John 20:11-18: Mary Carries the Good News

INTRODUCTION

When I was a child Mary was the most popular girl’s name. We had so many Marys that often our Marys added their middle name to distinguish themselves. We had lots of Mary Janes and Mary Anns. I remember a Mary Jean, a Mary Ellen, a Mary Nell, a Mary Elizabeth, a Mary Beth, and a Mary Margaret. My sister’s name was Mary Lynette. We called here Mary Lyn.

But Mary was an even commoner name in the Holy Land in Jesus’ time. An historian writes that 28.6% of the women in the Holy Land in Jesus’s time were named “Mary,” although they would have pronounced it in their Aramaic language, Maryam.

So it is not surprising that we read of seven Marys in the New Testament. There is Mary, our Lord’s mother; and Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus; Mary, wife of Clopas, who was with Mary Magdalene and Mary, our Lord’s mother at the foot of the cross. We also read of Mary, the mother of Mark, in whose house the disciples met after Jesus rose from the dead. And at the end of his Roman letter Paul greets a Mary, a friend of his who lived in Rome.

My favorite New Testament Mary—if we set aside Mary, our Lord’s mother—is Mary Magdalene. She is the most prominent of Jesus’s women disciples. She is mentioned more often than most of Jesus’s men disciples, and in every list of the women who accompanied Jesus, Mary Magdalene is mentioned first.

She is called Mary Magdalene because she came from the town of Magdala.

I. Legends have grown up around her name. Books have been written about her. But all we really know about her is what we learn from the New Testament.

A. Mary Magdalene is mentioned along with Joanna and Susanna in Luke 8, where we read that they were among several women who accompanied the disciples and “provided for them out of their resources.” We can assume that they did the grocery shopping, did the cooking and washing and mended the clothes. They no doubt spread Jesus’s message among the women along the way.

Luke writes that Mary Magdalene had been tormented by seven demons before Jesus cured her. We can only imagine what torment Mary must have experienced that it is described as seven demons living within her.

Her deliverance from such a terrible affliction must explain why Mary was especially devoted to Jesus. Mary’s prominence in the gospels seems to indicate that she was the disciple who loved Jesus best—because he had done so much for her.

B. Tradition has it that Mary Magdalene was the “sinful woman” we read of in the beautiful story in Luke 7 of Jesus at Simon, the Pharisee’s—house.

This was the woman who bathed Jesus’s feet with her tears and continually kissed them as she dried them with her hair. This woman is not named by Luke, and I think that the tradition grew up that this woman was Mary Magdalene because of the extravagant love she showed to Jesus that day.

C. The next time we read about Mary is at the foot of the cross. She was one of the women who stayed by Jesus to the last, after the men disciples—except John—had fled in fear.

She was there with the Lord’s mother, two other Marys and Salome and the Beloved Disciple. Mary Magdalene—her heart breaking—stayed to the last and heard Jesus’s last words and watched as he was laid in the tomb. Then she went home for the Sabbath rest.

II. Our lesson today is about Mary on Easter morning. This is Mary’s starring role in the Gospel story.

A. According to John’s gospel, Mary came to the tomb early, while it was still dark. We know from the other gospels that some other women came with her, but John tells us only about Mary Magdalene.

Mary saw the stone rolled away, and she ran to tell Peter, who came running with John. They entered the tomb and found only the linen cloths lying there. John says, “They saw and believed.” But evidently they didn’t believe anything except that Mary had told them the truth. Jesus was not there. So John and Peter went home wondering—still not realizing that Jesus had risen.

B. Let me tell you now about the tomb, so that we can picture the scene in our minds.

The tomb was a cave carved out of rock. Many of these cave tombs still exist in the Holy Land.

There were steps leading down into a cave carved out of rock. The entrance of the caves are so small that one has to crawl into them. That is why we read that John stooped to look into the tomb.

Covering the entrance was a large circular stone—a big disk—that could be rolled over the entrance and sealed to keep out wild animals or intruders. This stone weighed several hundred pounds.

Inside the cave shelves were cut into the rock on which they laid the bodies, wrapped in their grave cloths.

The body would be left on one of these shelves until the flesh had decayed. Then the bones would be gathered and placed in a stone container called an ossuary.

The family used the same tomb for generations of its members. But we read that the tomb Jesus was buried in was a new tomb, prepared by Joseph of Arimathea for his own use.

Joseph had become a believer in Jesus, but had hid his faith until the crucifixion. But Jesus’s death so impressed Joseph that he went boldly to Pilate and requested the body of Jesus. He wanted to honor Jesus in this way—perhaps because he was ashamed that he hadn’t owned up to his faith while Jesus was alive.

C. Here’s Mary’s story from John 20:11-18:

Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as he wept, she stooped to look into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.

They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”

She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

Saying this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?”

Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

Jesus said to her, “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your father, to my God and your God.”

Mary Magdalene went and said to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

III. Let’s imagine that we are there that first Easter Sunday morning.

A. Picture Mary, standing there at the entrance tomb, weeping because her heart was breaking.

She wept because she was sorry for the Lord.

She wept because she was sorry for herself.

She wept because of the horror she had witnessed as her Savior suffered and died.

She wept because she had lost her Lord Jesus and with him all that made life worth living for her.

She wept because she thought someone had stolen the body.

She stood there, riveted to the spot, because her life had been so wrapped up in her loving Savior that she didn’t know what to do next.

