Day 73: A Composite Of Marys

Mary Magdalene by Giovanni Bellini circa 1490

Luke 7:36-38

New Living Translation (NLT)

Jesus Anointed by a Sinful Woman

³⁶ One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat.³⁷ When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. ³⁸ Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.

***

If I were to guess, I'd venture that no woman in the Bible is surrounded by more mystery and intrigue than Mary Magdalene. Mary was such a common name that she was often confused with other women; Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the sister of Martha, Mary some mythological "wife" of the Messiah. (Jesus was never married, and I've never cared enough to research the origin of that cultish belief.) Last names weren't given in Scripture, and women, in particular, were rarely identified by family.

Our only real clue to Mary's identity is "Magdalene". Since we know Magdalene is not a surname, we must assume it refers to where she came from. Magdala was a fishing community about 120 miles north of Jerusalem on the shore of Galilee. At least one Jewish text, Lamentations Raba, declares that the town was destroyed by God because of rampant sexual sin. This was during a time under Roman Imperial rule, and families were often under such heavy tax burdens that they were forced to sell their children into slavery. Brothels were abundant throughout the Mediterranean region during this period in history, as well, so when you take all those factors and roll them into one big ball, it is easy to see how the modern day picture of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute began to take shape.

The truth is, Mary Magdalene is mentioned in all four Gospels, but is never once referred to as a hooker, nor are any specific sins ever associated with her. And she is most certainly not named as the woman of ill repute who washed the feet of Christ with tears and anointed Him with precious essential oil at the home of Simon the Pharisee.

(When Jesus realized Simon's disgust at the woman, He told Simon that a person who is forgiven much, loves much. In the parable, he implied the value of the prostitute at his feet was ten times greater that of the hypocrite serving him dinner.)

Aside from where she was from, we know only that Jesus had cast 7 demons from her at one time, that she was a follower of Jesus through His ministry, and was one of the women who discovered His empty tomb.

Having said all that, I am going to share (yet another) lyric I once wrote. The poem should not be taken as anything other than a fictional work, a composite of women who may or may not have been named Mary. But like the legend of Mary Magdalene, it is a tale of great sin, deep sorrow, sincere repentance, and absolute redemption. It is a story of a woman who is valued little by society, but who is valued greatly by her Redeemer. This rendition follows a woman from infancy to adulthood, showing the pattern of events that shaped her life.

So, without further ado...

Magdala Inn

Father, oh father,

Why have you forsaken me?

Where is my shelter from this storm?

He was only a shadow

of the man he'd once been,

a fisherman of high esteem.

He stood there in front

of the Magdala Inn,

reflecting on his broken dream.

His wife and his daughter

had brought joy to his hearth,

and prestige among his friends...

but his lover, his lady,

she'd died giving birth

to a beautiful set of twins...

and he cried...

Father, oh Father,

Why have you forsaken me?

Where is my shelter from this storm?

It is written

that pride goes before the fall,

and a proud man he was, no doubt...

refusing charity,

though he'd lost it all,

the man gave them up and walked out

as the children cried...

father, oh father,

why have you forsaken me?

where is my shelter from this storm?

Mary worked at the Magdala Inn,

where she'd been since she was a child.

She'd grown into a ravenous beauty

since the day she'd first been defiled.

She was held in reserve

for the wealthiest of men

who traveled through the town of Magdala...

the lowly prostitute,

princess of the Inn,

dressed in the finest regalia.

She had scented oils,

and silks and linen,

the best that money could buy...

but nobody knew what raged within,

and nobody heard her cry...

father, oh father,

why have you forsaken me?

where is my shelter from this storm?

Then came a man,

a prophet, some said,

called Jesus the Nazarene...

and despite the objections

from the apostles He led,

He touched her,

and washed her past clean.

She followed Him faithfully

for years to come,

having finally found peace inside.

Then she stood at the foot

of the cross where He hung,

and she heard Him as He cried...

Father, oh Father,

Why have you forsaken me?

Where is my shelter from this storm?

Day 66: Man Overboard!

