has something to do with the grief that she is experiencing. Could it be that her eyes are so full of tears that she can’t see hardly anything much less enough to recognize Jesus? This would seem to suggest that sometimes we can get so caught up in our grief or in what we have lost that we lose sight of anything else including the reality and the hope offered by the resurrection.
If you are in grief or if you are suffering from loss, please don’t take this as a rebuke. It is true that everybody deals with grief differently. Some people take longer to work their way through the various steps. Some people deal with the emotion that comes with it in very different ways. And that is fine. Just remember that grief and loss and sorrow and weeping are not the end of the story. Leave that space to pause and dry your eyes and be reminded that Jesus is indeed risen from the dead and that because of that you may have hope and assurance for whomever you have lost.
And, for Mary something does finally break through her grief and her tears. What is it? Ultimately is it one word. Mary is so caught up in the scenario that she has built up in her head – that Jesus is dead and gone and therefore if the tomb is empty the only explanation that can be found is in someone moving the body – that she incorporates Jesus into this story that she has created in her head: he must be the gardener and perhaps he knows something about what has happened to the body. But one word is enough to break through Mary’s sad fantasy. And what is that one word? “Mary.”
They say that it is one word that will get your attention more than any other. It is just so tied to your identity – to your very self. It was the first word that you heard from the lips of your mother and father. The word that meant that you belonged to something called a family. It is your name. And it is also true that you are more likely to recognize how somebody that you know well says your name than anything else. Even after many years you will always remember how your mother or father or other significant person said your name.
So it is no great surprise that it is with this one word – with Mary’s own name – that Jesus is able to burn through all the fog that is around Mary and that has left her confused, lost and forlorn. But this breakthrough in meaning also contains a message for us. As I said last week, I believe that these gospel stories of resurrection appearances where people have trouble recognizing Jesus were recorded for us and given such importance in the gospels as a way to help us who may have trouble recognizing the real presence of the risen Jesus in the church today. So what worked for Mary, should work for us.
What that means, I think, is that the resurrection can become a present reality for you, for me for all of us. But not if we just keep it at an intellectual level. You see believing that Jesus rose from the dead isn’t like believing that the sky is blue or that the earth is round or a Canadian dollar is worth $103 US. Those are just facts that you can memorize, that might even be useful, but that will not change your life. Knowing that Jesus rose is not like that. It is a personal belief.
The resurrection will only become real to you when you realize that it is for you – that, as Paul put it, “all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Rom 6:3,4) It is when we realize that – when we take that power of the resurrection to ourselves and begin to live that new life here and now – that the resurrection finally becomes real to us.
What that means, is that Jesus, the risen Jesus, is calling your name. Listen, he is saying that the power of his rising can be your power to live a new life. He wants to set you free from any grief or sorrow that oppresses you. He wants you to know that it is him. Can you hear him? Yes, he’s calling your name.