Here is a book that is loaded with adventure, mystery,
intrigue, secret codes, religion, sex and violence.
And I’m talking about the Holy Bible!
Then, there’s The Da Vinci
Code!
More than 45-million hardcover copies sold! Tens of
millions of paperbacks. And when the movie is released later this week, we can
be sure of one thing: more Americans will personally engage The Da Vinci Code this year than will read the Bible.
What is it about this book that is causing such a stir?
Well. here’s the gist of the story for those who may not
know it:
While in
And here’s that explosive historical truth:
Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married! They had a family
together before Jesus died! And protected by the devoted members of the Order
of Sion and other loyal Knighthoods until the world
is ready to receive this explosive historical truth, the holy bloodline still
exists in secret to this very day. However, there are those who would suppress
the truth – even destroy the bloodline if they could. The main culprit, of
course, is the Roman Catholic Church which deeply fears the revelation that
Jesus was truly human, that Mary Magdalene is the legitimate successor to her
husband, and it is their bloodline – not the Church – that is rightful heir to
the true Christian Faith.
Sound interesting?
And almost as if to prove one of Dan Brown’s points, many quarters of the Christian Church have been having one big religious hissy-fit over the ideas contained in The Da Vinci Code!!
“CHURCH DAMNS DAVINCI!” screams one
headline describing the reaction of the Greek Orthodox Church. “CARDINAL CALLS
FOR BROWN BOYCOTT” shouts another, reflecting the position of Roman Catholic
Archbishop Angelo Amato, the number two man in the
And many – maybe even most pulpits - will.
But not this one.
I like the book! It’s a great read – fast-paced – well written – the kind of book you just can’t put down once you start. But even more importantly, I think The Da Vinci Code has tremendous value for Christians. I think it provides great insight into how people relate to religion today. I think it reveals some of the reasons the Church has become irrelevant to growing numbers of people. There is much The Da Vinci Code has to teach us, if we are willing to stop our knee-jerk reactions and our traditional response of trying to bully our critics into silence. I like the book. And today I want to tell you why.
At the end of this sermon, I’m going to share with you what I believe is true about Jesus and Mary of Magdala. So don’t go to sleep! I’m putting it at the end of the sermon just in case I need to get out of town fast!
So fasten your seatbelt, and
let’s take a look at The Da Vinci Code.
The Da Vinci Code is a novel – a work of fiction. Someone has said that a great novel is a made-up story told in such a convincing way that readers come away from it thinking it’s true. On that score, Dan Brown has written one great novel. But you don’t need me to tell you that. Nor do you need me to stand here and cite all the historical inaccuracies in the book. You are some of the smartest people I know and you have access to a world of information about the facts in Dan Brown’s story that are, in many cases. not facts at all, but a little bit of fact mixed in with a whole lot of fiction.. If you’re looking for a very good book that takes an evenhanded approach to the subject, I’d recommend Bart Ehrman’s “Truth and Fiction In The Da Vinci Code.”[1]
But I think we miss the point if we think the question about the book is whether it is factually correct or not. The real question we Christians ought to be asking ourselves is, “Why do people love it? What do people find so religiously attractive and compelling about The Da Vinci Code?
Robin Griffith-Jones is the
Master of the
Do you see what Griffith-Jones is saying?
Dan Brown offers us a glimpse into a Jesus who is a real person – like us. We modern Christians so often offer the world a theological Jesus– a Jesus described in terms of doctrines that often don’t make a lot of sense to secularized 21st century people – a Jesus who is more a set of abstract religious principles than a flesh and blood, real life Jesus who knows what its like to be YOU…and me.
But that’s not all. Dan Brown offers
us a Jesus who respects women, and not only that, but treats women as equal to
men. Does the Church treat women this way? In The Da
Vinci Code we learn, for instance,
that Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute as the Church has traditionally
taught. It was Pope Gregory the Great in the 6th century who stirred
up that rumor. He connected Mary of Magdala with the
Mary of Bethany in the Gospel of Luke. Today we know he was wrong, and Dan Brown
deserves credit for pointing that out to people who otherwise might not know.
But just as importantly, The Da Vinci Code reveals
that Mary Magdalene in the earliest days of the Church was considered to be the
first Apostle – in fact, she is called the Apostle TO the Apostles! And
that is historically accurate. Why was she called the Apostle To The
Apostles? Because she was the first person to experience the risen Christ,
and the first person Jesus commissioned to go and tell others. In fact, the
male followers of Jesus only found out about Christ’s resurrection because Mary
told them! It would not be incorrect to say that Mary preached the first Easter
sermon! She was the first Gospel preacher in the history of the Church – until
Pope Gregory got a hold of her 500 years later. And today in the Church, not
only is it difficult to imagine a woman as the legitimate leader of the
Christian movement, but in many quarters of the Church, women are not even
permitted to preach.
And a third thing. Dan Brown allows his readers – through the characters in the book – to ask questions – questions about the Bible and how it came to be – questions about the divinity of Jesus – questions about the miracles – questions about whether or not the Church has been completely honest with us. The idea of conniving bishops, assassin monks, and religious powerbrokers rings all too true to people like us who live in the world of child-abusing clergy, crooked televangelists, and theological systems that do not permit people to question their authority.
So do you get the picture? Maybe people are drawn through The Da Vinci Code to the possibility of a faith that allows the asking of questions – a faith that is fully accessible to everyone, including women – a faith built on the life of a real person who had to live every day trusting in God just like you – just like me.
If you don’t see it by now, let me say it simply and clearly:
This is the faith
of the Bible!
How strange that it would be Dan Brown – without even knowing it – to point us back to the Bible, and that it would be the Church that resists it so fiercely!
