LIFE LESSONS
MARY MAGDALENE
COMMUNION SUNDAY
DR. JIM DIXON
JOHN 20:11-18
SEPTEMBER 26, 2004
Who was Mary Magdalene? A lot of people are asking that question today, particularly in the aftermath of Dan Brown’s controversial book, “The Da Vinci Code.” Of course, Dan Brown claims that Mary Magdalene was the wife of our Lord Jesus Christ. Dan Brown claims that she was the mother of His children. Dan Brown claims that Mary Magdalene was the disciple seated to the immediate right of Jesus in Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of “The Last Supper.” Of course, Bible scholars and historians tell us that the opinions of Dan Brown are garbage. The truth is Jesus Christ did not have a wife. He did not have children and the disciple seated to the immediate right of Jesus in Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of “The Last Supper” was John, the beloved disciple, the son of Zebedee.
Even professors at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale have publicly stated that Dan Brown’s opinions expressed in The Da Vinci Code are historically bogus. But, you see, for a lot of people it doesn’t matter. Their imaginations have been so captivated by the skillful writing of Dan Brown that they really just no longer care about the truth.
How about you? Do you care about the truth? Do you want to know who Mary Magdalene really was? This morning we take a look at the life and person of Mary Magdalene. We have two life lessons and the first life lesson concerns spiritual warfare.
Plato was of course the name of the Greek philosopher who lived in the 5th and 4th centuries before Christ. He had been greatly influenced by Socrates, and he himself greatly influenced Aristotle. Plato, Socrates and Aristotle had a profound influence years later on the thinking of early Christian founders and theologians from St. Augustine onward.
Today, theologians and philosophers sometimes refer to Platonic dualism. Platonic dualism is the perspective that the physical world and the spiritual world are at war that the physical material world and the spiritual world are in conflict. In Platonic dualism, and particularly in the most extreme forms, the physical world, the material world, is viewed as intrinsically evil and the spiritual world is viewed as intrinsically good. The physical world is temporary, transitory. The spiritual world is eternal, never-ending. That surprises many people to discover that the Bible does not teach a platonic dualism. It surprises a lot of people to discover that Christianity does not espouse a platonic dualism.
You see, in the Bible, the physical material world is not intrinsically evil. God created the physical world and God said, “It is good.” God created the birds of the air and He said, “It is good.” The fish of the sea, He said, “It is good.” The beasts of the field, He said, “It is good.” God created man, male and female, and God said, “It is good.” God created the heavens and the earth and God said, “It is good.” The material world is intrinsically good. Of course, the physical world is fallen, and these bodies are fallen and yet God, by His Spirit, is pleased to come and dwell in your body and in mine if we’re willing for that body to be a temple. One day we’ll set these bodies aside and the Bible promises, our Lord Jesus Christ promises, that we’ll be given new physical bodies, indestructible, no longer subject to decay and they will be like the resurrected body of our Lord Jesus Christ who said that his body was flesh and bone and not like a ghost—physical and material bodies. The Bible says the day will come after the consummation when there will be a new heavens and a new earth and it will be a material cosmos, a physical cosmos, and it will be good.
There’s no platonic dualism in the Bible, but the Bible does proclaim another sort of dualism. The Bible does describe a war, not between the physical and spiritual worlds but a war between what the Bible calls light and what the Bible calls darkness. Light and darkness are at war. Light and darkness are at war in your life, and light and darkness are at war in my life. This war is a war between the powers of heaven and the powers of hell. It is a war between Christ and Antichrist, between God and the devil. No one is immune. This war affects all of us and it affects the physical world and the spiritual world. It affects everything and so the Bible speaks of spiritual warfare.
We come to Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene is so called because she lived in the town of Magdala. Mary of Magdala. Magdala was one of seven towns or cities that surrounded the Sea of Galilee, and it was the largest of those towns. It was known for its immorality and for its sinfulness. We don’t know a great deal about Mary Magdalene. We do know that she had been possessed by demons. The Bible tells us that Mary Magdalene had been demon-possessed. She had been possessed by seven demons. It is implied in Luke’s Gospel, the 8th chapter, that it was Jesus who cast those demons out. In Mark’s Gospel, the 15th chapter in the 9th verse, the beginning of the so-called “longer ending of Mark,” we’re explicitly told it was Jesus who cast those seven demons out of Mary Magdalene.
We don’t know how those demons affected her. We don’t know the manifestation they took in her life. We don’t know whether they impacted her emotionally and psychologically or whether they impacted her physically in some form of affliction. We assume that they impacted her certainly spiritually, perhaps in all of these ways Mary Magdalene was impacted. Of course, she was engaged in a level of spiritual warfare that most of us will never see. She was demon possessed, engaged in a level of spiritual warfare that most of you will never, by the grace of God, experience. And yet you, too, are engaged in this battle between light and darkness, this battle for the soul.
