Transformed Life: Mary Magdalene

Hello and welcome to the Kalamazoo Church of Christ podcast.

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We pray that you are inspired by what you hear today.

Amen.

Uh, well, Mary, well, I guess we're early, but Merry Christmas a little bit early.

It's good to, it's good to see you all.

This is the last.

Uh, well, no, it's not.

This is, I will actually say this is the last Sunday that we're all going to be meeting together, uh, before Christmas, um, this next Sunday, we've got a house church, uh, but on Wednesday we, we are getting together, uh, right back here at 7.00 PM.

You guys can open up to, to Luke eight.

All right.

We're going to, we're going to dig right into the text.

This lesson isn't going to be the longest.

And even as I'm saying that, I wonder, maybe it will be like longer.

You guys are going to be waiting for me to end pretty quickly here, but it's not going to be the longest lesson.

We're going to look at a woman in the Bible who there's been so much that has been inferred about her.

She is, uh, it seems like in many ways, she's a lightning rod for controversy in, uh, in the Bible, uh, and in, uh, maybe, maybe in the Bible, but even more than that, in extra biblical sources.

Uh, if you're familiar with the Da Vinci code, um, this, this, it was a book and then turned into a movie and it was mid two thousands, I think is when it came out.

Uh, but she played a prominent role in that there was 1980s texts, uh, that was written about her.

And, uh, you would find if you just did a little, I'm not saying to do this right now, but if you did a little search of Mary Magdalene in a, even on Google, you'd be able to find so many things that are communicated about her, uh, many of which are patently false.

Some of which are iffy at best.

Um, I want to look today, um, I want to look and just look at what it would be.

Uh, we're going to gain a value from looking just at Mary from an Orthodox perspective.

And when I say Orthodox, I don't mean like the Christian Orthodox, but I mean like what's, what's in the Bible and what's understood to be true just from what the Bible says.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, there's lost gospels that say she was married to Jesus.

These are patently false.

Uh, there, there's no, there's no validity or backing to any of them.

Uh, anyone that tries to tell you otherwise is lying to your face.

They're just wrong.

Um, the, uh, the, one of the biggest reasons is these are, this is a massive disagreement from everything the Bible says about who Jesus is.

And so you could say, well, we have this, what you find, there's this lost text that is, we found and it was hidden for centuries and now it is coming to the forefront.

And these Christian staunch, you know, Christians don't want to admit that in fact Jesus, uh, was married and apparently had two children and, and, uh, those people are, they're, they're off.

They're wrong.

These texts are written.

They're written 500 years after Jesus, uh, after Jesus was, uh, was resurrected.

And they were written by people who are not Christians who wanted to start up controversies for, uh, for, for Christians.

Um, there's, there's other, uh, and work with me here.

These are some of the traditions.

One of the traditions that I grew up with was understanding Mary to be that the woman in Luke seven that washes Jesus's feet with, with oil.

Um, and we don't, we don't actually, that, that could be true.

It's not necessarily true.

And so we're not going to read that and understand Mary to be, uh, one, uh, someone like that either.

Um, there's, there's some, some facts though that we are able to pull, uh, for, from women in Jesus's day, people have understated, uh, the role of women in Jesus's day and people have, I think, uh, overstated the role in Jesus's day.

This all is going to play into the lesson.

So if I lose you here, uh, if you want to tune out for a couple of minutes, that's okay.

Uh, please don't.

But if you do, that's fine.

But when we read the Bible, then tune back in.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Uh, so depending on the culture or how you grew up, women, uh, were, were, could have different levels of authority and leadership.

Uh, from my understanding in Jesus's day, Egyptian women could have a great authority and rule.

Roman women did not, but they could be the, uh, basically they could be the force behind a paper King essentially.

Um, but in Jewish culture, almost, uh, with, without controversy, women were, were more limited in their, in their influence.

Uh, her basically a woman's status was just above a Gentile or a slave.

