Love That Won't Let Go

During my prayer time this morning, I thought of Mary Magdalene.  I thought of this woman and the picture we are given of utter devotion and lavish adoration she had toward Jesus, despite the scant information we are given about her in the gospels.  I can't articulate how profound it is to me to read the gospel accounts and see that it was the women who never left Jesus.  Jesus poured His life into the Twelve, but He was abandoned by them all.  It was the women who followed Christ to the cross.  It was the women who stood at the foot of it and watched their Beloved suffer and die.  It was the women who looked on with pierced hearts and torn souls and watched their Lord bleed for them, watched their Lord gasp for each labored breath, and watched Him take His last-- breathing out His Holy Spirit.  It was the women who faithfully went to the tomb to anoint His broken and bloodied body that glorious Sunday morning.  

A man will love through barbed wire, but a woman will love through a razor-wired electric fence.  A man will cross seas and climb mountains for love, but a woman will drain the ocean and move the mountains, even raze them to the ground if she has to.  There is nothing in all of creation like the devoted love of a woman.  Hell hath no fury like a mother's protective love of her sons.  And Heaven only knows the sweetness of mother's tender love for her daughters.  How blessed is the husband who has known the depths of a wife's covenantal devotion, despite the struggles, despite the stress, despite the strain.  She is the rock beneath his feet and the crown upon his head.  A man's love is simple and pure.  A woman's love is complicated and deep.

Mary loved Christ with the fierce devotion of a woman who had been set free by Him.  Jesus delivered Mary from seven demons and from what we can glean from scripture, we see that she was part of Jesus' inner circle of companions.  She is first mentioned at Luke Chapter 8, where, although she is not named as an apostle, she was included among them and traveled with them (Luke 8:1,2).  Most of what we know about Mary Magdalene comes from the resurrection account in the Gospels.  We are told that she stood "near the cross of Jesus" along with His mother, watching Him die (John 19:25).  She watched as the Savior Who set her free suffered for hours in extreme in agony.  She watched as He took His last sigh, and slipped through her fingers into death's embrace.  She stood there with empty hands, wounded in her love for Him, and all of creation groaned.

One of the most poignant accounts in scripture is when Mary stood alone by the empty tomb of Christ, after Peter and John left (John 20:10,11).  She stood by His tomb with empty hands and a pierced heart and wept.  Jesus appeared to her and asked her why she was crying.  Not recognizing Him and thinking that He was the gardener, she begged Him to tell her where Jesus' body was, basically saying, "Just tell me where He is, I will go get Him myself." 

She couldn't bring herself to leave the empty tomb. 

She was willing to go get His body herself. 

She was willing to do whatever she had to do. 

Then, Jesus said her name.  She heard His voice speak her name and she cried out in recognition from the depths of her soul, "Rabboni!" which means teacher, or master (John 20:16).  We are not told how much time passed between verse 16 and 17.  It could have been a moment, just long enough for her to reach out and grasp Jesus.  It could have been an hour, or it could have been the rest of the afternoon, that she spent desperately clinging to Him in rapt embrace.  We don't know how long she clung to her Savior, all we know is that He finally had to tell her to let go.

She couldn't bring herself to let go of Him.

She was willing to follow Him anywhere.

She was willing to cling to Him for all eternity.

Because a woman's love is complicated and deep.

The profundity of Mary Magdalene being the first to see the resurrected Jesus cannot be lost upon us.  We are talking about women who lived in a culture in which the men spoke a daily prayer saying:  "Blessed are You, O God, King of the Universe, Who hast not made me a Gentile, a slave, or a woman."  Although, for the most part, women were treated with dignity in Jewish culture, they were not allowed to learn scripture, or speak out loud in the synagogue, or pray in public.  Their testimony was not allowed in a religious court because their witness was considered invalid.

The testimony of a woman was not considered valid by religious men, so it is a woman that Jesus first appeared to and sent to give testimony that He was alive.  This was a profound statement made by our Lord for those willing to see it.

When I think on these things, it seems that Mary Magdalene was the first person to preach the Gospel in its complete fullness.  Jesus preached that the Kingdom of God was near, or at hand (Mark 1:15).  But now that He was risen, the Kingdom of God was no longer near, it was here.  The veil was torn, Jesus had given up the Holy Ghost, He had triumphed over death and was raised unto eternal life as the first-fruits of His eternal kingdom, and a woman was the first person to see the victorious risen Christ and publicly proclaim, "He is risen! You have all been set free!"  Scripture tells us that she "came, announcing to the disciples, 'I have seen the Lord,'" and telling them all the things He said to her (John 20:18).  And that is the same gospel the Apostles eventually proclaimed:  "We have seen the Lord, and this is what He has spoken to us." 

