Feast of St. Mary Magdalene (July 22, Fr. Roberts)

A hundred and seventy thousand soldiers have surrounded one small town in the hills of Israel. The siege is in its second month; the cisterns are empty, and the children are fainting in the streets. The leaders have given up: unless God acts within five days, they will surrender. That is how the Book of Judith begins, with Israel at its weakest. No army, no water, no hope. And God's answer is not an army but one widow, Judith. Where the leaders count the enemy and despair, she prays. She prays at the very hour the evening incense is offered in the temple in Jerusalem, far away, and we heard that prayer this morning: your strength does not depend on numbers; you are the God of the lowly, the helper of the oppressed, the savior of those without hope. Then she walks alone into the enemy camp carrying no weapon, and with the general's own sword God delivers Israel by her hand.

That is the teaching of the book: God saves his people not through their strength but through their weakness, when weakness turns to him in faith. And that is what the Gospel shows us on Easter morning.

Mary Magdalene's whole life with Jesus began in weakness. Seven demons had gone out of her, Luke says: she had been helpless under a power she could not master, and Jesus freed her. So she followed him and provided for him. She stood near his cross when most of the disciples had fled. Early on the first day of the week she came to his tomb in the dark and found it empty. Peter and John came, saw, and went home. Mary stayed. She had nothing left but grief and the need to be near her Lord, and she stood outside the tomb and wept. And the God of those without hope came to her first. She did not recognize him; she took him for the gardener. Then he spoke her name: Mary. She turned and knew him, and he sent her to his brothers, and she went and said, I have seen the Lord. She did not find him; he found her. She did not win the victory; she received it and carried the news to the apostles, and through the apostles to us. Once again, God's strength did not depend on numbers.

This is the example set before us: not strength, but faith in weakness. Judith's faith was to pray when the town had given up. Mary's was to stay when the others had gone home. God's way with his people has not changed. He hears the weak who turn to him; he calls them by name and sends them. The collect asks for exactly this: that by his grace we may be healed of all our infirmities, and know him in the power of his endless life.