Mary Magdalene; A Tormented Soul Set Free
Sermon Transcript
0:00:14.0
Well, I’ve titled this morning’s message about Mary Magdalene “A Tormented Soul Set Free.” I think that’s a good description of a character in the Bible that we’ve heard of before, but we don’t know much about her. There are maybe 12 or 13 references in the scriptures about Mary Magdalene. And what we do know about her is often more based on rumor and innuendo that has been passed down through centuries in church history that are, quite frankly, not true of her. And we’ll get to that in a moment.
0:00:54.1
But Mary Magdalene is another example in the scriptures of a cracked pot. We’re in this series of messages titled “Cracked Pots: How the Glory of God Shines Through Our Brokenness.” And we’ve looked at various Bible characters that are reflective of something Paul said in his second letter to the Corinthians. It’s worth going back there, to our starting point. 2 Corinthians 4:7. Let’s say this verse together. “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” We’ve been saying throughout this series that we are but earthen vessels. God is the potter; we are the clay. We’re cracked pots. Not because He created us that way. He created us in His image. But you go back to Genesis 3. Sin entered the world. We inherit a sin nature, and, well, here we are. Fallen, broken, cracked, chipped. But the amazing thing that Paul says is we have this treasure, the treasure of “the glorious knowledge of God and the glorious gospel of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ,” he goes on to say. We have this treasure in jars of clay.
0:02:15.8
And throughout this series we’ve been letting that kind of sink in and just marinate our souls. God has a way of letting His power flow through and His glory shine through jars of clay and cracked pots. We’ve looked at biblical examples, both Old and New Testament. We started in the Old Testament with Moses, great Moses, this great hero of the faith. Moses was a cracked pot. We talked about Jacob, Jacob the cheater. Jacob was a cracked pot. Even David, King David. We know his cracks. We know his brokenness. We know where he failed and fell short.
0:02:56.0
This morning I want to highlight a New Testament character that we find in the Gospels. Her name was Mary. There are many Marys in the Bible. It was a common name. I’m not talking about Mary the mother of Jesus. I’m talking Mary Magdalene. And Mary Magdalene is a cracked pot because somewhere in her life before she met Jesus Christ, she opened the door in such a way that the powers of darkness gained a strategic stronghold in her life. In Luke 8:1-3 it tells us that Jesus was going through the cities and the villages proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And then the twelve were with Him. The twelve disciples were with Him. It goes on to say, “And also some women.” Some women were following Jesus as well. They weren’t part of the twelve, but they were part of a larger circle of followers of Jesus. And Luke goes on to describe them. These were women who had been “healed of evil spirits and infirmities.” The first in the list is Mary, called Magdalene. And here is a further description of her, “from whom seven demons had gone out.” Mary was a cracked pot because Mary had her demons, didn’t she? And I mean that literally.
0:04:19.1
Now, when it comes to demonic activity and the activity of the powers of darkness, we in the western church are not as informed about it as, perhaps, we need to be. We don’t take it as seriously as we need to. C.S. Lewis was right in offering, kind of, two extremes we go to. He says on the one hand, we give the devil too much attention. And there are those who are saying, you know, there’s a demon behind every bush. And there is a demon to blame for every ailment and infirmity. And the reason you’re feeling a little down today and little blue in your mood is because you have a demon in you. That’s one extreme. The other extreme, Lewis says, is we don’t give him enough attention. And that’s often where we are, especially in churches like ours. And we sort of gloss over these texts that describe a woman like Mary as someone who was healed of evil spirits and out of whom came seven demons.
0:05:22.7
Again, Mary was a cracked pot because she had opened the door to a demonic influence and a strategic stronghold that came about in her life. Here’s the good news though. Jesus Christ set her free. And once in her life she was not able to sing “It is well with my soul,” at one time in her life. But when she met Jesus Christ, this tormented soul was set free, set free from a bondage and from a stronghold that had controlled her all her life.
0:05:57.6
Now before we get deeper into that, I want to take some time to repair Mary’s reputation. Because what you may know about Mary Magdalene or think you know isn’t always what is revealed in the pages of scripture. Let me repair her reputation in just a couple of ways. First of all, Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute. Where did we ever get the idea that she painted up her eyeshadow blue and let down her hair like a 1st century prostitute. I’ll tell you where it came from. It was in the 6th century when Pope Gregory I identified the sinful woman in Luke 7, which is unnamed and unidentified. He identified her as Mary Magdalene. Pope Gregory I said that. And in the Catholic Church when the Pope speaks, he speaks with authority. And so everybody says, “Oh okay, okay, yeah,” and didn’t even read the text. He said in Luke 7 that sinful woman who let down her hair like a prostitute would in public and washed Jesus’s feet with her tears, that that sinful woman was Mary Magdalene. Why? Because when you read further in Luke 8, she is the first name mentioned. Well, that’s not the way to interpret scripture in any way, shape or form, but the Pope spoke with authority. And it was passed down from century after century after 2000 years. And even people like us in Protestant churches, we say, “Oh, yeah, Mary Magdalene was that prostitute, right?” No. Let’s un-smear her reputation. Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute.