Jonah 4:1-3

New Living Translation (NLT)

Whale Shark by Jon Hanson, cc-by-sa-2.0

Jonah’s Anger at the Lord’s Mercy

This change of plans greatly upset Jonah, and he became very angry. ² So he complained to the Lord about it: “Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, Lord? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people. ³ Just kill me now, Lord! I’d rather be dead than alive if what I predicted will not happen.”

***

We've all heard of Jonah, right? The guy that gets swallowed by a whale and lives to tell about it? Yeah, well a lot of people don't believe such a thing could have happened, so let's get the elephant out of the room first, or the whale, if you will, and then we'll talk about the important stuff.

Whether you believe the Bible to be literal, figurative, or a mix of both, you've probably wondered just how a person could have survived a whale's stomach. I should point out that the Bible doesn't specifically call it a whale. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Maybe whatever it was no longer exists all these thousands of years later. That's irrelevant. Could it have happened?

Yeah, it could have. There are whales that still exist who are capable of swallowing a human being (and even larger creatures). Some of these whales are even toothless. And they're huge animals! The whale shark, for example, can reach 30,000 lbs (that's 15 thousand tons!) and 45 feet in length. So here's how it happens. They open their mouths and take in whatever floats their way. Then somehow or other they spew the water back out. I'm not real knowledgeable about whale anatomy, but I did glance over some material about their digestive system.

Some of these toothless whales, maybe all of them, have multiple chambers in their stomach, some as large as a decent sized bedroom. In at least one of these whales there is even a 'storage chamber' of sorts located in the sinus cavity, where there are no digestive enzymes, so there isn't any decomposition going on. If the contents in the storage chamber cause distress, they can be emptied. Put another way, the whale can sneeze out anything that tickles its nose.

The big issue seems to be whether or not a human would fit down the esophagus. I don't know much about the anatomy of a 450 lb giant squid, either, but those are a favorite meal for some whales. There have been rumors of humans and animals being found alive in the carcasses of whales, but I haven't found anything to substantiate those claims. Still, it does seem as though it could be remotely possible, even if unlikely. In any event, nothing is too big for God, even a whale. He can make anything happen.

So now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's forget the whale for a minute. This event takes place somewhere around 750 years before Christ came along. Nineveh was the thriving capital city of Assyria. It was such a big city that it would take three days to see it all. They didn't have cars back then, so I'm thinking it would probably take three days to walk around a city the size of, say, Las Vegas. That's if you didn't stop to have fun along the tour. So it's a pretty big city, with an impressive population. God didn't like what was going on in the city, and told Jonah to go do something about it. Jonah didn't want to do as he was told though, and instead bought a ticket and boarded a ship headed in the opposite direction.

That night, Jonah was sleeping soundly in his room on the ship, when a terrible storm came up totally out of nowhere. The captain and crew had never experienced anything quite so severe, and were more than a little scared. They started pointing fingers at each other, accusing each other of doing something to anger the gods. They all swore to their own innocence though, and finally they cast lots to see who was to blame. Casting lots is kind of like rolling the dice, or drawing straws. What a thing to leave to chance. Seems about as reliable as shaking a Crazy 8 ball. But however they played this game of chance that they took so seriously, they were all convinced it pointed to Jonah as the culprit.

So the captain goes and wakes Jonah up from his sleep. It's a wonder he hadn't woken up already! The captain and crew weren't very happy with him, and started bombarding him with questions.

Who are you? What god do you serve? What could you have possibly done to make your god so angry? Most importantly, what can you do to fix it?

Jonah admitted he was guilty as charged. He was the one at whom God was directing His anger. What god? The God of heaven and earth, the one true, living God. Why? Because Jonah didn't want to go where God told him to go, didn't want to do what God told him to do, so he was headed for Tarshish instead. The only hope for everyone else was to throw Jonah overboard.

Yikes! The ship's crew had heard of the God of the Israelites, and knew He was a force to be reckoned with. They were afraid to throw Jonah overboard for fear that his God would turn His anger back on them. So they tried everything they could to get the boat to shore. The storm kept getting worse, though, and finally they agreed to throw Jonah into the raging waters; But not before they prayed to God!  They pleaded with God not to make them die for Jonah's sin, and with that, they threw him into the abyss.

Much to their amazement, the storm ceased immediately. They fell to their knees and thanked God for having spared them, and from that day on, they served and worshiped only the one true God.

