Thoughts for the Day

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’.....

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be 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.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

Today we remember Mary Magdalene, a woman with two apparently different histories! Many know her as a penitent prostitute, or sinful woman. She is often portrayed in artwork as semi-naked, even though she had been forgiven and redeemed. It's a very powerful image, and one that has rather stuck.

But it doesn't match up with what we know of her. Nowhere in the gospels does it mention that Mary was a sinner, and she seems to have become muddled with two other people. In the 6th century Pope Gregory the Great declared Mary Magdalene had become confused with Mary of Bethany (the sister of Martha and Lazarus), and with the unknown sinner who washed Jesus' feet in Luke's Gospel (7.37-38) before drying his feet with her unbound hair which was the sign of a sinner. He concluded that the latter story was about Mary Magdalene who was a repentant sinner. This decision was finally reversed fourteen centuries later in 1969 by Pope Paul VI.

So what can we say about this Mary Magdalene? She is presumed to come from Magdala - a town on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, famed for its fishing. She was probably unmarried as she does not bear her husband's name, and she travelled with Jesus and the disciples ( Luke 8.1-3). Her name is mentioned far more than most of the disciples, and she was present at three of the most crucial moments in the Gospels: she supported the dying Jesus at his crucifixion, along with his mother Mary and with the disciple John (John 19.25-27); it was she who discovered the empty tomb, and was the first person to meet the risen Jesus (John 20.1-18). She is considered to be a Saint by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Church, and by the Lutheran Churches.

Heavenly Father,
may we have the courage that Mary Magdalene had:
to travel with Your Son through the good and bad times,
and to support the work of the Gospel when needed.
May we go looking for Him afresh each day,
and when we find Him
may we acknowledge Him as our Saviour,
involving Him in all that we do.
Amen.