And when she was married, she was expected that she would have to obey, uh, listen to her husband as, as if she was a slave to her husband, um, her, her public testimony and legal proceedings, uh, proceedings was limited.

Um, if it went against the husband or if the husband didn't approve of her saying what, what she would say.

And so much of her, her daily worship would have been confined exclusively to the home.

Um, even going outside to the market or doing a lot of other things, although it was possible and you could do it, it was frowned upon and looked down upon from my understanding, especially you'd understand, especially without wearing a great coverings and, and taking great measures to be able to, to, to do that.

And so most of her worship, especially day-to-day worship was limited to in the home and passing her faith on to her children.

Um, this is the society that Jesus comes onto the scene and, and I don't know if you've read the Bible with the intention of, of learning how Jesus feels about women, but it's an amazing study actually.

Uh, it's a, it's a study that is totally, uh, he, he was whatever the cutting edge, whatever, whatever makes, what would make you feel uncomfortable in, in terms of, uh, not necessarily with women, but in terms of just social norms, uh, Jesus would do that.

I imagine that it, I don't know how you guys would feel if I came in, in flip-flops and I was preaching in flip-flops for me, if I saw someone do that, I would judge them a little bit.

Um, Jesus might preach in flip-flops, but he would, he would push whatever cultural norms we were talking just now.

And Joe asked me, do you want to wear a Santa hat basically to preach?

And I'm like, you know, that goes, there's a lack of reverence maybe.

And why is there a lack of reverence?

I don't know.

That doesn't make sense, but that's my culture, how I understand it.

And Jesus might wear a Santa hat, you know, and he's pushing whatever's comfortable, whatever's normal.

He's saying, no, no, no.

You, you just think that you don't know that you just think it.

And so we are going to see even in the Bible, how Jesus validates and empowers women and actually how it helps him in his ministry, uh, right at the end of his life and then, and then his resurrection.

Um, and so we're, we're here and we're in loop eight.

If you guys are pulling anything, if you're going to look with any kind of eyes, I want to ask you to look through the eyes of Mary being extremely loyal.

And I want you to ask yourself a question is how is your loyalty to Jesus this morning?

And where is your, where and when is your loyalty to Jesus most lacking?

We're going to see Mary when she's doing well.

And when she's very prominent and when things are going well, she's extremely loyal.

And some of us struggle when things are going well to be loyal.

And we're going to see Mary when it's the most difficult to follow Jesus.

We're going to see her loyalty there too.

And for some of us, when things aren't going well, it's easy to say, well, God is not here.

And so I'm not going to be loyal to Jesus both both ways.

Mary is extremely loyal.

Here we go.

It says, after this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God, the 12 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 Chusa, the manager of Herod's household, Susanna, and many others.

These women were helping to support them out of their own means.

Okay.

So, this is the first time that we're formally introduced to Mary.

And it says that, it makes a note that there's seven, there's seven evil spirits that Jesus pulled out of Mary, told to leave Mary.

The number seven, we understand it in Bible terms to just be completion or totality.

Basically, Mary was entirely full of evil spirits.

There was no hope and she was entirely full of it.

Jesus, we were not taught how or told what the interaction was like, but Jesus is able to reconcile her, not only in her right mind, the right state, but also reconcile her to himself and to God.

And this all would have been one, it'd be an amazing thing to see.

There's something else in this text that should open our eyes.

And we just looked at how, for women, there wasn't too much opportunity, especially in the Jewish culture, to raise their financial means.

And yet, we're taught here that Mary was one of those people who was able to support Jesus financially, support the ministry financially.

How could she do that?

Well, again, we don't know exactly what this Mary Magdalene, she would have been from this, almost certainly from this town.

I think it's Magdala or something to that effect.

It's in Greek, it's salted fish.

And so what that meant was that it basically was a massive export for fish.

Potentially, either she inherited some land or she inherited a business or somehow she made her means in some way, shape or form.