0:07:40.1
Secondly, Mary Magdalene was not the girlfriend or the wife of Jesus. Now we fast forward up to the 21st century and to a book written a few years ago called The Da Vinci Code written by a guy named Dan Brown. And The Da Vinci Code became a very wildly successful Hollywood movie. I think there were two or three of them that they did. Here is what Dan Brown did. In my understanding, he was kind of a disgruntled Catholic. He went back into the 2nd and 3rdcentury and unearthed the tabloid gospels of the time, like the Gospel of Thomas, which nobody took serious back in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd century. It never made it into the canon of scripture. But it made wild speculations about the relationship, the romantic relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus. And it even went on to suggest that Jesus really didn’t die on the cross. Oh, He was injured, but He just kind of swooned. And He came down from that cross, and they kind of bandaged Him up and healed Him up. And then He ran off to Africa with Mary Magdalene and they started a family.
0:08:54.2
I call it tabloid gospels because that’s what it was back in the 2nd and 3rd century. It’s, like, you know, you’re standing in the supermarket. And you’re ready to check out with your groceries. And you look over here, and here is The National Enquirer. And it says, “President George W. Bush was abducted by aliens, and his wife is now president of some planet out there.” Now, imagine, we would look at that and say that’s fake news. It’s tabloid news. There used to be a time in our culture where we understood the distinction between tabloid and real journalism. That is blurred today, unfortunately. But imagine if somebody unearthed a copy of The National Enquirer 200, 500, maybe 1000 years from now. Unearthed it and read that headline and say, “They lied to us. George Bush was abducted by aliens.” And they’d go on and on. That’s what Dan Brown did in The Da Vinci Code. Took the tabloid gospels, smeared Mary Magdalene’s reputation again, along with Jesus and the whole gospel story as it is given evidence to us through the trusted, 1st century writings of the eyewitnesses who were there.
0:10:21.4
So I just wanted to take some time to clear up Mary’s reputation. She’s not a prostitute. She wasn’t Jesus’s girlfriend or later His wife. But who is the real Mary Magdalene? What do we learn from these brief little mentions of her in the scripture?
0:10:39.7
First of all, Mary was one of Jesus’s disciples. I’m not talking about one of the twelve. But, again, if you go back to Luke 8, it says that Jesus was “proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God” through the cities and the villages. “And the twelve were with him, and also some women.” You see, there was a larger group of followers of Jesus. We often talk about the concentric circles of ministry that Jesus had. He had the twelve, and even within the twelve He had a smaller group known as the three- Peter, James, and John. They were His go-to guys. And then larger than the twelve, there was the 72, you know, that He sent two by two and all that. And then there was the larger masses of people. And then there’s mention here in Luke 8 that there were some women that followed Him as well.
0:11:36.3
I always love how, when we read the gospel stories, we see the gospel elevating women, never suppressing them. Anywhere the gospel goes, it gives a high and holy elevation to women in the story. If you were just making up the story, you wouldn’t include women, because back then in that culture women were not respected. They didn’t have property rights. They didn’t have inheritance rights. When their husbands died, the property didn’t go to them. It was a different culture back then. The last thing you would do if you were trying to convince somebody of a story would be to elevate women in the story. If you were just making it up, you would make the men all the heroes. But the gospel writers, because this is exactly what happened, mention the women who were part of that. So she was one of Jesus’s disciples, His followers.
0:12:32.5
Secondly, she was present at the cross. John 19:25 says, “But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene.” There she is again. She was a devoted follower of Jesus and followed Him all the way to the cross and witnessed His crucifixion. And no doubt her heart was deeply filled with sorrow as she stood with even Mary the mother of Jesus.
0:13:09.1
Thirdly, she was first to the empty tomb. I love this part. Mark 16:1-2. “When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.” Mary Magdalene was one of the first to the tomb. Again, if you’re trying to make up a story, you don’t make women the heroes of the story here. You wouldn’t put them first in the tomb, scholars say, because they weren’t given that much credibility in the 1st century. But they’re here because this is exactly the way it happened. And isn’t it wonderful how Mary gets the opportunity to be among the first to know that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. She takes the message back to the disciples. She believes before they do. She is first to the empty tomb.
