Scripture
1 Now it was the first day of the week. Mary Magdalene came, early on while it was still dark, to the tomb and saw the stone removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Messiah out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”
11 Now Mary stood outside, facing the tomb, weeping. As she wept, she bent down to see in the tomb. 12 Then she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why do you weep?” She said to them, “Because they have taken my Savior, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why do you weep? For whom do you look?” Thinking it was the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not hold me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. Rather, go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Abba and your Abba, to my God and your God.’” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Savior”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
~John 20:1-2, 11-18, Translation from “A Woman’s Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year W, by the Rev. Dr. Wilda A Gafney.
Meditation
All the gospels tell us stories of Jesus and his disciples. Some names stand out. Simon Peter, the fisherman, older brother of Andrew. John and James, sons of Zebedee, also fishermen, who, for some reason, have the nickname “sons of thunder.” But only one disciple is the chief witness to the resurrection, mentioned by name in all four gospels. Only one disciple is called “apostola apostolorum,” apostle to the apostles, for their role in bringing the Good News of the resurrection on Easter morning. And only one disciple has been egregiously misrepresented and misinterpreted for at least fifteen hundred years. Of course, I’m speaking of Mary Magdalene.
First, let’s talk about her name. Most scholars hold that her surname is the place of her birth, and that she is from a fishing community on the Sea of Galilee named “Magdala.” Magdala means “tower.” There is another theory, though, that the name is a title of honor given her by the early church, so that her name is Mary, Tower of Strength. Whether or not this is true, it seems appropriate, given everything we know about her.
Like most of you, I imagine, I grew up believing Mary Magdalene was a reformed prostitute, and also, probably, the woman taken in adultery. After all—that’s how she was portrayed in “King of Kings,” the watching of which is one of my earliest memories of how my family observed Easter. That’s how she was shown in “Jesus Christ Superstar,” where she has the best song in the show, “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.” That’s how she was portrayed in the miniseries, “Jesus of Nazareth,” which I watched with the Sisters of Mercy in the convent at Holy Spirit High School. And that’s how she was overwhelmingly portrayed, not only in popular culture, but in 15 centuries of fine art. Don’t take my word for it—Google is your friend.
How did this happen? And what is the true legacy of the Magdalene for those of us who read scripture, and, like her, seek to follow Jesus today?
Only one gospel mentions Mary before she appears at the cross: the gospel according to Luke. We meet her at the beginning of chapter 8, which reads:
Soon afterward [Jesus] went on through one town and village after another, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who ministered to them out of their own resources.
Chapter 8 names Mary as a disciple, and a leader among disciples. In scripture, when several people are named, they are usually listed in order of importance, or prominence. Mary is always named first, except when Jesus’ mother is involved. Magdalene was an important disciple of Jesus, both during his lifetime, and in the early years of the church. Note that she and the other women “ministered” to Jesus; they served him by providing for him. And note, too, that Mary is identified as someone whom Jesus has healed: he has cast out seven demons from her. This probably indicates that she had an illness with a mental component.
Some years ago, I wrote a brief monologue, imagining Mary’s experience of that healing:
They said this of me: "She has cracked," they said. Like an egg thrown at a wall. The smooth comfort of the home that was my own mind, gone. Instead, bits of what-was-me splattered, scattering, running down the wall and into the waste pile. Sharp-edged fragments lost in the dusty roads that run through my village.
I do not remember, you understand-- could not re-member my smashed and scattered self, even after I was once again, as if by the deepest magic, restored and whole. My mother had to tell me. She did not want to. "No, it is over. Forget if you can." But I demanded the details.
... lying in the alleys moaning, head uncovered, insects in my hair.
... screeching profanities at the priests in their processions.
... following the children to their places of play, scuttling along in the dust like a crab, flinging back the stones they threw at me in fear.
... tearing my clothes and rolling in the dung.
... drawing a picture on my arm with my father's finest knife.
These things I do not remember. My mother had to tell me.
She told me also of the band of drifters, with their wandering sage. She told me this as the mists parted, and I awakened on her bed to find the last signs of my madness being bathed away. How he found me, frothing like a dog that ought to be drowned, filthy and grinning, chasing women from the well with my stench. How he studied me until I-- I returned his gaze, and then tried to run. How with his words-- words heard only by me, for no one else would come near-- he captured me and I paused in my flight. And how-- there were thirty or more witnesses, so this is true-- he touched me. He laid his hand upon my head and said one healing word.
Some say, I screamed a deafening scream, and they saw seven demons fly out of my mouth. Or that I writhed on the ground until they thought I was dead. Or that the old demons were replaced with a new one. But my mother tells me otherwise. She tells me that I stood still for a very long time. And people lost their interest and wandered away. And that eventually he turned back to his strange fishy smelling band and walked on through town. And that I quietly, very quietly asked a woman standing off at a small distance, "Are you my mother?" And that she, my mother, took me in her arms and led me home.
Within a day, a week, a month, I was once again smooth and round and whole, like an egg. And I collected a few things and set forth from my mother's house. I was clean and dressed as befits a woman of my station, with a bundle of large coins in my purse. And I walked down the same road, in search of the sage and his companions, so that I too might learn to heal.