Meanwhile, Jonah was sinking deeper and deeper into the sea. He described the water closing in over him, seaweed wrapping around his head and body, and sinking deep, deeper, and ever deeper. He may have been hallucinating when he said he sank to the roots of the mountains and was trapped in the earth. He remembered being aware that his life was slipping away from him. It was at that very moment as he was losing his grip on reality, that a some sort of great fish, probably a whale but maybe some other huge sea animal, swallowed him up. Barely able to form a single thought, from somewhere deep inside of him Jonah began praying. He didn't pray for himself, he prayed for those who worshiped false gods and turned their backs on the Lord's tender mercies. I can imagine he spent the next three days drifting in and out of consciousness. I'm sure he spent a lot of time praying even when he wasn't fully awake. I've done that, so it's easy to picture him doing it too. At some point he said his prayers became earnest and he promised to answer the call, and fulfill his vow to God.

Achooooooo!

Out came Jonah, sneezed out onto the beach. He must have dipped himself into the sea to bathe off the slime and whale-snot before he set off towards the great city of Nineveh. As soon as he arrived, he began shouting as loud as he could. 

In forty days, God is going to destroy this city!

In a world where nobody much cared what real prophets had to say, people stopped and took notice of Jonah. God had already prepared their hearts to be receptive, I guess, because instead of running him out of town or trying to kill him, they began to fast and pray, truly repentant. Even the king got off his thrown, changed from royal robes to a burlap sackcloth garment, and put ashes on his head in sorrow. He sent out a decree that nobody was allowed to eat or drink, and both human and animals had to be draped in burlap. No more violence or bloodshed was going to be tolerated. He demanded everybody repent and stop their wicked ways.

God was pleased with their response to His warning, and relented. Because they were sorry, He wasn't going to destroy them after all. That should have been cause for rejoicing, right? You'd think Jonah would have been happy that they'd just diverted tragedy.

But instead he got angry and threw a tantrum worthy of a two year old. 

See, God, this is why I didn't want to come here! From the minute you said to come warn the Nenevites,I knew you'd change your mind! You always do! You forgive too easily! That's why I got on the ship and set sail for Tarshish, I knew you'd make a fool of me! God, I'm going to have to live with the embarrassment of having a failed prophecy on my head! Just kill me now, it would be better than living with this shame!

Pretty selfish, huh? Yeah, God thought so too. Thousands of people had just been spared their lives because they repented, and all Jonah could think about was how it affected him. He could have, should have praised the Lord for the opportunity to have been a part of reconciling the people to God. Either way, he would never be forgotten for his role in the situation. But instead of going down in history as the whiny, selfish coward who would rather see a whole city of people perish than to be perceived as a false prophet, he could have been remembered as the man whom God used to bring salvation (of sorts) to a nation.

So what is the point here? I suppose it is this; No matter how weak, scared, cowardly, or stupid we are, God can use us to accomplish His will. Sometimes, just to prove a point, He will even use our rebellion to do double duty, as was the case with Jonah. Not only did the Ninevites live because they heard the message God sent through Jonah, but a whole boat load of people from different nations and religious backgrounds surrendered their faith to our heavenly Father.

Pretty darn cool, if you ask me.

Day 64: A Ho And A Lyric

Hosea 2:14-16

By Dariamanu 16 CC-BY-SA-3.0

New Living Translation (NLT)

The Lord’s Love for Unfaithful Israel

¹⁴ “But then I will win her back once again.
    I will lead her into the desert
    and speak tenderly to her there.
¹⁵ I will return her vineyards to her
    and transform the Valley of Trouble^[a] into a gateway of hope.
She will give herself to me there,
    as she did long ago when she was young,
    when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt.
¹⁶ When that day comes,” says theLord,
    “you will call me ‘my husband’
    instead of ‘my master.’

Hosea 3

New Living Translation (NLT)

Hosea’s Wife Is Redeemed

3 Then the Lord said to me, “Go and love your wife again, even though she commits adultery with another lover. This will illustrate that the Lord still loves Israel, even though the people have turned to other gods and love to worship them.”² So I bought her back for fifteen pieces of silver and five bushels of barley and a measure of wine. ³ Then I said to her, “You must live in my house for many days and stop your prostitution. During this time, you will not have sexual relations with anyone, not even with me.”⁴ This shows that Israel will go a long time without a king or prince, and without sacrifices, sacred pillars, priests, or even idols! ⁵ But afterward the people will return and devote themselves to the Lord their God and to David’s descendant, their king. In the last days, they will tremble in awe of the Lord and of his goodness.

