So Send I You

So Send I You

John Chapter 20

Mary Magdalene

This chapter contains three stories of encounters with the resurrected Jesus. Though it is not the first complete story, the chapter begins with Mary Magdalene. Her story is told in vv. 1-2 and 10-18. The name “Magdalene”, of course, means “of Magdala”, just as Jesus was known as the “Nazarene”, and Magdala was a small community on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. The earliest mention of Mary Magdalene is in Luke 8:1-3, where she as mentioned as prominent among the women who, having been healed by Jesus, traveled with him and the Twelve and ministered to them out of their means.

All the gospels list Mary Magdalene as among those women who were with Jesus at his death, who came in the morning to the empty tomb, and who took the news of Jesus’ resurrection to the disciples. We do not know exactly how Mary came to be alone. There had been other women with her, and we are not told what had become of them. The disciples had also come and gone. In the Gospel of John, these details are swept away, and the focus is on Mary Magdalene from the beginning. She comes to the tomb, she fetches the disciples, she encounters the risen lord, and she runs back to tell the disciples.

Because of Mary Magdalene’s special role as messenger, some Apocryphal writings (The Gospel of Philip, for instance) call her, not only an apostle, but an apostle to the apostles, and there was, at least for some time, some contention over which was greater, the calling of Mary Magdalene, or the calling of Peter. In our own time, there has been fictional representation of and speculation about the relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus – that perhaps it was more than what is presented in the Gospels. It may be that the Gospel of John, which we must remember was written later than the other Gospels, late enough that various heresies had begun to spread, deals with such speculation, as well, and that this is why the writer of the Gospel so carefully points out that, immediately upon recognizing Jesus, Mary Magdalene exclaims “Rabboni!”. This is not a term of affection, or a term of a woman who cooks and cleans for a man, but a term of a disciple devoted to a teacher.

The term “Rabboni” is used only one other time in the Bible, and that is in Mark 10:46-52. In this story of the blind man given sight, when Bartimaeus says “Rabbi”, “Master” or “Lord”, depending on the translation, this is the same word used by Mary Magdalene when she recovers her ability to see Jesus outside the empty tomb.

Before leaving this story we must consider this interesting business in verse 17, where Jesus tells Mary not to hold on to him because he has not yet returned to the Father. Some have speculated that there was some physical reason for this, that Jesus was still a spirit, and that he would be changed after returning to the Father. This is not at all clear, however, for while Jesus’ attitude is much different from the upper room, he does not forbid her to touch him, and in Matthew (28:8-10) when Jesus meets the women on the road, they do touch him. Of course, we do not know the timing of the return to the Father, and this meeting on the road may have occurred after that. These speculations are interesting, but there are things we will never know. Of course, there are also things that are unimportant, and, so far as we know, Jesus did not spend any time trying to explain. Instead, he wanted to assure everyone that he was the Way to the Father.

Two Disciples

Intermingled with the Mary Magdalene story there is the story of two disciples,which is recorded in verses 2-10. One of the two, Peter, we know very well as a man whose ideals are so high that he cannot always reach them. The other disciple is a man of mystery. (At least, we assume the disciple is a man.) He is identified in the Gospel of John as “the one whom Jesus loved” and Chapter 21, verse 24 is identified as the writer of the Gospel of John, but no name is ever given for the disciple in the text. Instead, some care is taken to refrain from naming the disciple. Tradition, of course, is that John the Apostle wrote the Gospel of John, the Letters, and the Revelation. Of these only the Revelation of John says within the text that it was written by John, and the name was as common at the time the book was written as it is today.

Biblical scholars (and I am certainly not among them) tell us that textual analysis of the various books attributed to the apostle shows a great deal of difference in style, more difference than might be expected for texts from the same author. Of course, the texts are quite different, in tone, audience, and purpose, but that is only my layman’s response. It should also be noted that “the disciple whom Jesus loved” is not mentioned until chapter thirteen, which may mean he was not one of the original twelve, but came to follow Jesus later on. Another analytical approach theorizes, in part, that no disciple would claim for himself the title, “the one whom Jesus loved” and that this title was given to the disciple by his own followers who learned from the disciple and wrote the Gospel. I think it possible that the disciple did not intend to say the Jesus loved him more than the others, but that Jesus’ love was more important to him than anything else, even than his own name.

Both tradition and scholarship are important to us, but neither can tell us the ultimate source of scripture. In believing in scripture, we put our faith in a process that starts with God inspiring those who wrote it, continues through God protecting his word as it is handed down and translated, and as God inspires us each time we encounter it. And, though the actual author of the Gospel is not so important, I will share with you that, in this passage, the image of Peter and the other disciple running together to the tomb has always been evocative of the story in John 1:35-42, where Andrew, having met Jesus, runs back to find his brother, Peter. I do not know who wrote the Gospel, and if it should be proved to be John the Apostle, or some other, I would not be disappointed, but I like the idea that the disciple who looked in the tomb and believed is the same disciple that, in the very beginning, said “We have found the Messiah!”

Thomas

In verses 18-20 and 24-29 (we will come back to the other verses shortly) we have the story of Thomas, or as he has so unalterably come to be known, “Doubting Thomas”. Thomas was not present when Jesus appeared to the others and, because of this, he refused to believe. This is why we have labeled him as the doubter. But we must remember that the other disciples were locked in their upper room having refused, as Luke tells us (24:9-11), to believe the women, either because of their emotional state, because they were women, or because they had not seen it with their own eyes.

And can we fault Thomas? Is it not true that “Seeing is believing”? In our day we see so much, and it certainly cannot all be true. We see things that are easy to believe, like the promises of advertisers, scientists, and politicians, which are not true in any lasting sense. And we see things that are hard to believe, the affects of famine, drugs, and natural disaster, which are so hard to believe that they do not seem to become real to us.

There is a Truth that transcends our experience and our comprehension, a Truth that reaches out and reveals itself to us.

So Send I You

In verses 21-23, the disciples are commissioned. Matthew and Mark both have the Great Commission. In Luke (24:48) Jesus simply says “You are witnesses”. In John, the call is to serve Jesus as he has served the Father. I have heard and read much discussion about forgiving and retaining sins, and I cannot explain it. Certainly, Jesus forgave sins, but I do not think it would be correct to believe that only those that had physical access to his presence during his ministry had access to forgiveness, nor would it be correct to think that God has abdicated his authority for forgiveness to us. While there may be some indication of authority in these verses, remember that Jesus sends us as the Father sent him. Jesus came with authority, but he acted with responsibility.

It is in the Gospel of John that we have the great promise to believe and have everlasting life, but it also the Gospel from which we receive the new commandment to “love another” (13:34). There is grace, and there is responsibility (Romans 10:9-14).