We see here, though, you think about being married in this time, there have been a lot of reasons for you to be grateful to Jesus, but maybe not be extremely loyal to Jesus.

You are somebody who's, you've made it.

Maybe it's been inherited, you've inherited something amazing, or maybe you've earned it yourself, this kind of wealth, this status.

And you could be grateful to Jesus and say, thanks so much, Jesus, for helping me.

Thanks for removing these evil demons from me.

I really am super grateful, Jesus, but I'm going to go, I'm going to do my own thing.

I don't have to be, I'm not obliged to be loyal.

And that's the amazing thing about loyalty, right, is that we're not obliged to do it.

It's so when it happens, we feel very grateful.

Right, right.

You know, Jesus, with all of these women, I find it amazing to see that you can see from the 12 he called and from these right here, that he's not just calling one specific type of person to this loyalty and connection to him.

You could do a study of the 12 apostles and understand they were kind of all mismatched up and they came from different backgrounds, different understanding of Judaism, a different connection to the Jewish faith and heritage, and yet he called them to himself.

These women, you know, Jesus would have been entirely justified to work with me if he just never even, he never even allowed these women to follow him.

It was it was worse than wearing a Santa hat preaching, that he allowed them to travel with him and walk with him and have this daily interaction with him.

And even for him to teach them would have been like, wow, you're doing something wrong.

I believe this to be perhaps one of the reasons why they said, well, this guy, he's a drunkard.

He's always hanging out with prostitutes all of the time.

Now, he, you know, he did that explicitly, but I believe in these.

Sorry, he hung out with prostitutes and drunkards all the time.

He was not a drunkard.

Right.

I'm just making sure you guys are there.

But so I believe that you would see him and this guy is interacting with people in a way that we're very uncomfortable with.

And yet Jesus knew that this was going to be the best thing for his ministry.

Why?

Well, I think we can find we can find somebody for us in in in this text.

I think we can find somebody who connects with us.

And you could say maybe you are in great financial, great financial means right now.

Well, Jesus is still calling you to loyalty.

Maybe you would say, I don't have any financial means.

Jesus is still calling you to a loyalty to him.

Loyalty is the logical maturation of gratitude.

We're in a season where we're celebrating, we're celebrating by giving gifts and receiving gifts.

Loyalty that the logical mass, sorry, the logical maturation of gratitude is loyalty.

Yeah.

You know, in Luke 12, you guys can just turn a couple more over.

We're going to read what it what it looks like to not be rather to be grateful, perhaps, but then to not to not be loyal.

It says, and he told them this parable in verse 16, the ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest.

He thought to himself, what shall I do?

I have no place to store my crops.

Then he said to then he said, this is what I'll do.

I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones.

And there I will store my surplus grain.

And I'll say to myself, you have plenty of grain laid up for many years.

Take life easy, eat, drink and be married.

But God said to him, you fool this very night, your life will be demanded from you.

Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?

This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves, but is not rich towards God.

Things are going well.

Maybe you look at your life, maybe you look at 2023 and you think things are going really well.

And if that's the case, I want to ask you, then where is your loyalty at?

It's our love.

Again, we've talked about it, I believe, even last week.

Our love is to Jesus.

We love him.

But where's our loyalty?

And where and when things are going well, things going well for you look different than things going well for me.

So it's even worthwhile to ask yourself, what does it look like for things to go well in your life?

Financial stability, maybe relationships, things are going well.

There's overall a health with your children.

They're listening to you or they're they're continuing to mature.

And you could say, OK, things are just clicking.

Things are going really well.

It's difficult, I believe, to be to be loyal to God in these times.

Why?

Well, because we can point to our financial stability to being, well, I planned really well.

I had it.

I worked extremely hard and I went and I got this extra deal or I've been putting money away for years.

And now I can relax and reap some of the benefits of that.

And you can point to yourself easily in relationships.