In the year 1854, a man was born in Dublin, Ireland. His name was, Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde a long name. Fortunately, historians today simply refer to him as Oscar Wilde. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, educated at Oxford University, graduated with scholarship. He was a man greatly honored, brilliant, filled with wit, a famous playwright, an author, a literary genius. Oscar Wilde was also a very, very sinful man. A womanizer, he lived a very debauched life. He only wrote one novel and he wrote that novel in the year 1890 at the age of 36, and the novel was called “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” a masterpiece of literature.
The book was about a man named Dorian Gray who was brilliant, who was a great wit, who was a scholar, a genius. This man Dorian Gray was also a womanizer, an alcoholic, a man who lived a debauched life. And yet, in the book, Dorian Gray seemed unaffected by his immorality in the years past. He just did not age. Though his life was riddled with sin, he still looked great. He never aged, just looked the same as the years went by. People marveled, but within Dorian Gray’s house, there was a hidden room, a private room where Dorian Gray had a picture. It was a picture of himself. As the years went by, the picture changed. The picture of Dorian Gray began to age and it was impacted by every sin, by every act of immorality, by every sinful thought. The picture began to be hideous as the years went by, and it was hard for Dorian Gray to go into that room, that hidden room, that private room in his house and see the impact of sin upon that picture, but he always marveled that he still looked great in real life.
One day after the years had gone by, Dorian Gray went into that hidden room in his house and he saw how absolutely hideous the picture had become and he could no longer look at it. It made him depressed and angry at the same time as he looked at this image of himself that was now just ugly. He could look at it no longer. He took it and threw it to the ground and he destroyed it. In the moment that Dorian Gray destroyed his picture, the full impact of all that sin fell on him in reality and he became hideous and his body fell into ruin and destruction.
Today scholars and literary experts look at this book by Oscar Wilde and they say, “What was it about?” And they realize it was a self-portrait. Most scholars agree it was about himself. He was describing his own immorality, his own debauched life and he somehow believed that he was engaged in spiritual warfare, that he was engaged in a struggle for his soul and he was losing that war. He was losing that battle. Somehow Oscar Wilde sensed that he was not getting away with it and that sin was at the deepest level of this person just ruining and destroying his soul.
Maybe you’re engaged in some spiritual struggle. Maybe you’re involved in a struggle with some specific sin. Maybe you just sense a struggle with sin in general. Maybe you feel like you’re losing. God wants you to understand you can’t win without His Son. You cannot win this war without Jesus Christ. You can’t win in spiritual warfare. You can’t win in a battle with the devil unless you have Jesus Christ. Apart from Christ, you will lose your soul.
I know all of you have heard of DDT. DDT was discovered by Paul Mueller, a Swiss chemist in the year 1939. It was touted as the greatest insecticide the world had ever seen. It was going to help us win this war, this war between humankind and the insects. Our crops and our food and our produce would no longer be infested with insects because of this glorious creation of DDT. Of course, it didn’t turn out that way.
Soon scientists began to discover that DDT was having some unexpected side effects and it was making the shells of bird eggs thin and destroying entire bird populations. They discovered that DDT was destroying good insects as well as bad insects and that it was destroying predators who attacked bad insects. Furthermore, they discovered that DDT was being stored in human fat. When human beings ate crops that had been treated with DDT, the DDT came into our bodies and it just resided there. It remained there, stored in our fat and functioning as a carcinogen bringing cancer to humanity. Then they discovered that DDT was actually creating so-called super bugs, super insects, insects that were more resistant to insecticides. Instead of helping us win the war, DDT was actually contributing to our losing of this battle. In 1972, DDT was banned in the United States and we began to phase it out, though DDT is still used in other parts of the world.
God wants you to understand if you don’t have Jesus Christ, this war with the devil, this war for your soul, you’ll never win. You’re kind of like DDT. No matter what you do, it just isn’t going to work, this war with the devil. No matter how much self-control you have, no matter how strong you think you are, you’re not going to win this battle with sin. You might think, “Well, I’m unusually strong, I’m able to abstain from hedonistic sins and I’m doing well with materialistic sins,” but then pride comes in and self-righteousness, kind of super sins like super bugs which Jesus identified as the greatest sins of all, the sins of pride and self-righteousness. You can’t win this battle with sin. You’ve got to have Jesus who died for your sin and who died for my sin.
When you come to Him and to the foot of the cross and you embrace Him as your Savior and Lord, your sin is forgiven you. Your sin is forgiven you and you are washed whiter than snow. Jesus sends His Spirit to dwell within you, to tabernacle within you, and you become a child of God and Jesus becomes your older brother and His Father becomes your father. You become a son or daughter of God and all the power of Christ is yours and He has all power in heaven and on earth.