0:14:13.2
But fourthly, and I’ve already alluded to this, before Mary met Jesus Christ, she was a tormented soul. A tormented soul. Mary had her demons in a very literal way. Somewhere along the way…and we don’t know all the details of her past. We don’t know her upbringing. We don’t know whether she dabbled in occultic practices or pagan religions or what was it that cracked open the door so that the evil spirits could enter in and set up a strategic stronghold in her life. But the Bible says she was set free from seven demons, seven demons. Can you imagine the torture? Imagine the bondage. Imagine just the sense of no control.
0:15:09.9
Now, this introduces us to a world that we’re not always very familiar with, especially in our western world, the idea of evil spirits and the demonic, the realm of the devil. Jesus believed the devil was real, make no mistake about that. He believed that the demons were real. There were many occasions in the Gospel accounts, examples of interactions and confrontations Jesus had with evil spirits and people possessed by evil spirits.
0:15:43.8
For example, in Matthew 15 a Gentile woman came to Jesus desperately and said, “My daughter is possessed by a demon.” And Jesus set that daughter free. In Mark 1 there was a man in the Synagogue worshipping with the Jews who had an unclean spirit. And that unclean spirit recognized Jesus and cried out to Him and spoke to Him and said, “Jesus of Nazareth, what are You doing here?” Even the devils of hell recognized who Jesus was. Probably the most famous is Luke 8, and most of the Gospel writers mention this story about the Gerasene demoniac, that guy who was located on the upper, kind of, northern east coast of the Sea of Galilee in a region known as the Decapolis, ten Gentile cities that were in that area. And he was known to be demon possessed. He lived in the tombs, and he walked around naked. And he had superhuman strength, the Bible says. And Jesus, in an effort to demonstrate His power over not only the natural realm as He calmed the sea in the boat as they were heading in that direction, but Jesus also demonstrated that He had power over the realm of darkness when He came and confronted this man. He spoke to what amounted to a legion of demons in this man. A legion, many, many…think of a Roman legion. There were many that had possessed this man. And Jesus set the man free, and these demons had to possess something. And so they ran into the swine. Do you remember the story? And the swine went over the cliff. We go and visit that little area near Kursi and near that region of the Gergesenes when we go to Israel.
0:17:46.0
And then, of course, there is Mary Magdalene. These are all cases of what we would call demon possession. When we step into the realm that we’re talking about here, there is some language and some verbiage that we need to clarify and use here. And I’ve given you a chart in your notes, and it’ll appear on the screen here. But words like possession, oppression, and let’s just toss in depression since that’s a very popular one to think about today. What is the difference between demon possession and demon oppression, and the influence of this on believers versus unbelievers?
0:18:30.5
Well, generally speaking, demon possession is an internal matter, an internal spiritual matter, whereas demon oppression is something external, but equally spiritual. It’s the spiritual forces of evil either influencing a person by internally possessing them or externally oppressing them. I do not believe…and I’m in the company of (0:19:00.0) most Bible scholars…I do not believe that a believer in Jesus Christ can be possessed by the devil. There is only one person who is possessing you, and that’s the Holy Spirit. He comes to live inside of you at the moment of salvation. And He doesn’t share His residency. He doesn’t rent out a room to some demon to the devil himself.
0:19:24.5
A believer in Jesus Christ cannot be possessed by the devil, but you can be oppressed. Sometimes we use the word demonized or influenced by the devil. And I kind of think of demon oppression, which can happen to believers or unbelievers, as sort of a jacked-up version of everyday garden variety temptation. It’s little more than that because you cracked open the door and invited them in. For an unbeliever, you invite them in to take up residency. (0:20:00.1) That’s called demon possession, and it’s very real. Missionaries in other parts of the world come face to face with this kind of demonic influence and darkness and evil. Again, we’re not as familiar with it in our setting. But demon oppression—the oppression of the believer, an amped-up temptation, a stronghold, a foothold that he gains in your life—even the believer in Jesus Christ, without the devil taking up or a demon taking up residency, can invite oppression.
0:20:37.0
Depression. Let’s just land on the clinical side first. Let’s be careful not to suggest that physical manifestations of either possession or oppression are always related to the spiritual. Depression, mood changes, other physical manifestations that we find of people who are possessed by the devil and even oppressed by him, they appear in the Gospels. But sometimes it can be a clinical source, and sometimes it can be a spiritual source. And we have to be discerning in that.