You say, well, I've changed so much since I became a follower of Jesus.

And so I've I've altered my relationships.

I've had to cut people off.

I've had to add so many things.

It's easy to look at ourselves in those times, isn't it?

With our health, maybe I mean, I started working out more, I feel more excited.

I'm just it's going well.

And it's easy, again, to say, well, I've done it.

This is what I've done.

This is what the man did in this parable.

He said, one, it's amazing.

He is just like we think we have more control than we do.

He has no control over over crops growing.

Right.

It's it's it's a wild thing to say.

Well, we we know that the crops are going to grow and they're going to grow to some extent.

But you have no idea when there's going to be a surplus or when there's not going to be a lot of it by chance.

And you can even talk to farmers.

And even after the fact, some of them would still be still surprised.

This is an amazing crop.

This was we planned everything well.

And I just didn't it didn't work that well.

And you can plan as much as you want.

And yet it's still up for chance in our lives.

The same is true because we can work extremely hard at our jobs and things can still not go well.

We can try so hard in our relationships and there still can be a lack of reciprocation.

We can give so much to our children and still feel like there's no progress being made.

I'm just spinning my tires.

We have to be loyal to God when things are going well.

We can see that that Mary was she's well to do.

She is in her right mind.

And yet she's she's following Jesus.

Yeah.

You know, there's there's another point.

And maybe you say, well, when things are going well, I have an easy time following Jesus.

And I would say that's OK.

That's good.

But then I'd have to ask.

And I bet you if you have an easier time following when things are going well, you might have a difficult time following what things aren't going well.

Let's go to Matthew 27.

You know, we see Mary at the crucifixion.

She was with Jesus at the foot of the cross.

And now Jesus has died.

This is prior to his resurrection, but he's died right here.

This isn't his.

This is we're going to look at Joseph and not his not his father, Joseph of Arimathea.

It says Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock.

He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb from from the entire passion narrative.

You can you can read in in all of the gospel accounts and actually in Luke, it talks about Mary outside of just the passion account.

But you could read in Matthew, Mark, Luke and then John as well.

And you'd find Mary at the foot of the cross.

Mary, along with with other women, I wonder this is this is just me.

And so maybe I'm off.

I wonder in Jesus's perfect, perfect plan, an idea of calling these women.

I wonder if some of it was for this time right here that he realized that I'm calling these men to follow me.

But these men, one, they're younger.

They're perhaps younger than some of these women.

They're probably going to be scared.

And maybe they would even they would be identified pretty easily.

And also they would be seen as a threat.

And so perhaps they are going to leave me and run away.

But maybe these women, because there's for whatever reason, like they're not seen as a threat or they're not seen as as an issue, maybe maybe they'll feel more inclined to follow.

And sure enough, they were they were the ones right with Jesus at his death.

I have to imagine this this deep loyalty, it probably would have been pretty difficult for many, it would have been difficult for Mary to to walk with Jesus in this time.

We could she could have given herself so many excuses.

I don't know if I've got to.

I love Jesus.

I'm going to be there for him.

But for that right now, you know, this it's it's things aren't going well.

Once once things die down a little bit and then I'm going to go visit him at the tomb, it'll work out then.

And, you know, we get the impression that these women, they walk right alongside Jesus even even to his death.

You know, as I was I as I was thinking about this type of loyalty, even in difficult times, I think of this I think of this one guy, actually, and I believe I've read a little account of Polycarp already at some point in the last couple of years, but I think it's worth reading again and comparing to our life.

And and I want to ask you, what's the how loyal are you willing to be for Jesus when things are not going well?

I know you love him.

How loyal are you willing to be for Jesus when things aren't going well, when you lose your job, when it's really inconvenient to follow him, when when there's seems like there's nothing good in your life, when actually you you followed him and you're devoted and things seem to be getting worse.

Your relationships are getting worse.

Your job situation is getting worse.