***

I spent yesterday reading the book of Hosea, the prophet whom God instructed to marry a whore. God's intention was to illustrate Israel's unfaithfulness to God through the domestic discord between Hosea and Gomer. It wasn't until I started digging a little deeper that I discovered how much controversy surrounds the couple. It seems that a lot of scholars and theologians just don't want to believe that Gomer was promiscuous, and more importantly, that God would never ask one of His people to marry such a woman. So many theories have been presented to explain away Hosea's misfortune that I couldn't possibly describe them in detail. Suffice it to say that maybe she was a hooker, maybe she was a temple prostitute, maybe she was just an unfaithful wife. Or on the hand, maybe Gomer was actually the ideal wife, but because of some mistranslation from Hebrew to English, she got mixed up with another wife who wasn't so good. Still others believe that Gomer wasn't physically promiscuous, but she refused to serve Hosea's God. And finally, there are those who believe that the entire story of Hosea's marriage was fictional, and Gomer never existed at all.

It really doesn't matter whether she existed or not. Scripture describes Israel so graphically as a whore that it's sometimes shocking, and almost embarrassing to read, even silently. The story of Gomer's infidelity isn't nearly as descriptive. And whether it was literal or figurative, sexual promiscuity was obviously as easy for one to relate to in ancient times as it is today.

Not long ago I shared the lyrics of a song that I had written many years ago. The song, Whispers, was based on the relationship between God and Israel as described in Isaiah 54. I'm going to share another lyric, written just as many years ago, also about Israel's rebellion and eventual restoration, this time from the perspective of Gomer. I hope you enjoy it.

Into the Desert

She knelt beside the alter

of the loveless god she served,

and sacrificed her self esteem,

her dignity and worth.

She left there feeling empty,

unsatisfied, alone,

wondering how her sense of freedom

had become a heavy stone.

She has gone out in the desert now,

her party is pain,

and she looks around her helplessly

as she whispers his name...

Then she cries out to the wilderness

"Why has everything changed?"

But the only one who hears her, (the only one)

the only one who hears her

speaks softly now,

and says "I am still the same"

She is stripped of all her masquerades

as she stands before the Lord.

He gazes at her lovingly,

this lost child He adores.

She says "I do not deserve your love,

I am guilty and unclean."

He says "You are just as beautiful

as any lamb I've ever seen..."

He says "Come, I'll be your strength".

So she follows him out

and she learns to trust

the one she calls Master

to be faithful and just.

She says "I'll serve no other now,

I'll worship you alone",

He says "you have learned your lesson well,

come, I'll lead you home".

She's come out of the desert now,

He is right there by her side.

She is clothed in royal linen

of pure and sparkling white...

and she marvels at the feast prepared,

(a wedding feast)

It is such a wondrous feast prepared

for the Master and His bride.

Day 19: A Tale of 2 Women

Ruth 1:6-9

New Living Translation (NLT)

© V.Gilbert & Arlisle F. Beers

Naomi and Ruth Return

⁶ Then Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had blessed his people in Judah by giving them good crops again. So Naomi and her daughters-in-law got ready to leave Moab to return to her homeland. ⁷ With her two daughters-in-law she set out from the place where she had been living, and they took the road that would lead them back to Judah.

⁸ But on the way, Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back to your mothers’ homes. And may the Lord reward you for your kindness to your husbands and to me. ⁹ May the Lord bless you with the security of another marriage.” Then she kissed them good-bye, and they all broke down and wept.

I've read the book of Ruth countless times. I thought I knew the story, and I really couldn't think of anything "new" to add. So I decided to do a little research, thinking maybe I could learn more about the custom of lying at the feet of a man to get a marriage proposal. I did, but I also learned a whole lot more... I discovered that there is a lot of historical information available about the three women in the book of Ruth that isn't included in scripture. So while at first glance, you might be thinking this is the story of Ruth and Naomi, it's not.

