So What If Jesus Was Married?

Christian history has never been as interesting to so many as it is now with the phenomenal success of The Da Vinci Code. With the movie soon to be released, those who are not inclined to read books will likely go see what all the hoo-haa is about. What they will find is an incredibly exciting and well-written story probably very well-played by the talented Tom Hanks. Anything beyond that will merely be icing on the cake. But why the interest in Christianity now? And more to the point, why are church people all over the country so bent out of shape over “heretical” fiction (is there such a thing?)?

Catholics have been advised by the Church to avoid reading the book or seeing the movie because of the negative light shed upon the secretive Catholic organization Opus Dei, about which very little is known, and the Catholic Church in general. Christians in general have been discouraged from indulging merely because of the premised “secret” marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and other “inaccuracies” that might mislead those who are perhaps weak in the faith. All in all, the protests from various Christian groups have helped this book break publishing records even as they have protested its contents.

Considering much of what is considered to be symbolic in the Bible, it is interesting that Christians would protest so vehemently the notion that Jesus as a man, divine though He was, could have possibly been married during His time on this earth. If all things remained the same with the exception of a wedding, would Jesus’ message be any less valued or valuable? Would His authority somehow be diminished if it were to be discovered that such a thing could have actually been possible? Would the divinity of Christ somehow take a “hit” if He were to have sullied Himself with such a worldly institution?

But wait. Marriage as taught by the Catholic Church is not a “worldly” institution, and in most Protestant doctrines it is taught as a “holy ordinance”. It is held as a sacrament of Christ’s holy Church, a gift from the Lord God. If we are encouraged to marry, how could the possibility of Jesus having been married somehow change the nature of His divinity?

By far too many traditions and teachings, Mary Magdalene has been portrayed as a prostitute by some Christian fundamentalists even though there is no correlation mentioned in the Bible between “prostitute” and Mary. This is also part of the “conspiracy” in Dan Brown’s novel that the Church had "fictionally" worked diligently to suppress. It must also be considered then to have implications far beyond merely what we know or have faith to believe to be true.

What if Mary was in fact a prostitute and Jesus married her after He had exorcised the seven demons? What would this say about the nature of the relationship between Christ and his people? Though there are many who would fight to the death any notion of such a relationship, there is a much bigger picture that must be considered. What could be derived from the knowledge of such a relationship? How could modern man possibly fathom such a union, and what would it take for disciples to swallow such a proposition?

There are many references in the New Testament of Christ the Bridegroom and His Church the bride. Jesus broke bread with sinners and tax collectors, a gathering that Pharisees and scribes tried to use as ammunition against Jesus, considering these people to be unclean and certainly not worthy of being in the presence of the Lord Himself. Yet Jesus preached all along that He did not come to condemn the world but, rather, to save us. He reminded any who would listen that those who are well are not in need of a physician. In all this, what is Christ saying to the world?

Could such a relationship between a woman like Mary, prostitute or not but formerly unclean in any case, and Jesus tell us something more about the spiritual relationship between Christ and His Church? It would speak volumes if the church were to acknowledge that we are a congregation of sinners rather than saints. It would be a voluminous message to those who live in a dark world and languish in despair. It would be a message that there is hope for a world in need of salvation and that Jesus Himself would still sit down to break bread with us as “worthy” of our invitation to have Him enter into our lives and our homes.

I do not know that Jesus was married anymore than I know that He was not. What I do know deep within the recesses of my being is that the Lord God chose to reach out to a world seemingly without hope to give us hope. Does it make me a gnostic if I were to believe that Jesus could have been married? Does it make me a heretic somehow if I were to acknowledge that there is more that I don't know than that I do know? Do I somehow not fit in with mainstream, orthodox Christianity if I believe that the LIFE of Christ Jesus was - and is - as significant to me as a disciple as His death and that His life, however spent, is supposed to be the model upon which I am to build my own life?