THE ANGELUS TRUMPET
The Unexpurgated Source for Alternative Bible Facts
OH WHERE, OH WHERE, CAN MY RABBI BE?
by Jack D. Sypal
Dateline: Jerusalem, April 27, 20:01:18
Over the years there has been much speculation about the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. So, I thought that it would only be right as a reporter to seek out another of the first shapers of the Christian movement, Mary herself, to conclude my series on how The Way began. Earlier conversations have been with Peter, James and John, and Thomas.
With the permission and support of The AngelUS Trumpet editorial staff, I caught a ship to Rome and
then another to Marseille. From there I caught a pack-train going to Provence
where I finally sat down with Mary Magdalene over a light lunch of some very
good bread, a so-so wine, and an excellent salad with some home-grown olives.
Following lunch, Mary had the table cleared and then, with
another glass of wine in her hand, she looked at me very directly and started
to tell me about her life and her part in the Way.
“It seems like it was a different world back then. In many
ways, it was. The heel of Rome was lifted against us in Palestine. Between Rome
and the temple, taxes were high and life was difficult. My family had some
money, but, even so, the powers of Rome, Herod’s taxes, Pilate’s brutality, they
all created some tough times.
“The complicity of Annas and Caiaphas, and the rest of the
priesthood, was understandable, I suppose; I mean, the priestly robes and head
pieces that were used on high holy days were held and closeted by the governor.
The priests were only allowed to wear them during the celebrations, and then
they had to be returned to the governor’s care.
“It is hard to be independent when you have to go to your
oppressor in order to perform your duties for the people and before the Lord.
Eventually that kind of control erodes your faith in God and tempts you to
think that the emperor and the power of Rome is equal to, or maybe even greater
than the power of God. After that, it’s all about money and power, greed and
self-aggrandizement.
“We were living in this world of tremendous wealth and of incredible
poverty; and that was not by chance, it was by Roman design. The Emperor and
his lackeys wanted to be sure that we felt the full power of Rome and knew that
we were a conquered nation. They wanted us to know that our very existence as a
nation depended on Rome’s pleasure.
“For instance, to demonstrate their power, soldiers would
intentionally carry all their belongings with them wherever they went, but they
carried their ruck-sack for only a short distance. Then they would impress one
of the people in the street to carry it for them.
“We were required by law to carry the burden for a mile. At
the end of a mile, the soldier would point to another person who would then have
to carry the ruck-sack the next mile. Usually it was just back to the barracks.
The whole time the soldiers would be jeering and taunting the person hoping to
get him or her to rebel or respond in anger so that the soldier could slap the
person down.
“I remember, there were all kinds of messiahs in those days
who spoke out against the power of Rome and encouraged the people to rise
against the Roman boot. Mostly, they and their followers were quickly seized
and executed.
“Among the messiahs was John; he made a big splash for a
while. He was baptizing anybody who would repent of their Roman ways and return
to the old ways of the law. an ascetic of sorts I guess. He was making a lot of
noise, telling us that we needed to stand up and be counted as the children of
God, not slaves to Rome.
“Eventually John got arrested by Herod for denouncing Herod’s
marriage to Herodias. Yeah, his mouth eventually got him killed, but that’s
another story. What was different about John was that he kept saying, ‘I am not
the one. The one you are seeking is coming after me.’ We thought it was a
clever way of deflecting attention from himself, but it turned out to be true.
“You see, this rather quiet rabbi showed up. He too was
telling us that we needed to stand up for ourselves, but we were to stand up in
love for one another. He advocated praying for our enemies and learning ways to
lift up the poor. His teachings were not about defying Rome with force, but resisting Rome with love. If
we were impressed by the soldiers for a mile, we should volunteer to carry the
burden another mile. We were to forgive the people who were our oppressors and
find ways to be an active part of our world.
“I was just a young woman in those days, and I fell in love
with what the rabbi was saying. I hadn’t fallen in love with the rabbi, but I
really fell hard for what he was saying; and I thought that I could change the
world with my good works. Oh yes, there was some hero worship in there, and it
was exciting to be seen with him, but I really wasn’t in love with the rabbi. It
was more about the movement than the person.
“I thought that, if I threw some of my family’s money at the
poor, that the world would be changed, but it wasn’t money that changed the
world. I thought that I could really do something for the lesser people; and
then I learned that there aren’t any lesser people, only people we think less
of. I learned that people had to do the things that brought recognition and
dignity for themselves, that I couldn’t just wish it for them. I thought it was
about me, but oh how I was wrong.
“In the course of things, I got to know all of the guys [Peter,
James, John, Thomas, etc.] pretty well. I even got into their silly name
calling. They called me Maggie Mae. It was so serious and so light-hearted at
the same time. And, being a woman often alone with men, I got a reputation, but
it was all talk.
“As the rabbi’s teaching gathered popularity, the number of
followers increased. In time his following got pretty large, more than a
hundred of us that got together regularly. There were enough of us that the
rabbi was able to send us out to some of the neighboring towns.
“It was wonderful. To do the work of the rabbi was like life
itself. We were young. We were enthused. We were the future. It was amazing! It
was an education.
“Oh, I almost forgot to mention the wedding and the wine,
Lazy Larry, Isaac Seituwel, and Lazarus; those were the flashy moments, but
the best part was learning from the rabbi. Do you know how amazing it was for
me, a woman, to be allowed to learn from a rabbi? It was heady stuff and I
loved every minute of it.