You can begin to prevail in this war with the devil. As Christians we still must abide with Christ. Satan still comes against us. He still tempts us. He still seeks to deceive us. He still attacks us. He still afflicts us, and we need, as Christians, to abide in Christ. Are you doing that? Are you abiding in Christ? Do you spend time with Jesus every day? Time in prayer? Time in the Word? Do you have friends who are praying for you? Interceding for you in prayer who are coming to Jesus and asking Him to protect you? Do you have that going on? Are you involved in ministry and all the protections and blessings that come through ministry? Are you resisting the devil and keeping the faith?
I don’t know what’s going on in your life. I don’t know what you’re struggling with. Perhaps you’re struggling financially. Perhaps you’re struggling relationally and you’re in the midst of relational pain. Maybe someone you loved has left you. Maybe you’re being attacked physically and you’re in a battle with cancer. If any disease came straight from hell, it is that. Maybe you’re involved in a spiritual struggle and you’re struggling to hold onto the faith. I don’t know what you’re going through. I do know you need Jesus. I know you need to abide in Him, spend time with Him every day in the Word and in prayer. I know you need others interceding for you in prayer.
There’s that beautiful passage in 1 Peter where Peter writes, “Behold your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that this same experience of suffering is required of your brothers and sisters all over the world. When you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus will restore you, establish you and strengthen you. To God be the glory forever. Amen.” It’s a beautiful passage and a beautiful promise, that if you have Jesus, He will not allow your affliction to last, that you will prevail and He will restore you and establish you if you abide in Him, if you resist the forces of Satan and if you keep the faith. Understand, Satan is trying to destroy your faith. That’s why he deceives. That’s why he afflicts. That’s why he tempts. That’s why he oppresses. That’s why he possesses. He wants to rid the world of faith. He wants your soul. So, this first life lesson deals with spiritual warfare in which Mary Magdalene was engaged at deeper levels than most of us will ever seek and she found the only answer. She found Jesus and He delivered her.
There’s a second life lesson this morning and it concerns spiritual devotion. Mary Magdalene is not only an illustration of spiritual warfare but she’s an illustration of spiritual devotion, devoted to Christ.
In the year 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted, the most famous volcanic eruption in the history of the world. When Vesuvius erupted, three Greek resort cities were buried and destroyed. Two of them were buried under a sea of lava one hundred feet deep. The third city was the city of Pompeii, and it was buried under a sea of volcanic ash. Today archeologists continue to work there in Pompeii, and they have now excavated more than half of the city. They found many people who did not escape. Two thousand bodies they have found, and these bodies have been perfectly preserved in casings of volcanic ash. The volcanic ash formed a casing around the human body in death. After the years, through the centuries, the bodies have decomposed and fallen to dust but the volcanic ash casings have perfectly preserved the shape of the human that died. Scientists and archeologists have been able to pour plaster into those volcanic ash casings and recreate the person in the moment of death.
National Geographic (I’m sure many of you have read articles on this) has shown these plastic replicas of those people in the moment of death. Some people who had returned to their homes and in their greed, seeking just a little more gold and jewelry, they died in the midst of their greed. Of course,
National Geographic showed that military officer, the guard of the city, still standing at the gate and there he died. They poured the plaster into his volcanic casing and they recreated him in his moment of death, standing there resolute, an expression of firmness on his face. As it showed him in
National Geographic, right under his image they printed the words, “Faithful unto death.” It was also a little stupid, but he stood there facing an avalanche of volcanic ash, at his post, never leaving his guard, faithful unto death, devoted and loyal. What are you devoted to? What are you loyal to? Is there any cause to which you are so devoted you would die? Where are your devotions and where do they lie? Of course, devotions are complex and our loyalties may come into conflict one with the other.
Our son Drew is completing his med school this year and he’s taking his medical exams this next month, his boards. In May he will receive his M.D. and then there will come years of residency because Drew wants to be a surgeon. Barb and I can look back on Drew’s life and we see a road that has been mostly smooth with a few bumps. I remember one bump about 12 years ago. We got a phone call at the house, and it was a cop. He said he had our son in custody. I said, “Wow! What did he do?” The policeman told me that he’d been involved in an egging incident. I didn’t know what egging was. Apparently Drew and some of his friends had raided the refrigerators at their homes and gotten all these eggs and had gone out into a neighborhood and they were throwing eggs at cars. Of course, only Drew was caught.
I arrived there and there was this police officer and Drew. The police officer was doing an excellent job of explaining to Drew why he should no longer do this, that he should never do this again. The police officer explained how if the egg hit in just the wrong way, it could shatter the glass of a car or truck. He explained that when the egg explodes on the windshield, it creates a visual impairment that could cause an accident. He explained all the things that could happen and what the consequences would be. I thought it was wonderfully done as I listened.
