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THE STICK–TO–ITIVENESS OF MARY MAGDALENE!

A junior high basketball team was being beaten badly by an opposing team. In particular, a kid wearing # 12 was doing most of the damage. Consequently, the coach called aside one of his better defensive players, though not necessarily the brightest, and sent him into the game with explicit instructions to stay with # 12. He said, “Rich, if he goes up you go up. If he breaks to the left you break to the left. No matter what he does you stick to him like glue.”
A few minutes later the coach looked up and noticed that he only had four (4) players on the floor. After a moment or two he spotted the fifth player – Rich. Rich was sitting on the opposing bench right next to # 12 who had been taken out of the game for a few minutes!
Stick-to-itiveness! Rich knew what it meant to stick like glue to someone else and it cost him his spot on the basketball team. His coach called it stupidity, he called it obedience and it cost him dearly. Had Mary Magdalene been a cheerleader at this game, she would have been sympathetic with this young man. After all, she knew all about stick-to-itiveness, its downside and its upside.
On the downside, some in her hometown of Magdala, just north of Tiberias on the western side of the Sea of Galilee, never stopped labeling her as a “mad” women. For when she was delivered from the claws of seven demons she turned around and gave her life away to that newcomer who was causing such a commotion.
Ignoring social convention, ignoring the wisdom of her heritage, and ignoring the fact that she had no “male” sponsor, she sold everything she had and followed Jesus. She cut and ran with the crowd who believed Jesus was the Messiah. Those hometown busybodies who knew her as Mad Mary must have been convinced that she was still “mad” and sadly mistaken.
How about you and I? Have we done anything this week that would make someone question our sanity? Have we done anything this week that defies common sense but makes good biblical sense? If not, maybe we need to consider doing something a little “crazy,” something that would prompt the world to call us “mad.”
Or maybe, you’re already acting a little strange and grasp the fact that the busybodies of Magdala utterly failed to understand the transformation of Mary Magdalene. And you’re thinking, “too bad” because unlike Mary they missed something wonderful, they missed seeing Jesus!
In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul challenged the Corinthian believers not to be deceived by the world’s wisdom but to allow themselves to be “foolish” in the world’s eyes so that they could be truly wise. In part, he said:
Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a “fool” so that he may become wise. 1 Corinthians 3:18
So, in a very real sense, Mary became a “fool” in the eyes of the world. But her stick-to-itiveness reaped rewards and opportunities beyond her wildest imagination. The next time we see her on the pages of Scripture is near the cross. In John 20: 1 - 9 we read:
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)
On that first Easter morning, things got a little confusing. John tells us that “while it was still dark” Mary Magdalene went to the tomb. It was very very early for the Greek word that John used literally means “deep twilight.” It wasn’t sunrise when Mary went to the tomb, it was in the predawn hours. The other gospel accounts shed additional light, sort of , on what happened that weekend. In Luke 23:55 - 24:3 we read:
The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 56 Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.
24:1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
In Mark 15:46 - 16:5 we read:
15:46 So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.
16:1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”
4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
Then, in Matthew 28:1 - 6 we read:
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4 The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
5 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold it right there! How can I believe the Bible when the same scene is described in different ways? No wonder the “duh-sciples” on the road to Emmaus were confused by the reports of the women! I’m confused as to the who, what, and when of the story.
Look at it this way, suppose you were seated on a jury and as the trial progressed four witnesses all shared the same testimony verbatim. What conclusion would you draw? You’d figure they had gotten together ahead of time and agreed to tell what allegedly happened in the same way. In doing so, of course, the jury would assume that they were lying.
Different accounts simply mean four different writers are giving us their independent viewpoint on what happened that morning. While they don’t include the same details, each account adds up the same message - the body was gone!
Additionally, they tell us that if you’re wondering who the primary witness is, it’s Mary Magdalene. She was at the cross, she saw Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus take the body down, she may have even helped them, she followed them to the tomb, she saw how Jesus’ body was laid in it, and she saw the “big stone” rolled into place so as to close the entrance to the tomb.
But I don’t know whether she made one, two, or three trips to the tomb Easter morning. She may have gone by herself in the predawn hours and then went with others at sunrise. I don’t know, I do know that the women found the tomb empty as did John and Peter.
Today, we speak of the risen Christ. But on the first Easter morning, all the chatter was about the fact that the tomb was empty. We tend to look beyond the empty tomb and fault the “duh-sciples” for missing the point. But, if the empty tomb can’t hold up in court, any court, then there is no use discussing the resurrection. And the key witness to the empty tomb is – you guessed it, Mary Magdalene.
Could she have gone to the wrong tomb? No! Of all the disciples, she above all stuck to Jesus like glue. Her history with Jesus indicates that this is not something that can seriously be questioned. Additionally, if she went to the wrong tomb then the Roman guards were also at the wrong tomb. And, I assure you their lives depended upon them being at the right tomb!
But this stick-to-itiveness of Mary had a downside. We see it in John 20:10 - 18 where we read:
Then the disciples went back to their homes, 11 but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“ They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
15 “Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).
17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
18 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.
Mary had been sticking around and sticking around and sticking around until her stick-to-itiveness paid off in a big big way. Christ revealed himself to her. She had been looking for the body, then out of the blue she discovered the risen Savior. First, and foremost the resurrected Christ revealed himself to Mary Magdalene! Why?
Maybe he revealed himself to her because she was crying. Men, you know and I know that when a woman starts crying we will do just about anything to make things right. We can be awfully stubborn until a woman starts weeping. Then everything changes, our hearts melt and we give in to totally unreasonable demands. Instantly, the faucet is turned off and everything is right with the world. And Mary Magdalene was crying, in fact to this day she is known as a “weeper.”
Maybe he revealed himself to her first because she was a woman, a woman who couldn’t keep things to herself. Okay, I said it. But, if it’s any consolation, I don’t mean it. I know both men and women who can’t hold a secret for ten minutes without telling someone. Nor in this case, would anyone want to keep it to themselves. If Jesus had appeared to Peter prior to anyone else, Peter would have been off like a shot to tell the others. In reality, Mary clearly wasn’t told for her ability to stand up and shout for in truth she was more inclined to fall down and cling to Jesus.
In fact, this is the one time that her stick-to-itiveness had to be mildly rebuked. If she had had her way, she would’ve stayed right where she was at, in the presence of her Lord. But Jesus had a message that needed to be communicated to the “duh-sciples.” So instead of clinging to him, he commanded her to go tell others. And, to her credit, she did so. She did it, not because it was her job but her joy. ,
In her book Mad Mary, Liz Curtis Higgs put it this way, “We wanna sit at his feet, bask in his presence, worship all day, but we’ve got work to do. His work. Kingdom work. The glorious news is, in serving him our fellowship is enhanced, not diminished.”
Or maybe, and this is my theory, he revealed himself to her first so that her new identity would forever be unforgettably linked with Him. He chose to reveal himself to her first so that the seven demons would be a forgotten footnote in her life. No longer would people think of Mary Magdalene as the one with seven demons, but as the one to whom the risen Christ first revealed himself.
Note, he did not merely tell her that he was returning to the Father. He said, “I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Who is Mary Magdalene? A child of God! She is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come!

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