Truth Stranger than Fiction
Sermon preached by Rev. Patricia Farris
April 16, 2006

Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!

Welcome, one and all. How thrilling it is to gather on this glorious Easter morn and join with millions of Christians around the world and all the saints proclaiming “Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!”

On Easter Day, we all become pilgrims of a sort, seekers, fellow travelers, all eager to take another look at that tomb, at that big old stone, at that place where his body had lain…we all want to take another look. And we all want to be overwhelmed and overjoyed by what we find because even now we can hardly believe it. Like children, we are eager to be surprised by joy! The stone is rolled away and the angel of God is waiting to greet us. “Jesus of Nazareth is not here. He has been raised and now he’s going on ahead of you. This isn’t where you’re going to find him now, in this place of death. Go! Keep going! You’ll find him right where he said you would.”

Oh my heavens! The truth of this story is stranger than fiction. The truth of this story is the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Only truth such as this has the power to shape lives and change the world. It is a truth only believers can believe, because it takes us far beyond the realm of factual possibility into the realm of faith.

The tomb could not contain him. Death could not squelch his power. The powers of sin could not break him nor can they ever finally break us. That is the truth of this day. “Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed.”

Of course, on that very first Easter morning, the women who went to the tomb weren’t so sure at all. Mary Magdalene, and another Mary, the mother of James and Salome, they went to the tomb with spices to anoint the body of their friend and teacher and all they could think about was who could possibly roll away that big old stone that sealed the entrance to his tomb. But what they found that day was so much more: that stone rolled away and that angel and that message. They were overcome, not with joy, but with terror and amazement and they fled away and they were so afraid they said nothing to anyone. Later when the Risen Lord appears to Mary Magdalene and she does tell the others, they don’t believe a word she says. (continued...)

"Truth Stranger than Fiction" by Rev. Patricia Farris, April 16, 2006

Oh, that Mary Magdalene! She has probably never been more famous than she has these last few years, emerging into unprecedented fame all because of the blockbuster novel, The DaVinci Code. With millions of readers in 44 languages, this book by Dan Brown has been on the bestseller lists since its publication. It has only last month been issued in paperback and, with a lawsuit against the author having been dismissed in a London court last week, the movie version is scheduled for a May release. We’re going to be hearing a lot more about The DaVinci Code and Mary Magdalene in the weeks to come.

Since nearly everyone on the planet has read it or heard about it, I don’t think I risk giving anything away by summarizing its controversial premise: that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were secretly married, that they had a child whose descendents live to this day and that all of this has been covered up for centuries by the church to suppress the power of women. It’s a story told really well. It’s a page-turner. As a work of fiction, it’s loads of fun, full of romance, intrigue, conspiracy theory, art, Paris, food, murder, money, attractive good guys and creepy bad guys. It’s got enough truth in it to hook you, and enough speculation to keep you up nights wondering.

Many of you have asked me about it: do I think it’s true? Were they married? Did they have a child? Don’t I think it’s possible that the church has known about this all along and tried to cover it up?

Well, I’ll tell you this much. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that millions of people all around the world would get so involved in these questions. Never would I have thought that a novel — a good book, but hardly a great one — would succeed where scholars and preachers and teachers have failed, to get people asking great questions about the Bible, about our faith, about the church, about art, about the role of women in the church, a topic dear to my heart! I’ve asked myself a million times: why didn’t I write this book and make lots of money talking about things I love to talk about?

So let me say this. Do I think they were married? Probably not. The very sketchy evidence used to try and support this theory is quite dubious. Much more likely, scholars surmise, is that Mary Magdalene was a widow, based on the fact that she is identified in Scripture not by the name of her husband or father, as was the custom, but by the name of her village, Magdala. She was most likely a widow who was a very active, close disciple of Jesus’ inner group and no woman among his followers is mentioned more often than she. So, do I think people are going to think about all this and wonder about it and talk about it and write about it and make movies about it forever until we all get to heaven and ask God what really happened? You bet.

I don’t think the Gospel writers meant to make Mary Magdalene so mysterious, but they did, just by not saying much about her at all, like they don’t say much about any woman in the Bible because women didn’t count for much at the time. The biblical portrait of Mary Magdalene is so sketchy that she gets mixed up with several other of the many Marys in the (continued...)

"Truth Stranger than Fiction" by Rev. Patricia Farris, April 16, 2006

gospels until it’s nearly impossible to sort out who’s who. And because we are told so little about her, it’s easy to fill in the gaps with all kinds of speculation and myth and legend and fiction. “By making her less than what she was, the Gospels inadvertently made her more” and left room for artists and writers and movie-makers to fill in the blanks ever since.

Here’s what we know: She was a woman named Mary from a town in Galilee called Magdala. Luke and Mark say she was one of the women Jesus healed and that she was one of the women disciples who traveled with him throughout Galilee and Judea. All four Gospel writers agree that she was present at the crucifixion. All except John say that she followed the body to the tomb and saw it sealed up. And all agree that she was present at the events on Easter morning. In Mark’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene is said to be the first of all the disciples to see the Risen Christ and the first to tell the others.

And then, she disappears. By Easter afternoon, she disappears from the Gospel accounts all together. Did she retire to Galilee to live out her life? Was she martyred? Did she continue to finance the early Christian groups out of her own means? We do not know.

But what we do know for certain is what took the church nearly a thousand years to admit: that she was the first to see and to testify to the Risen Lord. She was the first apostle, the first to tell others. And this, you see, is much more powerful than any speculation about did she do this or that. This we know and this we believe: Mary Magdalene is the first example of what it means to trust in God and witness to the power of life over death. “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!”

For us, believers in this day and age, Mary Magdalene is a wonderful role model of what it means to be a faithful disciple of Christ Jesus. She was not limited by custom and tradition. She was not diminished by social norms of her time that dictated what women could and could not do. She chose her path. She lived among the company close to Jesus, to be near him, to learn from him, to comprehend the depth of his teaching. She sought healing through him and was able to leave behind a past full of brokenness and hurt. She seemingly doesn’t care that others might not believe her testimony or share her conviction. She was faithful to the end and beyond. She was determined. She was realistic, yet open to a truth radically new.

What a role model for us all. In Christ Jesus, all barriers are broken down, everything is made new. None of us need ever be limited by what society says we are capable of. None of us need ever question our faith that sometimes sets us at odds with the values and norms of the world around us. None of us need ever be shy about stating what we know to be true: that through the resurrection of Jesus Christ God has revealed that newness of life, fullness of life, is available to every single human being on this earth, and to the nations of this world and to all creation itself.

“Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed.” (continued...)