I've been writing bits & pieces elsewhere, but in the last week or so I've felt something moving me back to this space, and so here I am.
I don't know how much I'll get back here, but I hope it will be often.
I think that a large part of this returning has been to do with reading the writings of others, feeling like I needed to find my voice again. Weird how that happens.
This last few days has been a whirl of reading and thinking and digesting, mainly because of the vote by the General Synod of the Church of England to not pass the motion to admit women Bishops at this time. I'm not going to write about that right now - enough has been said, by people much wiser and more eloquent than myself, and if you've read my post on Jesus being a feminist you already have an inkling about what I feel on the matter.
Time to reflect and heal and ponder is needed.
But I did get to thinking about Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles, the first person to see the Resurrected Jesus and be sent out by Him...
I got to thinking about the conversations that might have been happening between her & Jesus as the House of Laity voted against the motion last week. I got to thinking about how she must have felt to see women being held back and about how, until Jesus came into her life, she must have experienced that same feeling - held back, restricted, not 'enough'.
Mary Magdalene holds a special place in my heart. I am fascinated by her journey, by her deep and wonderful relationship with Jesus. She reflects so much of the heart of Jesus to us.
This past Resurrection Sunday 2012 at the Church I get to journey with, we were thinking about the encounter in the Garden, and, indeed, gardens in general.
Eden, The Garden of Resurrection, The Garden and the City at the end and beginning of all things.
I got to inhabit Marys world that Resurrection Sunday and in the weeks running up to it as I pondered her journey. I got to stand before the gathered, Resurrection people and share her story in the hope that her words would resonate with our stories, that the truth of the Man who made all things right would bring life, and life in all its fullness.
So...as I re-start this journey, I share her story with you.
The woman who was released into fullness of life and fullness of ministry.
May it be so in our time.
Marys Journey
I just...
I just
don’t know what to say.
I’m stood
here, in this garden, and I…
I can’t…
I can’t
believe it.
But I have
to.
I’ve seen
it with my own eyes.
We buried
him you see.
I watched
them torture him, then I watched them kill him, and I saw Joseph bring him
here, to this tomb in this garden.
He was
dead.
My best
friend.
The man who
saved me.
The man I
would have given my life to follow.
Dead.
I just…
that was
enough to get my head and my heart around, but this…
this…
Everything
changed the day I met him you know. He literally saved me.
Up until
that point I was alone, afraid, but he changed that.
He taught me how to be alive again, to love,
to care, to be cared for, to be ME again.
Mary.
Whenever he said my name, he said it
as though I was the most precious person on earth, me, Mary.
I know he
made everyone feel like that, it’s just the way he was. He had that kind of
intensity - you know, the kind that when he spoke, you just wanted to drop
everything and listen.
It never
stopped being special, hearing him say my name.
I would
have followed him to the ends of the earth and back again.
He wanted everything
to be put right again you know.
No one was
too crooked to be led back to the straight path,
no one was too sick to be
healed,
no one was too far outside community to be loved.
He said
that about himself once…how did he put it again…‘I am the Way, the Truth
and the Life,’ he said. And he meant it.
Everywhere
he went, life sprang up, things were put back in their right place.
And we,
this rag-tag mismatched bunch of friends and followers saw it all…
The dead
raised back to life, the lame healed, the blind given their sight, enough food
for everyone.
Life and
life in all its fullness. That’s what he brought. Life in all its fullness.
And he just
would not shut up, that man.
That
beautiful, amazing, infuriating man.
Anywhere he
saw injustice or religious pomp or lies or double standards, he spoke up.
One of the
lads told me that even way back at the start of all this he stood up in the
temple, took the scroll, read from Isaiah, and declared that the Spirit of the
Sovereign Lord was upon him, that he was anointed to preach good news to the
poor, proclaim freedom for prisoners, give sight back to the blind, release the
oppressed. He declared the year of the Lords favour.
It’s not
like we didn’t warn him that he was headed for trouble.
Peter tried
a few times.
Everywhere
we went there were whisperings, questions, people trying to trick him.
But he saw
straight through it all, and he just carried on, as if he could see the bigger
picture.
He just wanted
everything to be put right again.
And a week
ago, in the run up to Passover, it really kicked off.