“I learned to think
like him and even observed as he taught the other guys what it meant to be a
disciple. The look on Philip’s face the day that the rabbi told him to feed the
people who had gathered on the hill to hear what the rabbi had to say, it was
precious. Then they found little Sol with the fish and the bread, and the rest
is history. I don’t care whether you call it a sign or a miracle. It was
amazing to watch those people eat their fill and then have leftovers. It made you think that world hunger could be conquered
with a little generosity and some good will. Anyway, it really felt possible
that day.
“At the end, things
felt like they were falling apart. You know about the last supper. You know
about his arrest and the trial. You know that he was crucified and that they
laid him in the new tomb in the garden. You know about the total collapse of
the movement.
“You can’t believe how we felt when Rome won again. We were
used to being sold out by the priesthood and the temple officials—they were
just trying to hold on to what they had. I suppose the charitable thing to say
is that they were biding their time for the moment when Rome would go away and
leave us alone. Or maybe, that the priests and the scribes and Sadducees were
waiting for the day when Rome could be overthrown. I don’t know anymore, but to
involve one of our own? It still seems impossible.
“What I know is that we were decimated. We were gutted like
the fish in the market. The guys went to the safe house and holed up. I had
some rooms nearby that my family held for business in Jerusalem so I stayed
there.
“We all spent Sabbath together, and then, early in the
morning I went to sit and think about what was next. That’s when it happened. I
saw that the stone was rolled away and the tomb was opened. You could smell the
myrrh and aloe from the burial clothes, but the tomb looked empty.
“I ran to tell Beloved and Peter that the rabbi’s body was
stolen, and they ran to the tomb. If anything, they were even more upset than I
was. They went all the way into the tomb, thinking that someone might have come
and defiled the body in some way, but there was no body.
“They left in silence. Tears were pouring down their faces
as they left, but I just couldn’t bring myself to leave right away. So, I went
into the tomb to see for myself. That’s when I saw the pile of grave clothes
soaked in myrrh, the face cloth rolled up on the side, and the two angels. I
thought that it was just a vision, a product of my tortured imagination, but
one of the angels spoke to me, ‘Why are you crying?’
“I couldn’t believe it: ‘Why was I crying?’ Because my world
was falling apart, that’s why, because one of my best friends ever had died,
because everything I thought was worth anything had turned to dust and less
than that. They each had this stupid smirk on their faces, and so I turned
away. I turned away because I was angry—angry enough to want to die on the spot—and
then, when I was trying to leave, I ran right into somebody else.
“Through the tears and my rage, in the midst of my despair
and devastation, I searched for anything that might make sense. Supposing him
to be the gardener, I lashed out. ‘Where, oh where, can my rabbi be? Where have
you laid him?,’ I cried. ‘I know that you have taken him away from me. If you
tell me where you have laid him, I will take him away from you, so I can have
some peace in this world.’
“I might have even tried to bribe him with some of my
family’s money, and then he called me by name. I couldn’t believe it. I knew
that voice. I’d heard it thousands of times before. ‘Teacher?’ I asked.
“And then I knew. He had told us in so many ways that this
was going to happen, but we just didn’t get it. I mean, how could we have
known? I know there was Lazarus; but that was the rabbi’s work, and Lazarus was
sick. We never thought that anyone could come back from a crucifixion. And yet,
he was standing right in front of me, speaking words of wisdom. Could it be?
“He told me everything I needed to know and a whole lot more,
and then I went to tell the rest of the disciples. They thought I was hysterical
and didn’t pay me any mind until that night when they saw him too. You know
about Ditto [Thomas] and how that played out. What you don’t know is that even
after they had seen the rabbi, they insisted on staying in that stupid room.
“I think that they would be there today if I hadn’t shamed
them into leaving. I reminded them all about the times they had promised to
have his back, all the times they promised to follow him, all of their
pronouncements about the rabbi being the messiah. They called him the Jam Man
after all. Didn’t that mean anything to them?
“Did they think that our time together had just been a
little political game? I told them that lives matter and the news of the
rabbi’s resurrection had to mean something for all people or else the rabbi’s
life meant nothing at all. What were we going to do about it? That’s when Peter
decided to go fishing. And that fishing trip eventually made the difference.
“After that, the guys went their separate ways, each telling
the story as they remembered it. My place in the story, with the other women, got
smaller and smaller until you’d have thought that the guys did everything and
we were just the auxiliary—sex toys and eye candy. But that was not the way it
was.
“One day I decided to find my own place. I decided Ditto had
had the right idea: to get away from the chaos in the middle of the empire and
go to places where people were less concerned about Rome and more concerned
about living, a place where I could remember those days and tell the story as I
had learned and lived them. So, here I am.
“No, I am not in one of the lesser places of the world. I am
in a place that people think of less. Personally, that’s fine with me. I don’t
need high-profile coverage. As a matter of fact, I thought long and hard about
talking with you today. But someone has to tell that he lives. The tomb
couldn’t hold him. He has ascended to his father and our Father, to God, whom
he always professed. He has sent us the Advocate as he promised and with the
Advocate I continue to grow in faith, trusting that his message of love will
ultimately overcome the powers of evil, greed, self-aggrandizement,
self-interest, and hatred.
“Ditto may have been the first one to say it out loud, but
he was not the only one to know that our rabbi, our Jam-Man, Jesus, the
messiah, is our Lord and our God. He lived among us. He lives with us and through
us. He will come again to gather us to himself in the last day.
“In the meantime, I have this simple life with simple fare,
and simple ways that do not include Roman imperialism. I would thank you for
not sharing precise directions on how to get here.
“And now, I think it is time for you to go. I can do nothing
more for you.”
As I walked down the road to my evening’s lodging, I heard
Mary say, “Thanks for caring enough to come. Luv ya, man.”
