The woman we remember in today’s feast has had so much imposed upon her since she was first introduced to us in the pages of scripture, that it is difficult to untangle the things that we really know of her, from the things that have been assumed, that have been conflated with others and with the impressions and fables captured in art, in literature and in the media. I make no pretense to be doing anything other than adding to those layers of her character, her actions and her faith, but I do so because her story is one that brings us within touching distance of Jesus, a fact that I think lies at the heart of her universal appeal to us down through the centuries.
We can be pretty sure that this Mary was an independent woman from the lakeside town of Magdala, on the Sea of Galilee. Why independent? Because in scripture she takes her name from the place, rather than from her nearest male relative. The myth of her sinful past may well rest on the absence of these reassuring family ties, and the layer of assumption built in from the fact that her closest relationship with a man appears to have been with Jesus.
We can be pretty sure that despite the red dress used in so many artistic impressions of this woman, Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute. Too long has her story been conflated with those of the sinner who touches Jesus in Luke 7:39 and Mary of Bethany who anoints Jesus in John 12, whose characters likewise have been impugned. Scripture does testify, more than once, to the fact that Mary of Magdala may have had mental health issues when she first encountered Jesus, who expelled seven demons that were referred to in Luke 8:2 and Mark 16:9. The number seven probably only suggests the severity of her illness, not its nature and cause, which have themselves become a rich source for the imagination of more modern writers and theologians, wanting to encourage a more positive pastoral attitude to mental health care through the example of Jesus’ ministry to her. And yet scripture gives us no detail of this healing encounter with our Lord, perhaps because, as some have suggested, it took place over the months and years of their friendship during Jesus’ travels, rather than in one single, miraculous encounter.
Our chief evidence for the action, character and ministry of Mary Magdalene is in the scripture that forms our Gospel on this, her Feast Day (John 20:1‑2, 11‑18). Here is a woman who, with others, wanted to give the body of the crucified teacher the reverence it was due, to fill the void that being a witness to his murder had created in her heart. But the emptiness she initially encounters is even greater than anticipated, as she reaches a tomb now devoid of the healing that a graveside watch can bring.
As was the case at the crucifixion, once the initial encounter with the confusion of Christ’s resurrection is made, the “men” she encounters at the tomb, whom she hoped might support her in their shared perplexity, vanish. So she weeps alone with a grief that soaks through the layers of her life as well as her clothes. But the presence of angels creates the questioning that cuts through her desolation.
Possibly the most consistent point of reflection through all the layers of Magdalene myths is the scriptural evidence that it is not only angels that she sees, but the risen Lord himself, whom she finally encounters and recognizes when he calls her by her name. As she reaches out to cling to the one that brought her healing, she comes up against another stage in the healing process, one that does not rebuff, but invites her to re-enter the independent life with which she first encountered Jesus, but now without the baggage of illness with which she had previously been encumbered. As the Apostle to the Apostles, she was sent to share the good news of the reality of the resurrected Christ with those who had run too soon to witness it themselves, Mary of Magdala finally receives the freedom that comes with true healing and renewed purpose.
I wonder how much the layers of people’s suppositions about OUR histories and OUR characters weigh upon OUR lives? People think they know something about us when they glimpse a few simple facts that might include our marital status (past or present), a bereavement or an illness. Likewise, we may grudgingly recognize that in the light of the snapshots we see of other peoples’ lives week by week, whether in their homes, the shops or in the national headlines, we impose our own layers of conjecture as to how they understand themselves, their spiritual journeys, and their encounters with God.
Like Mary Magdalene, what we need to encounter for ourselves is not only the healing that comes from being a follower of Christ, happy to stay on the road with him week by week and willing to stand at the cross of his suffering with others, but also to encounter the emptiness of those places and relationships where initially he seems absent. We have to trust Jesus to reveal himself to us, not only in those places where we expect him, like in a much-beloved church, but in the places where perhaps we have given up looking for him.
On finding the place where they expected to find Jesus, many have run away, because they were looking for someone who had died and was no longer there. The freedom of the resurrection, the hope that Mary of Magdala was the first to understand, was that sometimes it is only when we stop and sit and weep with our broken expectations, that we encounter the living Christ. Only in that encounter, wherever or in whomever it is formed, will we know not only freedom, but the purpose to which Jesus is sending us back into the world in which he calls us to live in day by day.
May God Bless You and Grant You His Peace!