I never had to worry about folks mixing me up with all the other Marys. I was the notorious one. The one with tattered clothes and loose living. The one with dirt under her nails and dirt in her past. You know, the one from Magdala.
They called them demons. They said I had seven of them. I don’t know about any of that, but I do know that I couldn’t even see straight. Everything felt fuzzy, sort of unreal. All the time. I couldn’t focus my eyes. And listening to what someone else was saying just exhausted me. Every time. Especially when they were trying to tell me that they were praying for me, or loved me or needed me to stay. “Mary! Mary!” They’d say. They’d wave their hands in front of my face. Or so they told me later. I just wanted to sleep, all the time. It’s the only time I could escape the madness. I’d take a pill, cry, and finally, fall asleep. It was a deep, dreamless sleep. Sometimes I saw colors. Or heard voices. But it was better than the relentless pounding of self-loathing that weighed down every thought of my waking hours.
Some called it “depression,” some said “borderline personality disorder,” some said I just wanted attention. Jesus said, after he’d healed me, he said it’s important for me to remember. To remember my story. To remember where I came from. To kneel and kiss the ground. To keep the dirt.
I just wanted to forget. Forget all the hospitalizations, forget all the failed relationships and the lost jobs. Maybe if I scrub long enough, they won’t find all that dirt still stuck in my pores. I’m different now. I do mindfulness practices and centering prayer. I pay attention to my breath. But every time one of the disciples looked at me, I knew that they weren’t just looking at me -- they saw seven demons staring back at them. They saw the dust from all that hard ground. I wanted to shout at them, “I’m not like that anymore! I’ve healed. I’ve done the work. I’m in recovery!” But instead, I inhale for seven, hold for three, exhale for eight.
And they were polite enough, I guess. They held the door open for me when I brought in the supper, said thank you when I poured them more wine. But I knew, deep down, they were remembering for themselves. They were remembering all the hurtful things I said. They were recounting all the painful things I’d done.
They let all of us women tag along because we were useful. Joanna, Susanna, Mary, mother of James, we bankrolled the whole operation after all; there’d be no “bread, broken for you,” without our trips to the marketplace, no “cup of salvation,” without our bartering with the owners of the vineyard.
Thank God for Joanna, and Susanna, and even Mary the mother of James. We formed our own little care team. We were a recovery support group. We met in the dank basements and drank bad coffee. We told the truth about our lives. We believed each other. We knew some of the horror of each others’ demons, and when we saw each other’s, we didn’t flinch. We were all smudged with a little dirt. And it was ok.
And Jesus knew. He saw our demons and then saw past them. He’d been to a few of our meetings. He’d had some of that stale coffee. He’d hold that styrofoam cup in his hands like he was cradling a baby. Like it was sacred stuff. When he looked at us, we knew he wouldn’t stop at that poor choice or that reckless behavior. He didn’t stop at the overdose or the outburst, or the doubt or the fear or the failure. He saw us. The whole thing. When we were with Jesus, we could bow our faces to the ground and be lifted up at the same time. We could stare at our muddy selves in the mirror and find seeds growing there.
Maybe that’s why we weren’t scared. I mean, of course we were scared. Heartbroken. In shock. But we didn’t leave. Not even with all those Roman soldiers all over the place. All of us were there with him to the end. With him as he dragged that cross. With him as he fell to the ground. With him as he called out to his Father, and with him when he cried for his momma. With him when his tears mixed with blood and sweat and mud and fell to the ground. We were with him as he breathed his last breath. Inhale for seven, hold for three, exhale for eight.
And then it was done. Everyone else was gone, even Peter. Even the sun. Even God. But we stayed. We bowed our heads to the ground and wept. Our fingernails filled with dirt. We lifted our heads to the cross and we cried. We fought back all those demons that threatened to overtake us again and we stayed.
We stayed all day Saturday. It was a quiet Sabbath. We had a meeting. Told the truth. Said we saw each other. We cried and lit our candles and said our prayers and slept and cried again. Just us women, huddled together in the dark, chairs scraping against the worn basement linoleum, spending all our pain on Jesus, giving no energy or thought to the demons that threatened to creep back into our lives again. Or, at least, trying to.
So when the sun came up, we wiped our noses on our sleeves, splashed some water on our faces, and set out to the tomb with the spices. Our eyes still swollen from crying, I thought we were just seeing things. But someone must have gotten there before us because the stone was already rolled away from the tomb. We bent down, we peered in, and there it was, nothing. Just dirt and rock and empty space. Joanna asked Mary to light the candle to get a better look. Sure enough. No body. Some dust. Some linen cloth folded neatly at the end. But nothing else.
Of course we were scared. We were heartbroken. In shock. But we still didn’t leave. None of it made any sense. We were confused. Lost. Alone. But we stayed. We didn’t leave. And before we could let our demons of self-doubt and failure creep back into our consciousness, before we could throw ash on our faces for another round of mourning, two men just showed up. They sort of…glowed. Susanna dropped the spices. Joanna spilled the water. We all fell to the ground. We burrowed our faces into the dirt.
