The Da Vinci Code: Part II – What We Do Believe
Sermon delivered by Rev. Charles Swadley, Lakeside United Methodist Church, Richmond, VA

NRS John 3:1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." 3 Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." 4 Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" 5 Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." 9 Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" 10 Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 11 "Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17"Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

As we go into this second part on the series of The Da Vinci Code – What we do and do not believe – I am very cognizant and inspired that this Sunday just so happens to be the Sunday in the church year that is named “Trinity Sunday,” which is very apropos to this series. The subject last Sunday of “Incarnation” developed in the early church into an understanding of the concept of “Trinity – three aspects of one God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – versus three distinct gods.” Compare the Holy Trinity to a burning fire, out of which you can take some of the fire and it remains the exact same substance of the fire from which it came.

So, we owe a debt of gratitude to Dan Brown for bringing about all this fruitful conversation about Jesus, the Bible, and Mary Magdalene. The book and the subsequent movie, The Da Vinci Code, may be the single most influential event in the first part of the twenty-first century. The book is what one critic described as a "page turner." It's entertaining. It keeps up a high tension from beginning to end. It is a great fiction book that has proven its popularity in being on the top 150 best seller NY Times list for over 150 weeks!

This is what I promised last week to follow up Part I: what about the Bible as Holy Scripture, the other Gospels that cast new light upon the time of Jesus and Mary Magdalene? Did she, that is, Mary Magdalene, capture his heart?

First, let’s recall that the core of the first part of the series has to do with the nature and work of the central person of our Christian faith – Jesus. The Da Vinci Code clearly emphasizes the human side of Jesus, who has a secret marriage to Mary Magdalene, who, in turn has a child, born in Egypt and named Sarah, and flees to France, where a royal line is begun. The Da Vinci Code suggests that the Emperor Constantine of Rome called the Council of Nicea into being in the fourth century for Constantine’s own political purposes. As I said last week the evidence of Christian history indicates clearly that there was not a debate in the Council about whether Jesus was divine. Rather, the debate that was was about “how Jesus was divine.”
The question was this: “If Jesus is human only, how could he save any human person?” Granted, he would be considered a great teacher of wisdom, even though Jesus never wrote down a single word of his own thoughts. Jesus would certainly be one of many truly great thinkers and teachers in history. But, a great teacher does not make the Savior Christ our Lord!

The other side of the question is this, “How can Jesus save any human person, if he were merely a divine spirit occupying a shell of a human body?” That would make him into two distinct beings – one human and one divine. The result in this line of thought would be that the divine part of Jesus, known as the Christ, never remained in Jesus through the crucifixion, suffering and death. The Christ, as a divine spirit, escaped and floated above the horrible scene of Jesus’ death. That led to the scandalous idea that salvation could only come by self knowledge and a secret divine knowledge about God– gnosis, to liberate a divine spark in us so that it escapes the prison of this evil body and the evils of this material world. What this secret knowledge teaches is that world is itself evil and must be escaped and that the spirits are trapped within our evil bodies. Escape/salvation comes only by knowing who we really are. (P. 44, Bart Ehrman, Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code) This could only be learned by a few capable intellectuals. This led often to a prideful condescending attitude that divided the Christian community. This is, as one can see, a complicated intellectual and philosophical enterprise at best and at worst a very divisive and harmful approach to Christianity.

What the ancients said in effect to counter was that Jesus saves humans by assuming the full humanity and divinity of God. What he – Jesus – did not assume, he could not save! The Council of Nicea struggled with the issue; and some 200 bishops arrived at an understanding that we have in the Nicean Creed which emphasizes both his divinity and his divinity. And, contrary to the all knowing “Teacher – Leigh Teabing” in the book, it was not even a close vote!

The second matter to be considered is about the Scriptures and the Gospels in particular. In the same line of thought, Dan Brown– Leigh Teabing, suggest that there were many Gospels floating out there and that most were destroyed in order to preserve the desired outcome of the Council and the Emperor Constantine. Christian history scholarship does not support this idea in any way. Yes, there are new and very helpful developments in the past 60 years, such as the Nag Hammadi documents and the Qumran scrolls.

However, The Da Vinci Code is very wrong about some important things. The Qumran materials are not New Testament documents. They are Jewish--Hebrew Scriptures. These incredible documents provide the earliest copies of the Old Testament books. The community of the Essenes, who were responsible for the copying of these scriptures, gives us a good look at some aspects of the Jewish thought and community of the time of Jesus. One aspect we learn is that the Essenes were celibate and very committed to a spiritual life away from the lures of the world. Was Jesus an Essene too? Not likely, but very likely he had knowledge of and respect for them. It also shows that Jewish society did honor celibacy and that underscores the possibility that Jesus could have been celibate without any concern for a pressure to get married, as was stated in The Da Vinci Code.