It's the story of Ruth and Orpah. And It's much richer and more interesting knowing the things I learned today.

My sources for this account include the Bible, but also include information from Jewish Women's Archive: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia and Torah.org

First off, let me lay out the entire cast of characters for you... if you're like me, you never connected the dots before. 

Boaz: the son of Rahab, the harlot who helped the Israelite spies. I wrote about her a few days ago. I linked her name to the entry.

Naomi: a woman doubly related to Boaz; he was both her cousin, and her late husband's brother (or uncle, depending on the source.) Both Naomi and Boaz were of the tribe of Judah.

Ruth and Orpah: These were sisters, and prior to their marriages to Naomi's sons, they were Moabite princesses, daughters of Elgon, granddaughters of Balak. You might remember Balak as the king who tried to get Balaam to curse the Israelites. I wrote about them in 2010.

So now that we have the characters introduced, I'll go on with the retelling of the story. Ten years or so back, Naomi and Elimelech, and their two sons, had moved to the country of Moab because there was a famine in Israel. Elimelech died, and their sons married the two princesses. I'm not sure if they married before or after his death, and since my interest was in the two women, I didn't dig further on that aspect. Nor did I try to dig up why the two sons both died at more or less the same time a decade later. I'm going to go with the guess that all were killed in a battle of some sort.

So the three widowed women were packing up to leave. They were going to return to Israel. Naomi was very fond of her daughters-in-law, but there was no way she was able to provide them with husbands, to provide heirs, as was the custom. So she kissed the two women and asked them to return to their own people, to their royal lives, to the gods that the Moabites served. 

One might think that the kiss was an expression of emotion, but it went beyond that. In accordance with custom, the kiss that Naomi gave symbolized that something of herself (likely her faith in God) would accompany the girls back with them as they lived in the land of the Moabite gods. Now here is where the story of the two girls goes in different directions. 

Orpah realized the traditional wisdom in staying with her own people. After all, she was the daughter of a king, she would be taken care of. If she returned to Israel with her mother-in-law, she would be penniless, and might never find a husband or family again. So she kissed Naomi back. Again, the kiss, according to Jewish history, was significant, because she was not only saying goodbye, she was rejecting Naomi's God, symbolically giving that gesture of faith back so she could go embrace the gods of her people.

Ruth realized a more spiritual wisdom. She believed that the God of the Israelites would protect her and provide for her, and she wasn't about to let her mother-in-law journey unaccompanied from one country to another. She was going with her, and gave the famous speech about "where you go, I go, your people will be my people, your God will be my God"... and she stayed by Naomi's side as they set out on their journey. Her choice is all the more remarkable when you consider the way Moabites were viewed by the Israelites. They were pretty much the scourge of the earth, all descended from Moab, who was the son of Lot and his oldest daughter.

When they arrived in Bethlehem of Judah, where Naomi came from, Ruth took to gleaning the fields to support them both. She caught the attention of Boaz on that very first day, and even though he was old enough to be her father, scripture sure makes it sound like he had quite an eye for the young woman, finding her not only physically beautiful, but a woman of integrity for having stayed with Naomi. To abbreviate this just a little, Naomi instructed her daughter-in-law in the custom that would let Boaz know she was interested in marriage, and Boaz was all too happy to redeem her and take her as his wife. Together they raised a son, Obed, who was the grandfather of King David. It's a beautiful, and classic, story of redemption, mirroring Christ (the redeemer) and His bride (you know, us)!

But what happened to Orpah (also known as Harafah) after she left and returned to her own people? She didn't just fade into the background never to be heard from again. The Bible doesn't tell it in the book of Ruth, although she is mentioned (as Harafah) in II Samuel, and Jewish history fills in the rest of the blanks. She returned to her people and was quite promiscuous. According to history, she slept with 100 men that night. Ultimately she was rejected by her own people, and went to live in the land of the Philistines. She bore several sons out of wedlock, one of which appears to have been Goliath, (although the text is kind of confusing, and Goliath may have been her grandson) all of whom were slain by the hand of David.

I hope those of you who stayed with me enjoyed the history lesson as much as I did. My blog entries seem to keep getting longer and longer. My carpal tunnel is going to be screaming my name for the rest of the night!