The Song I Wish We Could Sing on the Fifth Sunday of Lent

If you want to read the New Testament, it helps to have the Old Testament just as handy. The Old Testament speaks of events and persons that "prefigure" New Testament realities. The Old is great; the New is great-plus.

This song, an African-American spiritual, seems to place the encounter of Jesus with Mary Magdelene on Easter morning: "Woman, why are you weeping?" within the history of the Hebrew people, in which God saved them.

Oh, Mary, don't you weep no more,
Oh, Mary, don't you weep no more.
Pharoah's army got drownded
Oh, Mary, don't you weep.



But this is where things get really interesting. In other versions of the song, it is clear that the "Mary" is not Mary Magdelene, but Mary the sister of Lazarus, and Jesus is speaking to her, foreshadowing his own rising, "I am the resurrection and the life."

Oh, Mary, don't you weep.
Tell Martha not to moan.
Oh, Mary,don't you weep.
Tell Martha not to moan.
Don't you know that Pharoah's army drowned in the Red Sea?