Mary proclaimed, even though her testimony was not considered valid.  She spoke the truth about Christ, even though no one believed her and no one listened to her because she was a woman (Luke 24:11).  She testified to the truth because she had been set free by the Lord and she loved Him fiercely, tenaciously, and deeply.  May we look at Mary Magdalene and be reminded that we, too, are called to testify to the truth about Christ, even though no one may believe us or listen to us.  May we all look at her and be reminded that we, too, have been set free by the Lord.  And may we all look at her utter devotion and lavish adoration and be reminded that we, too, should love Christ fiercely, tenaciously, and deeply.

"Therefore I tell you, because her many sins have been forgiven, she has loved much. But he who has been forgiven little, loves little." (Luke 7:47)

"But the angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, Who was crucified. He is not here; He has risen, just as He said! Come, see the place where He lay. Then go quickly and tell His disciples, "He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him."'" (Matt 28:5-7)

"As the women bowed their faces to the ground in terror, the two men asked them, 'Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen! Remember how He told you while He was still in Galilee:  The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.'" (Luke 24:5-7)

"He was handed over by God's set plan and foreknowledge, and you, by the hands of the lawless, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross. But God raised Him from the dead, releasing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for Him to be held in its clutches." (Acts 2:23,24)

If Not For A Changed Life

The greatest witness to the power of the Gospel is a changed life.

There are times when I reflect back on my life.  On the sin, the ignorance, the futility.  I reflect on my life and I look back at a sea of wretchedness.  A sea of self.  A sea full of waves tossing between heaven and earth, between spirit and flesh.  As I look back at that sea of sin, I see now that it was encompassed in an ocean of grace, moving me toward recognition of my own wretched condition and the only thing that could ever save me from it.  God looked upon me at my most hideous and said, "I can fix that.  And I will, because you are worth fixing." 

Every human soul is a treasure to God.  Every human soul needs to be fixed and is worth fixing to God.  We cannot fix ourselves, only Christ can.  Only Christ can deliver us from the sea of sin and self that every human is afloat.  We must come to the Cross carrying only our repentant heart in our hands.  We must recognize our wretched condition and cry out to the only One Who can save us.

I fear that if we come to the Cross in any condition other than brokenness, we are only inoculated with the idea of Jesus rather than liberated by the power of His Lordship over our lives.  There are so many inoculated Christians in America.  People who have come to the cross, but not in repentance seeking salvation from self and sin, and thus have been delivered from neither.  People who have been inoculated with the notion of Christianity, which has made them immune to the delivering power of it.  People who have repeated a prayer after someone and been assured that their repetition of that prayer saved them from eternal damnation, when the words they repeated were not said from their heart, and therefore, no transformation ever took place and they continue along with their life, still adrift the sea of sin and self in a sinking boat of false assurance.

Paul prophesied that this would happen.  He said in the last days, there would be people who would have a veneer, a facade, or a seeming appearance of godliness; that there would be people who would claim Christ by their mouth but deny Him by their lifestyle and by their lack of spiritual pursuit of a relationship with Him.  They would have a superficial devotion to the notion of Christianity, but they would deny the power of it, "...having a form of godliness, but denying its power" (2 Tim 3:5).  They would deny the power of the Holy Spirit to transform them from death into new life, and thus, would be devoid of eternal life.  They would deny the power of the Holy Spirit to transform the human soul into a new creature in Christ (2 Cor 5:17).  If there is no transformed life, then there is no salvation.  If there is no longing for Christ, then there has been no genuine faith placed in His saving power.  I say this because we can't afford to get this wrong.  Paul warned the Corinthians that because some of them lived lives that did not bear witness to the work of the Spirit within them, to "examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you--unless, of course, you fail the test?" (2 Cor 13:5).

The power of the Gospel is "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col 1:27).  It is the power of the Spirit of the living God, working within you to transform you from sinner into saint, from hideousness to holiness, from being spiritually dead in sin to being spiritually alive and dead to the power of sin.  A.W. Tozer said, "The Holy Spirit never enters a man and then lets him live like the world. You can be sure of that."  That is because the greatest witness to the authenticity of a person's faith is a changed life "by the power of God for salvation" (Rom 1:16).

"Jesus answered him, 'Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.'" (John 3:3)

"By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. So by their fruits you will know them." (Matt 7:16-20)

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father in heaven." (Matt 7:21)

"To the Jews who had believed in him, Jesus said, 'If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'" (John 8:31,32)

"The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. The slaves of the householder came to him and said, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?' He answered, 'An enemy has done this.' His slaves said to him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?' He replied, 'No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest; then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, "First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn."'" (Matt 13:24-30)

"For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed." (Rom 8:19)