Mary(s)

Don't want to read a rant about a random choir song?
Enjoy this calming picture from the tropical greenhouse in the Zurich city gardens instead.

Yesterday was a full day of laundry and volunteering at the church cafe and cookie baking (treats for choir to celebrate my birthday) and pizza making and choir and stressing about the fact that I'd also volunteered to provide a closing thought at choir oh my.

I went back and forth about whether my closing thought was going to be a little rant about a particular song we're singing this session or whether nobody needed to hear that. And in the end I went for it, but without writing it out, so I am not at all sure that anyone understood what I was trying to say, and now I feel like I need to go back and fact-check myself. Here goes:

The song is called "Don't You Cry" and it's by Oslo Gospel Choir director Tore Aas. I've talked before about how 'gospel' means a different thing in Europe than it does in the U.S. I'd call what the Oslo Gospel Choir sings...'Christian contemporary'? It's very...white. So that's a bit of a warning, but you can decide for yourself by listening here. The lyrics are:

Early in the morning the first day of the week.
I heard the voice of an angel, saying: "Who do you seek?"
"Jesus is not here. He is risen from the dead!"
Then I heard my Master's voice. He called to me and said:
   "Don't you cry. Don't you cry.
    In your heart I'll always stay.
    Let me wipe your tears away.
    When you feel so all alone,
    I'll be there to make you strong.
    I will always carry you if you want me to."

Cue my head exploding. But but but...that's not what Jesus said!!! He said "don't hold on to me" and "I'm going to my God and your God" and "tell my brothers what you've seen." This is about Mary Magdalene being the first to proclaim the good news! Not about...whatever this patriarchal infantilizing BS is supposed to be!

Deep breaths Susannah, maybe you're wrong. Let's look into this calmly.

At the top of our sheet music, right under the title, it says "John 20:11-16 NIV." Great, there's a reference. 

John 20:11-16
Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

Okaaaaay. And? Surely John also tells us what happened next? Oh yes:

John 16:17-18
Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her. 

SEE?????? Not "there there Maria, I'll aways be there to carry you!" but more like "buck up Maria! I'm off - and you have work to do! Go spread the news!"

Ok fine, "don't you cry" isn't in John. That doesn't prove anything; there are after all four evangelists. 

Mark?

Mark 16:1-8 [this is all still NIV, for consistency]
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”
But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

[note: Some manuscripts have the following ending between verses 8 and 9, and one manuscript has it after verse 8 (omitting verses 9-20)]
Then they quickly reported all these instructions to those around Peter. After this, Jesus himself also sent out through them from east to west the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation. Amen."

9-11
When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.

Ok *maybe* Mark said that Mary doesn't pass on the good news because she's scared. Or maybe she does and the guys don't believe her. Manuscripts vary, apparently. But still, nothing here about Jesus comforting her.

Matthew?

Matthew 28:1-9
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
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 and 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.’ Now I have told you.”
So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Is "do not be afraid" the same as "don't you cry?" I mean, maybe? But also, the women somehow manage to hear the angel's message when the guards are freaking out, so they are doing a great job of not being afraid. And Jesus still tells them to bring the news to the disciples.

Luke?

Luke 24:1-12
On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to 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 with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” Then they remembered his words.
When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

In Switzerland someone pays for billboards that are dark blue with Bible verses printed in large yellow letters. I might make my own: "They did not believe the women."

Anyway, no, Jesus's supposedly unforgettable words do not come from the Gospels. I have two other guesses:

First, there's John's story of the raising of his friend Lazarus, when his sisters - first Martha and then Mary - meet Jesus on his way to their house, where Lazarus has already died.

John 11:21-27
“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

John 11:32-36
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus wept.

Martha believes, and Mary weeps, and Mary Magdalene encounters the risen Jesus - I guess you can get there if all women are basically the interchangeable.

Speaking of which - most likely of all, "don't you cry" comes from the spiritual:

O Mary, don't you weep, don't you mourn,
O Mary, don't you weep, don't you mourn;
Pharoh's army got drownded,
O Mary, don't you weep.

In fact "Don't You Cry" (which is part of the Oslo Gospel Choir's musical "Messiah") closes with Mary's voice: "Early in the morning / the first day of the week / I heard the voice of my Master / saying: "Mary don't you weep." The spiritual has nothing to do with Mary Magdalene at all but again: Mary, Mary, same difference.

2,000 years after Mary Magdalene and the women with her were the first to encounter the risen Jesus and the first to proclaim the gospel, their roles are still getting downplayed, left out, and re-written. In the Catholic church we're still prayerfully considering whether women might be able to represent Jesus and whether the vocations of women to the priesthood (love you Maria!) could possibly be genuine. Argh. That's why this hits a chord. 

Honestly my guess is that Tore Aas intended to re-imaginine the biblical story for a good cause: if Mary was the first to encounter Jesus she was also the first to get saved, and in a 'Christian contemporary' context accepting Jesus into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior is indeed the most important thing of all. And who am I, who believes that we should engage with the Bible more as myth than as God's literal sacrosanct Word (that's another post), to tell him he's wrong?

Maybe more to the point, what should we be singing instead?