B. Imagine her stooping down and look into the tomb. Imagine her surprise to see two angels in white, sitting on the ledge where the body had lain—one at the head and one at the foot

This is one of the rare times in scripture when someone saw an angel and wasn’t terrified.

In her grief Mary didn’t even register who they were, or how they got there, or why Peter and the other disciple hadn’t seen them just a few minutes before.

The angels asked Mary: “Woman, why are you crying?” And Mary said, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him.”

The angels didn’t reply, but she must have seen them shift their gaze to something behind her, and when she turned to see what they were looking at, she saw one she took to be the gardener. It was Jesus, but she didn’t recognize him—perhaps because her eyes were so full of tears.

Then Jesus said, “Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?”

And she begged him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

(I think this is a little humorous. If Jesus was still a corpse, he was wrapped, we read, with cloths saturated with 100 pounds of spices. However strong Mary was, she would have had a time carrying that body anywhere. She would probably have run and gotten Peter and John to come back and help her.)

Then Jesus said, in the gentle, loving voice she had heard so many times: “Mary!” Mary recognized that dear voice.

And Mary responded: “Rabboni!” a title reserved for an especially honored teacher. “Rabbi” meant teacher; “Rabboni” meant an especially-loved teacher.

When we lived in Japan, we visited a missionary named Irene Webster-Smith. She had lived in Japan for a long time before the War and was much honored by the Japanese Christians. She was privileged to be allowed to visit some of the Japanese generals in their prison cells after the war, before their execution to bring the gospel to them, and, I understand, she led some of them to Christ.

On the wall of the small room where she lived in in Tokyo, we saw a framed picture with the single word in it “Rabboni.” This was the way Miss Webster-Smith expressed the same love for Jesus that Mary showed on that day in the garden.

Back to our story—

Overcome with emotion Mary sought to take hold of Jesus, but he said, “Don’t hold me, for I haven’t yet ascended to my Father.

I think that the reason Jesus didn’t want Mary to take hold of him is that she would have never wanted to let him go. She would be determined never to let him out of her sight again.

And there is another reason. After Jesus has ascended to the Father, the Holy Spirit would come to dwell in the hearts and lives of all believers. Mary then would enter into an intimacy with Jesus beyond anything she had ever experienced with Jesus on earth.

C. But Jesus had a job for Mary: he sent her to be “an apostle to the apostles.”

Do you remember when you were a child and had a great piece of news to share? It made you feel so important and happy. Well, there was no news in the history of this world that was as important or joyful as the news Mary was privileged to carry to Jesus’s friends.

Jesus didn’t choose a famous disciple, like Peter or John, to bear the news; he chose Mary. I think that was because she was the one who loved him best, and she was the one who lingered at the tomb. This was Jesus’s gift to her: to let her be the messenger.

There’s something interesting here that I want us to notice: Jesus sent Mary away with these words: “Go to my brothers…” Only here in all the gospels does Jesus call his disciples his “brothers.” He has called them disciples, servants, friends, and apostles, but not, so far, “brothers.” And that word means brothers and sisters. In Greek the word for brothers is adelphoi and the word for sisters is adelphai which is almost the same. In speaking of brothers and sisters, they used the word adelphoi. So Jesus’s words would be correctly translated: “Go to my brothers and sisters.”

It seems that our risen Jesus is indicating that his relationship to his disciples is more intimate than it was before. Soon they will see him no more, but he will be close. He will be always their brother.

We read no more of Mary Magdalene. We don’t know how she served God after she delivered that message. But we can be sure that her life after that was exciting and important. If she hadn’t been important in the early church, her name wouldn’t have been remembered with so much honor, 30, 40, maybe 50 years later when the gospels were written.

We can be sure that wherever she went she told the story of what Jesus had done for her and invited others to come to him too.

We can be sure that she continued to minister to the Lord Jesus, by serving his poor and needy people.

Mary Magdalene has been, through the ages, a favorite subject for painters. They usually show her to be a beautiful woman. We don’t know whether she was beautiful or plain. We don’t know whether she was a person of great talents or had a brilliant mind or a magnetic personality. We only know that she loved Jesus very much, that she experienced his love in a remarkable way, and that Jesus chose her to bear the greatest message the world has ever heard: “I have seen the Lord. He is risen!”

CONCLUSION

My favorite part of the story is when Jesus calls Mary’s name: “Mary!”

Jesus didn’t go out to the street corner and shout: “Hey! I love you! Come to me!” Over and over we read that Jesus called people to himself one at a time.

Wouldn’t we like to know Mary Magdalene’s story? How Jesus came into her life, put his hand on her, and took away the terror of her affliction—the seven demons? Someday, I believe I will meet her. I’ll ask her to tell me the rest of the story.

In Isaiah we read these words from the God of Israel:

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.”

So Jesus calls you and me. He calls us by name.

Have you ever heard Jesus calling you?

Not in words we hear with our ears but in words that we hear in our hearts.

And he waits to hear us say, “Rabboni,” “Master,” “Lord,” “Savior.”

Just as Jesus called these to himself during his time on earth, so he calls you and me to himself now.

None of us has had seven demons cast out of us, but Jesus has drawn us to himself and given us the gift of eternal life. He has become our friend, and someday soon he will welcome us into the Father’s house, where we will see him and know him and live with him for ever.