Your children, there's a dissonance that's continued to be created.

How loyal are you to following Jesus when things are not going your way?

I'm going to read this this little account, so Polycarp was a direct disciple of John, the apostle, and this is at about one hundred and fifty A.D. is when he was he was martyred.

And we're going to read a little excerpt from the writings about his martyrdom.

Says, despite the cries of the crowd.

The Roman authorities saw the senselessness of making this aged man, I believe he was eighty six at the time, this aged man, a martyr.

So when Polycarp was brought into the arena, the proconsul pled with him, curse Christ and I will release you.

He replied, eighty six years I have served him.

He has never done me wrong.

How then can I blaspheme my king who has saved me?

The proconsul reached for an acceptable way out.

Then do this old man, just swear by the genius of the emperor that and that will be sufficient.

The genius was sort of the spirit of the emperor.

To do this would be a recognition of the pagan gods and religion.

You replied, if you imagine for a moment that I would do that, then I think you pretend that you don't know who I am.

You're plainly I am a Christian.

Polycarp stood firm.

The proconsul threatened him with the wild beasts.

Bring them forth.

I would change my mind if it meant going from the worst to the better, but not to change from the right to the wrong.

Proconsul's patience was gone.

I will have you burned alive.

His reply, you threaten fire that burns for an hour and is over, but the judgment of the ungodly is forever.

The fire was prepared.

Polycarp lifted his eyes to heaven and prayed, Father, I bless you that you have deemed me worthy of this day and hour that I might take a portion of the martyrs in the cup of Christ.

Among these, may I today be welcome before thy face as a rich and acceptable sacrifice.

We aren't in the nobody's threatening to burn us alive.

Nobody's threatening, even even in the direct way to say, renounce Christ.

Nobody's nobody's threatening us.

And yet I put before you that probably every day you are faced with opportunities to either be loyal to Jesus or opportunities to turn your back on Jesus.

And when I say either loyal or turn your back, we don't want to go to the turn your back part because we would say, well, it's not necessarily turning my back.

It's just not running to Jesus.

And there's we we want to put this this gray area, I think, in our in our in our paths and in our lives that I didn't renounce Jesus.

And so it's it's actually OK.

Like, I'm not doing anything that that bad.

And so although I didn't fully jump in and I wasn't fully loyal, I also didn't renounce.

And so I'm OK being in this big middle lane.

What I would say is that maybe sometimes, but probably not as much as you would like to think.

Maybe sometimes you there's this middle lane and it's OK to walk in between, but probably not as much as you as you'd like to think that there's there's times if you would even sit this week and I could I could think in this week if I had to ask, OK, when were you extremely loyal to Christ?

When were you neutral and when were you not and where in this neutral area could you have been more loyal to Christ?

And it wouldn't have been super difficult.

I bet you would have you would think of times where you could have been more loyal to Christ.

Maybe it's somebody who you could have shared your faith with.

Maybe it's someone who you could have stood up, stood up to.

Maybe it's something you could have said to your spouse or to your child where you could have shown your loyalty to Christ more than you did.

And certainly you didn't renounce his name, but you weren't extremely loyal.

This is what they're trying to give polycarp an opportunity to not renounce him, but to not be extremely loyal.

Mary had many opportunities to not renounce Christ, but to not be extremely loyal.

And we see it every step of the way.

She was extremely loyal.

One of the amazing things about this is that Jesus, he always blesses loyalty.

He always does it.

We're going to read an account, but we understand that Mary was the first one to meet the resurrected Jesus.

It's in verse 11.

It says, Now, Mary stood outside the tomb.

So this is John 20, 11.

Jesus, basically, there's angels that have already come and say, hey, Jesus isn't here.

Mary is emotional and still confused.

And she's like, what's going on?

It says, Now, Mary stood outside the tomb, crying as she wept.

She bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white seated where Jesus's body had been one at the head, the other at the foot.