Jesus had
been doing what Jesus did, and it had gotten peoples attention – especially the
religious leaders. He didn’t help
matters when he staged his entry into Jerusalem
He was a
marked man.
I don’t
know if I’ve ever been so worried for someone in my whole life.
And all he wanted was
for everything to be put right again.
The rest of
last week seems to have gone past in a blur. It feels like we were on ‘fast
forward’.
There were
conversations and discussions and Jesus seemed to be making a lot of people
very angry.
And then
that night came. That insane, crazy beginning of the end.
Jesus was
washing our feet, and then talking about the end, promising us that we wouldn’t
be alone, that he was the vine and God was the gardener, almost like he was
reminding us about the promise of Eden, the promise of God walking with His
people in that Garden in the cool of the afternoon.
And he
prayed this beautiful prayer for us that made me weep inside. This man. This
amazing man.
From that
point on it doesn’t seem real - Jesus
went off to the Garden in Gethsemane to pray, and
they came for him.
They came
for my Jesus.
I don’t
think I can put into words how the next hours felt. Knowing that they had him, knowing that they
wanted him dead, knowing there was nothing we could do.
There was
that sham of a show trial that made me SO angry.
These
people.
Did they
not know who he was?
And they
led him out.
Back
bloodied, this awful crown of thorns on his head, digging in.
Carrying
the heaviest of crosses.
We
followed, all the way to the crucifixion site.
We were
there to the end, the women and John and I.
If you
listened hard enough I swear you could have heard my heart breaking inside my
chest.
This man, who
only wanted everything to be put right again, here on this hill.
And, just
before he died, he made this amazing declaration…that ‘It is finished’.
It felt
like it.
It felt
like the end of all things.
Even the
sun couldn’t bear to shine any more.
It was like
the universe felt his pain, felt our pain, felt Gods pain.
And that
darkness just continued.
Joseph and
Nicodemus took his broken and bruised and torn body, and wrapped him so
tenderly before laying him in the tomb in this garden.
And then
the Sabbath began.
We couldn’t
move, couldn’t do anything.
The Sabbath
is supposed to be all about living as though there is no work left to do.
But it felt
like life itself had ended.
The Sabbath
of all Sabbaths.
As soon as
the light came up I knew I had to come here.
I knew I
had to be in this garden.
I couldn’t
breathe, couldn’t bear it.
I didn’t
care what people thought about me, this woman stealing through the streets in
the half light.
I just
wanted him to be here, and if he couldn’t be here I needed to be as near to him
as I could.
I don’t
know what happened in my head and my heart when I got here to see that the
stone wasn’t rolled across the tomb any more, and that Jesus wasn’t there. I
think the utter confusion and bewilderment of the last 48 hours had finally
taken its toll. I just ran and ran and ran as fast as I could back to the house
and got Peter and John, and they came running and saw what I had seen.
Jesus was
gone.
I just…
I just
didn’t know what to say.
I didn’t
know whether I was coming or going.
I was here,
in this garden, and I…
The boys
left, but I had to stay. I couldn’t move.
The tears
were flowing so thick and so fast.
Everything
was changing. Nothing was the same.
I leant in
to get a closer look and then I saw there were two men that were dressed in
white sat where Jesus’ body should have been. They asked me why I was crying,
and I couldn’t understand why they had to ask. Hadn’t they heard the stories,
hadn’t they seen the empty tomb?
Why was I
crying?!
Because my
Lord, my everything, had been taken away, and I didn’t know where he was.
Couldn’t
they at least have left us his tomb?
And then
another man came up behind me and asked me the same question.
Why am I
crying?
And I
turned and I couldn’t see him through my tears and I thought he was the
gardener and I begged him to tell me where he had put my Jesus.
And then He said my name.
He said my name.
He said my name.
Mary.
And as soon
as heard him say my name I knew it was him.
My Jesus.
Here in the
garden.
Calling me
by name.
And I held
him. Oh how I held him. I held him so tight he had to ask me to let
him go.
And I
looked into his face, and I heard him whisper my name, and then I knew.
He’d meant
it you know, on that cross, when He’d said ‘It is finished.’
He’d only
gone and done it.
He’d only gone and put
everything right again.
I was stood
with my Jesus in the garden in the cool of the morning.
And
everything was new.
And he
called me by name.
And he’d
put everything right.
Death holds
no power.
It is
finished.