"Woman, be healed."
"Woman, you are whole."
He said this to me. I say this to you.
Some paintings of Mary Magdalene show her anointing Jesus’ head or feet, but that’s an error—Mary of Bethany anointed Jesus in John’s gospel, not this Mary. Nor is she the “sinful” woman who anointed Jesus in Luke’s gospel. That’s another error. Nowhere in scripture does it indicate that this Mary anointed Jesus. But that anointing in Luke’s gospel is likely what inspired Pope Gregory the great, in the sixth century, to conflate all the women who anointed Jesus into one, and say it was Mary Magdalene. He took as evidence the fact that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her, and in a sermon, equated those demons with the seven deadly sins. As scholar Carolyn Osiek has noted, “Onto her was projected the male fascination with the repristinated sex object [the sex object made pristine again].” That projection took hold, and, from that century on, almost entirely obliterated what comes next.
What comes next is the cross. We meet Mary at the cross, where, with other women, she stands at a distance. She is believed to be the only person who is witness to Jesus’ death in all four gospels. Jesus had been witness to her suffering, and she, in turn, is witness to his. In two of the gospels, she follows those who bear Jesus’ body to the tomb. And in every single gospel, she is there at the break of day, on the first day of the week. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, she is with other women, sometimes bringing spices and ointments, to properly prepare Jesus’ body for the long sleep of death, which no one had been able to do, as he was hastily buried before the sabbath.
In John’s gospel Mary is alone. She discovers the tomb empty, and knows, with certainty, that Jesus’ body has been stolen. There is a very good reason why Mary might think that. When someone who has been a great and influential leader is killed by those who deem him dangerous, the people who killed him never want a shrine to pop up at the place of his death, or the place of his burial. This is the reason why Osama bin Laden was buried at sea—the US government did not want there to be a shrine that would become an important symbol to his followers.
Mary runs to find Peter and the disciple Jesus loved, and after they run to have a look at the empty tomb, they leave, and she is alone again. Now she is weeping. Looking into the tomb, she finds angels, one sitting where the head of Jesus had lay, and one sitting where his feet had been. Between them the angels are holding the space, showing what is absent. They ask Mary a question: Woman, why are you weeping? Even though she is looking at angels, she persists in her certainty that Jesus’s body has been stolen. This is something that I recently learned is called “normalcy bias.” We are entirely, constitutionally resistant to things that we think are impossible, or, impossible here. Mary’s normalcy bias doesn’t even allow her to notice that these are angels, beings all the other humans in scripture recognize when they encounter them.
Mary turns away and sees Jesus. But she thinks he is the gardener—again, normalcy bias. He is dead, so she does not see him standing there, very much alive. He, too, asks why she is weeping, and Mary, once again, persists with the narrative that Jesus’ body has been stolen—it is the only thing that makes sense.
But then, something happens. Something ordinary, and extraordinary. Jesus calls Mary by her name. And the sheep do know the voice of their shepherd. And finally, his voice, that beloved, familiar voice, breaks through the impossibility of it all, and Mary can, at last, see him. She calls out, Rabbouni! My Teacher.
Then, there’s a silence in the text, but we know from Jesus’ words that Mary has tried to embrace him. He says, now is not the time. But Jesus has a commission for Mary Magdalene. He sends her with good news—THE Good News—to the disciples. He sends her to tell the glorious, impossible truth of the resurrection. He sends her to bring joy to the sorrowful, hope to the hopeless, and truth to those who are, as Mary was, not yet able to see it. Jesus makes her, in that moment, Apostle to the Apostles, a title even older than Gregory the Great’s awful sermon.
But all that was obliterated for fifteen centuries. Instead of knowing her as the chief witness to the crucifixion and resurrection and the Apostle to the Apostles, little kids like me grew up being told that Mary was a rehabilitated prostitute, and then we had to ask our mothers what that meant.
All the gospels tell us stories of Jesus and his disciples. Some names stand out. Mary’s certainly does. Mary Magdalene stands out as she lives the truth that women are disciples, too, apostles, even, though so many parts of the church fail to see it. Alas, in the case of Greg the Great, it almost seems as if her reputation as a disciple was intentionally tarnished to make way for the church’s veneration of Peter as the only real leader in the early church. And yet, the fullness of the gospel witness is not ambiguous. She is a leader.
Mary Magdalene also lives the truth that those of us who are broken can be made whole, and can find in that a calling to help others find wholeness. And even the brokenness that Gregory invented has been a blessing for some, who see themselves in her supposed former life and are reassured that God’s grace is truly without limit. Mary is a lodestar for those who seek wholeness in and through their faith in Jesus; we can see that she was made whole, and we know there is room and hope for us.
And Mary Magdalene lives the truth that courage and persistence are the only possible response to God’s call. And listen to the many titles she owns, summarized by Dr. Gafney: “disciple, apostle, preacher, eyewitness of the Passion, conversant with angels, benefactrix, burial attendant, healed/ transformed/ exorcised, messenger/ angel of the gospel.” Not to mention Tower of Strength. May Mary’s courage and persistence and love encourage us, inspire us, and reassure us that, truly, we, too, are called.
Thanks be to God. Amen.