They asked her, Woman, why are you crying?

They've taken my Lord away, she said.

I don't know where they put him at this.

She turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not recognize that it was Jesus.

He asked her, Woman, why are you crying?

Who is it that you're looking for?

Thinking he was a gardener, she said, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him and I will get him.

Jesus said to her, Mary, she turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, Ravoni, which means teacher.

Jesus said, Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the father.

Go instead to my brothers and tell them I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God.

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news.

I have seen the Lord.

And she told them that he had said these things to her.

Think about how how worth it was it for Mary to be loyal to Jesus?

Maybe and work with me here, let's say Mary's not loyal to Jesus in this moment, in the moment of the crucifixion.

Let's say she turns her back on him.

I'm not even saying it's not it's not perhaps it's not even a salvation issue.

She she comes back to him or she's in this middle lane.

And so she comes back and she gets maybe it's not even a salvation issue.

And yet consider the blessing to not only be the first one to see your resurrected Lord, but also to hear him say your name and look you in the eye.

I'd imagine there to be Jesus was a busy man.

And so to even take a moment to be able to it's you and it's your Lord and you are face to face.

The the emotions that would be going on, you'd be on your knees.

There's there's no there's no hope but tears when you see the resurrected Lord and he says your name, your loyalty.

Make no mistake about it.

When we say it is worth it, I'm not talking about it being worth it necessarily even on this earth.

I believe it is.

The Bible, the Bible does say you're going to receive a lot more on this earth from following me.

But then he says, and you also get to go to heaven, which is which is an amazing also, right?

You know, that that's usually also is the and or the cherry on top.

The also for this is the lobster buffet.

You know what I'm saying?

Like the and is you get like this amazing cruise forever and you never have to work again, you know, or maybe if you get seasick, then it's something else.

It's it's that's that's the end.

Hey, here's a high five.

And you also get the most amazing thing you could ever imagine.

This this is going to be true for everybody who decides to be loyal to Jesus.

I want to ask you this morning to to give some consideration.

Where do you struggle in your loyalty to him again?

Again, I understand you love him.

Where are you struggling in your loyalty to Jesus?

Make make decisions this morning, make decisions even before the new year.

I know I want to wait for the new year to make these resolutions.

Right.

We're like, we got two weeks and then the new year comes and then we'll make the resolutions.

Let's not make them early because then by the middle of January, we're already done with the resolution.

And so, no, no, no.

Don't even wait.

Just make the resolution now.

I'm going to be more loyal to Jesus at the end of twenty three going in through twenty twenty four.

Amen.

Right right now, we are going to pray for communion.

And as we pray, Dayton's going to strum a little a little melody or as we as we take communion, Dayton's going to strum a melody.

And I would ask us to consider our loyalty.

But it's only in response to the perfect loyalty he showed us.

Right.

If Jesus wasn't extremely loyal to us, then we could say, well, we're doing more than he ever asked of us or that he ever showed us.

He's asking us more than he ever showed.

And yet we know that his loyalty went all the way up, living a sinless life and then dying on a cross for us.

And that's what we are.

We're remembering and celebrating this morning.

Amen.

Dear God, Lord, we we're grateful for you.

We don't deserve you.

We we look at your example in everything that you've done and everything that you do, and we are amazed by it.

We don't measure up to it.

We we can we just want to grab and latch on to you, Jesus.

Jesus, we're looking forward to the day where you look us in the eye and say our names and give us a hug.

Lord, we want that day to come.

Father, we're grateful that we have the opportunity to be called to this level of loyalty because you you lived it first and you lived a sinless life and you died on a cross to give us the opportunity to for our loyalty to mean something.

Father, Lord, we're grateful for your sacrifice.

Jesus, please, please view our lives as a sacrifice to you.

This is in this is in your name that we pray.

Amen.

Thank you so much for listening to the Kalamazoo Church of Christ podcast.

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So busy saving souls.