0:21:18.2
What else can I tell you? Acts 10:38 says, “Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.” Deuteronomy 18:10-11, “There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering.” That sounds really crazy, doesn’t it? But that’s what the cultic practices did. That’s what the pagan religions did. They sacrificed their children. “Or anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer.” A necromancer is somebody who calls upon the dead. It says, “There shall not be found among you anyone who does this.” In other words, don’t dabble in this stuff, even as a believer. You start dabbling in the occult as a believer, you may not be possessed, but you are inviting powers of darkness to oppress you.
0:22:32.5
One expert says, “There are many things that can open a person to demonic oppression, such as drugs, habitual sin, the occult.” He lists some mind-altering practices that include drug use, visualization, something called contemplated or centering prayer, energy balancing, guided meditation and other overt occult practices like astrology, sorcery, prayers to the dead, tarot cards, Ouija boards, seances, necromancy or contacting the dead, grave soaking, astral projection, objects used in occult ceremonies, channeling, spirit guides, animal guides…I mean, come on, it’s all out there. And you start dabbling in this stuff, and you’re opening yourself up…maybe not to a possession, believer in Jesus Christ, but to increased demonic activity. You’ve cracked open the door to the oppression, to the stronghold that builds in your life.
0:23:40.4
You know, the devil disguises a lot of what he does through entertainment. There is a reality TV program called The Long Island Medium. She’s a necromancer. She’s a sorcerer. Stay away from it. I don’t want to step on any toes here, but, you know, Harry Potter. I know, I know, okay. But the devil disguises what he does through entertainment. And it’s just a small crack in the door. But if he can get a little foot in there and just wedge it a little bit more and a little bit more and increase your curiosity…before long some people are contacting the dead. They want to speak to their dead somebody.
0:24:25.1
Mary Magdalene was a tormented soul, tormented by the possession of seven demons that had taken up residency in her life. And then she met Jesus Christ, and she was set free. Hallelujah. She was singing a hallelujah because she had been set free. She had never experienced such freedom because they had her in a bondage. She didn’t know any other way. And again, we don’t know the pathway. We don’t know the upbringing. We don’t know the first time she started dabbling in all of that. But the devil and his demons set up a strategic stronghold in her life. And one day she met Jesus Christ, and she learned what later in the New Testament the apostle John says, “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.” Right? We need to have a healthy respect for the devil and his demons, but they aren’t more powerful than the Jesus in you and me as believers in Jesus Christ. Jesus has won the victory. “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.”
0:25:35.8
Mary Magdalene came to that understanding when her tormented soul was set free by these seven demons that had gained a foothold in her life. And for that reason…well, she was once a cracked pot. She had her demons, but no longer. And she goes on to play really a central role in the death, and the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. God used her in a remarkable way. God used her to tell the disciples…to be the first one at the tomb and to be the first one to tell the disciples, “He is risen.” And that sent Peter and John on a track meet to the tomb that morning, seeing who could get there first.
0:26:25.2
There’s one more thing that I want us to make note of about Mary Magdalene, and it’s just a little comment in Luke 8 that I find fascinating. One of those, kind of, evidences that she had been set free. It says in verse 3 and verse 2 that Mary Magdalene was among those who were healed of evil spirits and infirmities, and seven demons had gone out. “And Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager.” Isn’t that cool? I mean, Mary was hanging out with some pretty powerful women. “…And Susanna, and many others,”—now, listen to this—“who provided for them out of their means.” Here is what I want you to know about Mary Magdalene. She’s an example of contagious generosity.
0:27:20.7
She’s not only a tormented soul that was set free, but when she was set free, she experienced financial freedom. Now, here is how I define financial freedom, friends. I start with free of debt. Anybody here in financial bondage? Does the devil have you have in financial bondage because you’ve got more month than you have money? You’re on the “fake it ‘til you make it” plan, buying things you can’t afford to impress people who don’t care and all that kind of stuff. You’re in financial bondage. Well, we can all agree that financial freedom starts with free of debt.
0:27:59.3
Let’s go on from there. Free of debt. Free from the love of money. The Bible doesn’t say that money is the root of all evil. No, money can be very helpful and necessary. It’s the love of money that’s the root of all evil. You can possess money, or money can possess you. Jesus says you can’t serve God and money. One will sit on the throne or your life or the other.
0:28:26.0
Free of debt. Free from the love of money. How about this one? Free to give generously. You will never, ever become a generous giver, regardless of your economic status, where generosity just seeps through every pore in your body until you’re free from the love of money. You don’t have to be free of debt to be a generous person. I would argue biblical economics suggest you put God first in your finances, and He’ll make a way for you to get out of debt and all of that.