The Canon of the New Testament is not reflected in the Nag Hammadi documents. Some of these are Christian and do mention Jesus. They are very new materials here. They portray Jesus as a divine super human being. Again, the Da Vinci Code is wrong when it says that the new Gospels are showing Jesus in a more human fashion than the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It is just the opposite. The new documents show Jesus as much, much more superhuman. The truth is that the new found gospels were not suppressed and kept back from revealing the knowledge and truth about Jesus, namely the more human side of Jesus. The Four Gospels of the New Testament already showed him in this way.

It is also clear that there were not thousands of writings about Jesus. Why? Most importantly is that most people were not literate and did not write. There is no proof whatsoever that there were 82 gospels floating around that were destroyed in a conspiracy to maintain only the few that supported Constantine and the Council of Nicea’s agenda. The New Testament came into being in a very long process over centuries. The New Testament did not just suddenly drop out of the sky and become Canon (which means standard or measure). That is something that we can agree with The Da Vinci Code. It was Bishop Serapion of Antioch who set the standard that a book to be included in the Canon had to be written by one of Jesus’ closest followers and that it had to be orthodox, that is, it had to represent a “correct interpretation of the teaching of Christ.” This standard was set 150 years before Constantine. The criteria for the Canon developed that the books had to be ancient, apostolic, catholic, and orthodox (P. 83, 88)

The Emperor Constantine did not form the NT Canon in the fourth century. The NT books were written some where between 50 and 150 AD/CE and were being accepted even then as canonical. The NT had been in formation for centuries before Constantine and still did not get settled out until much after Constantine’s death. 27 books had been suggested by Bishop Athanasius in 367 AD/CE and eventually were widely accepted as valid.

Are we still learning about the Gospels? Yes! Will there be any changes to the Gospels or more added to the New Testament? Very unlikely. But, I would expect that there will be a lot of new insights that will broaden our understanding of Jesus and his disciples. Such is the case with the documents, known as the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary or perhaps the Gospel of Judas.

In reality many of the new materials show Jesus as human, whose human body is important only as a temporary residence of the divine Christ. Christ is merely a divine being that is found in the likeness of a human. (P. 44, Ehrman)

The third matter is about Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene may have been much more important to Jesus than we have accepted to date. She definitely was not a prostitute as has been thought and not proven for many years. She was undoubtedly close to Jesus. She evoked a deep love from him. According to the Gospel of St. John, he was greatly disturbed and moved at her grief over the death of her brother, Lazarus. Mary Magdalene appears in many places with Jesus at the crucifixion and the tomb that displays her intense loyalty and love for him. She may have become a more authoritative apostle than even Peter. But, it is too early to speculate this.
Did he love her like a marital love? There is absolutely no proof about any sort of relationship. That is an interesting fiction story. Did she capture his heart? Well, as much as any devout and loving disciple could, Mary Magdalene may have been that much closer to Jesus. The Leonardo Da Vinci painting of the Last Supper does not validate any notion about Jesus in a relationship with Mary. Even if Da Vinci thought that there was one and was a part of some secret society, which there is no proof of, it still would not validate any suggestion of Mary Magdalene and Jesus. Da Vinci’s great artistic works do not make him a great historian!

I would not be surprised that we will learn much more about Mary Magdalene and her influence in the Christian community. I suspect that it will encourage more respect for women in ministry and for laywomen in the leadership of the church.

Out of all this we must say that the conversations about the book and movie of The Da Vinci Code have been quite helpful to put more focus on Jesus as the central figure in our faith. What is really clearer to me is that God not only knew us but also loved us in a way that is personal experiential knowledge to all of us. God knows us and our experience of God knowing us as sinners is a powerful force to attract us to the Cross and the empty tomb where hope is raised up before the world. As Jesus is lifted up not in secret knowledge but open and accessible to the greatest mind or the simplest and most humble human mind and heart on the planet earth, “Jesus loves me, this I know”. It is the amazing grace that we sing about that saved a wretch like me. Once I was lost but now I am found. This is the very same experience of the slave ship captain, John Newton, who wrote for us the words of Amazing Grace, a contemporary of our own founders of Methodism, John and Charles Wesley. It is no secret what Jesus can do for me or for you. Believe and know this to be true.
Amen.