They asked us, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
And before I could answer, “Well, where else would we look?”
Before I could say, “Because that’s where Jesus looked.”
Before we could respond, “Because once we were dead and then Jesus came and gave us life again.”
Before I could say, “because that’s where life starts, in the dirt, and in the dingy basements where we break ourselves down and we tell the truth,"
they said the strangest thing. They said, “He is not here. But has risen.”
And somehow they knew the whole story. They knew that he’d told it all before. How he’d be handed over, how he’d be crucified, caked from the mud made of dirt and tears, and then, on the third day, he’d get up again. He’d told us that cradling his bad coffee, down there at our last meeting. It smelled like wet carpet. The faucet was leaking. He’d wanted us to hear it from him.
How’d they know that story? How’d they know our story?
And so we counted on our fingers. We’d lost so much time. How long does it take to lose your savior? How long does it take to get him back again? Friday. Saturday. Today. The third day.
Of course the disciples didn’t believe us. They thought we were out of our minds again. That the demons had returned. That the exorcism was undone as soon as Jesus was gone. They’d never believed our resurrection then. And they didn’t believe Jesus’s now. They thought we were delirious. Crazy. The stress of the last two days had taken its toll and now we were regressing to our previous selves. We were ranting, they said. Raving mad. Overcome with grief. We’d lost our minds. We’d left sanity behind. We’d gained our minds when Jesus healed us, but now that he’d gone, we’d lost them again. Go clean yourselves up, they said.
But we stayed. We stayed with the story. We knew what resurrection looks like. We’d felt it before. I knew this earthy lightness. It’s the same feeling as seven demons being removed from your body. It’s the same feeling as being truly and fully seen for the first time. It’s the same experience as when Jesus looks you in the eye and says, “Your sins are forgiven, go in peace.” And it’s the same as looking up to the heavens only to see your beloved murdered on a cross. It’s the same as burying your face in the dirt and somehow still finding life there. It’s the same as when the sun is blotted out and God is silent and your friends are gone, and yet, you stay. It’s the same as when you tell the truth about your life in a dingy basement. You stay. You stay with your face toward the earth until you find something growing there.
Suddenly, Peter got up. Peter just. Left. We tried to follow him, but he’s running too fast. The disciples stayed behind. But Joanna, Susanna, Mary and I, we found him eventually, back at the tomb, back on his knees, looking down, looking low into the tomb. And he saw it, too. We know the look. We’ve seen it in each other. It’s the look of seeing empty grave clothes. It’s the look of being released from your demons. It’s the look of searching for the living among the dead and finding a whole lot of nothing. It’s what happens when you bow low, when you put your face into the dirt, and you wonder if those might be seeds, germinating.
Peter looked back at us. And he saw. He didn’t see the demons or the trips to the marketplace. He didn’t see us hanging their laundry or bartering our purple cloth. He didn’t see us in our failures or our regrets. He didn’t even see the seven demons. He saw us with the dirt still smudged on our faces. He saw us with the mud still crusted under our nails. And we saw him, his forehead caked with sweat and soil, muddy tears running down his cheeks, Galilean clay on the palms of his hands.
“Let’s go home,” he told us. And we did.
And he stayed.
He comes to the meetings now. He brings the coffee. We go around the room, introducing ourselves. We get to Peter. “Hi,” he says. “I’m Peter. And I think I’ve seen the resurrection.” “Hi Peter,” we all say together.
Funny, how resurrection can look like you’ve gained and lost your mind at the same time.
Weird, how, you have to have your face in the dirt to see the new life.
It’s just like him, you know, to ask us to bend low, to fall to our knees, to stoop down into the tomb, before we can see what isn’t there. Before we can see that the demons are gone. That Jesus has been raised.
Sometimes, our understanding of the resurrection begins with our faces in the dirt. Sometimes, our understanding of the resurrection begins with remembering all the horror and the hard stuff.
Sometimes we have to remind ourselves of our demons in order to remember that they’re not there anymore.
We have to remember that they were in order to remember they’re gone.
Weird how when we see it in each other, in each meeting of our dirty brokenness, we are resurrected all over again.
Strange how the resurrection happens when we let the beauty we love be what we do, when we find hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
We still meet together. In basements. In crumbling churches. In living rooms. We greet each other with “Christ is Risen! He has risen indeed!” We set out extra folding chairs. The disciples will join us soon.
“Hi. My name is Mary. My name is Peter. My name is Jenn. My name is Dan and Jonah and Levi, Tim and Debbie and Diane, Judy and George and Reni and Toni and Scott and Sydnie and Emylia, and Ayden, my name is Jim, my name is Rose. I’ve put my face in the dirt. I think I’ve seen the resurrection.”
Thanks be to God.
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