0:28:59.2
Free of debt. Free from the love of money. Free to give generously. And this is the fun part, free to have fun. It’s okay to enjoy what God is giving to you and to go on that cruise or enjoy that anniversary trip or to buy this…as long as you give to God first and He is first in your budget. You can’t say, “He’s first in my life,” when He’s last in your budget.
0:29:29.0
Why am I talking about all this? Because of all the things the Bible could have mentioned about the fruit of her being set free from these demons, it says Mary was a generous giver, along with all the other women who supported the ministry. Why even mention that? Because she was set free in every area of her life, including finances. If we just use that as a measure of being set free, the truth of the matter is most of the body of Christ today is in bondage. That’s what the national statistics say. And we need to get back to the understanding that Jesus Christ, when He sets us free, He sets us free in a whole host of ways to where, at least in one way, money no longer has us in bondage. The love of money. The greedy, grabby, “get what you can and can all you get and sit on the lid,” and get mad and angry when the preacher talks about money and giving. People who are set free…I mean truly set free by the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, become some of the most generous people I know. Whether it’s the single mom who barely rubs two nickels together or the wealthy businessperson.
0:30:56.9
I think of Zacchaeus in the Bible. We don’t hear a lot about Zacchaeus in adult worship services. Luke 19. We put Zacchaeus in children’s church. Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he, right? He was short. He was challenged in his vertical jump. Zacchaeus was a tax collector. And you know how the Roman tax system worked? If you had the franchise for being the tax collector in your area, here is what Rome said. “We need this amount of tax out of this region. Anything over and above that is yours to keep.” Well, that just invited corruption. And the tax collectors would raise taxes and raise taxes and rip people off and rip people off. They were despised among the Jews and even some of the Romans. Matthew was a tax collector transformed by the power of Jesus Christ.
0:31:52.5
Jesus came to Zacchaeus region, walked into his franchise. Zacchaeus was curious about Jesus. Couldn’t see over the crowd, so he climbs up into that sycamore tree to get a perspective. Jesus is walking along, and He says, “Hey, Zacchaeus, I see you up there. Let’s go have dinner together.” And Zacchaeus’s life was transformed. And the first thing the Bible says was the way he did business and the way he handled money was transformed. He suddenly realized, you know, “I’ve been ripping people off all these years. And now that Jesus has transformed my life, it’s going to transform the way I handle my money. I’ve ripped people off so much, I’m now going to repay them four times the amount I ripped them off.” What a generous giver he became, generous with is finances now.
0:32:39.1
And I’m just saying to you, I just think it’s amazing that here Mary Magdalene…I don’t know if one of the bondages that these seven demons had was over her finances or not, but some of you are saying, “Boy, it sure feels like it. I can’t seem to rub two nickels better. I’ve got more month than I have money. I just can’t seem to make my finances work.” You’re going to have to take that step of faith and put God first in your finances and let Him set you free. He’ll get you free of debt, free from the love of money, free to give generously. And He hasn’t taken all the fun out of life. No, there is free to have fun, too.
0:33:24.7
Mary Magdalene was a tormented soul. But she was a soul set free. And I pray that that’s true of anybody here today who may have opened up the door just ever so small to give those bullies from hell an opportunity to bully you and wedge their way in and create a stronghold or a bondage that you may or may not be aware of. But the power of the gospel is a power to set free the tormented soul. And it ripples through every facet of our life, so much so that it turns grouchy people, when it comes to generosity, into happy people. God loves a cheerful giver. Has Jesus Christ touched your life so radically and set you free to where you get excited when there is an opportunity to give. That’s an indication somebody’s been set free. Are you grouchy about it? You’ve got to work on this somehow. God loves a cheerful giver. And the Bible also says that Jesus says it’s more blessed to give than it is to receive. Mary figured that out. Mary and her band of women, who had been set free from evil spirits, physical infirmities. They had figured out it is much more blessed…It is a blessed life to be a giver and not a taker. To be a steward, not an owner. To be set free, not in bondage. And they provided out of their means.
0:35:20.5
We don’t know how big their means was or how small it was. It really doesn’t matter.
The first church I served one of the most generous people in the church was a single mom. Marilyn was her name. She never had two nickels to rub together, but she was a giver. “Oh Pastor, what do you need? What does the church need today?” She was always there. Just whatever your means it, whatever God has entrusted you with, figure out a way to put Him first in your finances as an evidence that you’ve been set free. Free of debt, free from the love of money, free to live generously, and free to have fun.
0:36:23.8