The officer said to Drew, “Would you give me the names of your friends?” Drew was silent. He was devoted to his friends. He would not divulge or reveal the names of his friends. I think the officer understood. I know I understood, but I talked to Drew later. I said, “Son, you know, there are different types of loyalties and sometimes they come into conflict. It’s a good thing to be loyal to your friends, a good thing to be devoted to your friends. It’s also a good thing to be loyal to the law and to the system of law that we’re privileged to live under. It’s a good thing to be devoted to this system of law and this government and this country in which we are so privileged to call ourselves citizens.”
Sometimes loyalties and devotions come into conflict. I remember I asked Drew, “What’s your greatest loyalty? What loyalty is more important than anything?” Drew said, “Loyalty to God,” and that is true. Barb and I both thank God that Drew and Heather and our son-in-law Chris are devoted to Christ supremely today. Of course, if you’re devoted to Christ supremely, everything else kind of begins to fall into shape and we begin to understand other priorities. How about you in your life? Where is your supreme devotion? Is your supreme devotion to Jesus Christ? Would you die for Him? Would you live for Him daily? I want you to see a little clip from a movie called “Mary Magdalene”:
Pharisee: “Rabbi, they are wondering how you can be a prophet not to know what kind of woman she is.”
Jesus: “I know what kind of woman she is. She’s a sinner. Son, I have something to say to you. You see this woman. I entered your house, and you gave me no water for My feet but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not greet Me with a kiss but yet she hasn’t stopped kissing Me. You did not anoint my head with oil but yet she has anointed My feet, so I say to you, her sins are forgiven as her love deserves.” (Jesus says to Mary): “Your faith has saved you. You are forgiven, for you have loved so much. Go in peace.”
Mary: “I won’t leave You. Never. I will follow You wherever You go.”
It’s a powerful scene from a wonderful movie. Of course, that depicts and portrays a scene from Luke, chapter 7, where Jesus was at the home of Simon the Pharisee and the woman, a sinner, came in and washed His feet with her tears and wiped His feet with her hair.
According to the movie and according to Roman Catholic tradition, that woman was Mary Magdalene. We really don’t know that. It may not have been Mary Magdalene, but we do know that Mary Magdalene had that kind of devotion, that kind of love for Jesus Christ. We know that. In Luke, chapter 8, we’re told an amazing thing about Mary Magdalene. After Jesus had healed her, she became the leader of a group of women in Galilee who were devoted to Jesus Christ. This band of women in Galilee followed Christ from Galilee to Judea and they served Him. We’re told in Luke 8 and in other passages that it was this band of women who provided for the needs of Christ and the disciples and supported the cause of the ministry by their finances and by their provisions and by their labor. We don’t know how they made the money. We just know they were devoted to Jesus Christ.
For many years Bible scholars have wondered how did Jesus and how did the disciples get financial resources and then in a deeper reading of scripture, they realized it was Mary Magdalene and this group of women that she led followed Christ and provided for Him and were devoted to Him. They served His cause. Of course, Mary Magdalene never ceased to serve the cause of Christ. She remained devoted to Christ no matter what the situation. She was there at the cross and she was there at the tomb. It was Mary Magdalene to whom Christ first appeared resurrected and alive. She is a life lesson for us with regard to devotion to Jesus Christ. So, how about you? As you come to this table, are you devoted to Christ? Does He hold your supreme allegiance? Do you live for Him? Would you die for Him? He died for you. We, as Christians, oftentimes express vows of loyalty to Christ. We don’t even know we’re doing it.
It was in the year 1852 on October 24 that Daniel Webster died. I think most of you know who Daniel Webster was, a famous scholar, attorney, statesman, three times Secretary of State under three different Presidents. Daniel Webster died and when he died the doctors who were attending him said his three final words were, “Amen. Amen. Amen.”
Most of us say the word “amen” all the time. I read where the average Christian, and I don’t know who studies these things, but I read where the average Christian will say the word “amen” 30,000 times in his or her lifetime. Thirty thousand times! The word Amen is found in the Old Testament 24 times. The word Amen is found in the New Testament 126 times, and Jesus said, “I AM The Amen.” And yet the amazing thing is most of us don’t really even know the meaning of the word. Etymologically this word amen comes from a root word which means, “devotion and loyalty.” The word amen was used to seal a contract and to seal a covenant. Every time you say the word “Amen,” you’re expressing your devotion to Christ, your loyalty to Him, the fact that you have indeed embraced the New Covenant in His blood. As you come to this table this morning, you say, “Amen,” and you are expressing your devotion to Jesus, the One who died for you, as you acknowledge the covenant by which you have been saved. Let’s look to the lord with a word of prayer.