I have to tell you that I am worried about the future of the Christian Faith. You and I just may belong to the generation of Christians who will be responsible for allowing Christianity to slip through our fingers and into the dust of history.
Do you know what is the fastest growing religious movement
in
The Church Alumni Association.
Your kids may well be members of it, and your grandchildren may be preparatory members. They are people who, in many cases, grew up in the Church but who now find the Church irrelevant to their lives. There are millions of such people who, once they got out of Sunday School, went away and never looked back – except maybe on Christmas and Easter.
Many of our neighbors are Church Alumni Association members, too. Often, their disenchantment began when they started asking adult questions about the faith and how it relates to life in the real world – and all the Church was willing to offer in response were children’s answers. “Why did my son die of leukemia?” “Well. God must have had a reason. God must have needed him more than you did.” “Why is there so much evil in the world?” “Because Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in a Garden long ago.” There is nothing more repulsive to people than religion that does not take their suffering seriously, or their questions seriously. And so the Church Alumni Association grows.
And it grows even with people like you and me who have devoted much of our lives to the Church, but have come away from the experience with a dead religion rather than a living relationship with God. Many of the Christians I know seem bored to death – sort of like folks sitting around, eating the Continental Breakfast at the motel while waiting to check out. And whether they still attend Church or not, or even know it or not, they too have joined it – they’ve joined the Church Alumni Association.
And yet, many of these disenfranchised people consistently tell researchers like George Barna that they believe in God, they consider themselves to have faith, they pray, they believe in the teachings of Jesus to love God and love neighbor.
So what do you think is missing here?
Maybe it is a faith that allows and encourages honest inquiry – a faith that is committed to full inclusivity – and most importantly, a faith that centers on the REAL Jesus.
Sometimes, for all our born-of-a-virgin, walked-on-the-water, rose-from-the-dead language with which we describe Jesus, we leave out the fact that he came among us as a man – a real-life, flesh and blood person – just like you – just like me. The reason many of the Gnostic Gospels were not accepted intro the Bible is because they made Jesus so divine that his humanity was obscured. They tell stories like the one about the infant Jesus at his mother’s breast looking up and saying, “Mary, I am Jesus, the Son of the living God!” Any of your kids ever do that? Neither did mine! Human babies don’t do those kinds of things. Nor do our human children strike down dead their playmates who cross them – as well as their parents when they complain.
Yet stories like these are told of the boy Jesus in the Gnostic texts. The authors of the New Testament books on the other hand, though they believed that Jesus was truly Immanuel – God among us – worked very hard to make sure those of us who came along later understood that Jesus gave up all claims to divinity in coming among us. He became fully and completely a man.
Jesus did not have special powers that are unavailable to people like us. Jesus suffered just like we suffer. Jesus was tempted, just like we are tempted. Jesus needed to eat food for energy – and he needed sleep – and he went to the bathroom – just like you…just like me.
Today on Mother’s Day, we also ought to remember that Jesus had a mother who he loved with all his heart, and a father who probably died when he was a boy. And Jesus had brothers and sisters, too.
Jesus was one of US!
And yet Jesus’ life overflowed with the goodness of God in such remarkable ways that people are still talking about him two-thousand years later! And perhaps the reason we are so drawn to him is because we wonder – is it possible for ME to be like Jesus? Could I be a person who can help broken people become well? Could I be a person who causes justice to flow into the lives of people who cannot find justice? Could I be a person who puts into the lives of my own children the power and love and goodness that Jesus put into the lives of the people he met? Could I be a person who is so full of life that even death cannot put an end to me?
And the Bible’s answer to all those questions is a resounding, “YES!!”
The Jesus of the Bible invites us to discover the full
length and breadth and height of what it means to be truly HUMAN! And a key
part of being human is discovering that God, in love, has placed into your life
tremendous power and potential for doing good and for transforming the world
into the
I want that kind of faith for my children. Do you want it for yours? I want that for my grandson Ryan. Do you want it for your grandkids? I want it for myself. Do you want it, too?
Well, listen to what Dan Brown is saying without even knowing it: the kind of religion that will change the world is a religion that encourages people to ask, seek and knock; a religion that includes everyone and excludes no one; and a religion that centers itself on the human Jesus who shows us what life can be for ordinary people like us who, accepting God’s love and walking in a trusting relationship with God every day, discover that even we have gifts for healing the broken, feeding the hungry, and walking on the turbulent waters of life!
And now for the $64,000 question.
Were Jesus and Mary married?
Well, the Bible doesn’t say, one way or the other. The Bible is silent on it.
But I have an opinion.
Before I tell you what it is, let me say this:
I would want my daughter to be married to a man as good and kind and loving as Jesus. And I would want my son to have a wife as devoted and giving as Mary was to Jesus. Wouldn’t you want that for your children too?
But were Jesus and Mary husband and wife?
No. I don’t think so.
History informs us that the early Church was plagued with all kinds of power struggles as various leaders jockeyed for positions of authority – sort of like what happens in the Church today! I cannot imagine that, if Mary was indeed Jesus’ widow, some group of people would not have formed around her to promote a claim for her leadership. But history offers no such evidence.
But there’s an even more convincing reason for doubting a marriage between Jesus and Mary. If they had been husband and wife and had children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren right down to the present day, one or more of them by now surely would have shown up on the Maury Povich Show, touting a book on their dysfunctional family! Don’t you think?
Dear friends, its okay to read The Da Vinci Code, and to go see the movie. Maybe I’ll see you there!
But more importantly, it is crucially essential that you
and I who bear the name of Christ come back to the Bible – the real Bible – and
there discover a living faith that is made for human beings – just like you –
just like me!