Mary Magdalene and the Resurrection of Jesus
Author:
April 24, 2025
It is the final week of Jesus’ life. The long-awaited “hour” of His death, pent up for so long like water behind a dam, is suddenly released, striking with blinding speed and savage fury.
Jesus’ predictions, and indeed the prophecies of Scripture, are coming all too true. In quick succession Jesus is betrayed (by Judas), arrested, bound, denied (three times by Peter), tried (by Jews and Romans), condemned as an insurrectionist, flogged, tortured, mocked, robbed, and crucified.
While most of the disciples have fled, a small group of women that includes Mary Magdalene, who was delivered from the ghastly control of seven demons, stands mournfully but resolutely by the cross. It is what will come to be known as Good Friday.
Then Jesus, the Word who created the world, dies, his side pierced with a Roman spear just to make sure. The mangled body is taken down and laid in the nearby garden tomb of a heretofore secret follower named Joseph of Arimathea.
Somehow, the stars do not fall from the sky. The Lamb of God who created them and who turned water into wine, who saved a dying boy from miles away, who restored a man lame for 38 years, who fed a multitude with five loaves and two fish, who walked across the stormy sea, who healed a man born blind, and who called back His friend Lazarus from the realm of death has now gone there Himself, taking with Him the sins of the world. As the great hymn says, “’Tis mystery all: th’Immortal dies.”
A huge stone is rolled in front of the tomb. With the Sabbath rapidly approaching, the careful preparation of the bloody corpse for burial is only half-done, which Mary from Magdala notices with anguish as day turns to night. She must wait for Sunday in order to finish the grim job, in one final act of devotion.
Finally the day dawns. Mary and some other women return to the tomb, not in hope, but out of duty and love. I’m struck that it was these brave and hardy women—not the grieving but apparently useless apostles—who are ready to offer this grim work of devotion unto their Lord. It has been said many times, rightly I believe, that women are the backbone of the church. When men fail, you can usually count on the women to pick up the slack.
What Mary sees in the early light of day produces in her “trembling and astonishment.” The body of her Lord is gone.
Mary quickly tells the disciples, who dismiss her report as “an idle tale.” But then Peter and “the other disciple,” John, the one whom Jesus loved, come to their senses and decide to check it out. They forget all about Mary and run toward the tomb, drawn like magnets.
John, who is faster, gets there first and stoops to get a look. He is transfixed, seeing the grave clothes arranged neatly, but with no body inside them. Grieving and guilty Peter arrives next and, true to form, plunges right in. John follows the impetuous fisherman inside, “and,” John reports about himself, “he saw and believed.”
Peter and John leave the empty tomb, as superfluous now as a chrysalis. Mary, emotionally overcome, eventually finds her way back, hoping the body will somehow turn up. She weeps, expecting no miracle. She is just there to anoint the corpse, if she can find it.
As if Mary still cannot believe what has happened, she bends and peers with tear-soaked eyes into the tomb … and sees two figures sitting where the body had been. “Woman,” they ask politely, “why are you weeping?” (They are angels, though she doesn’t know it.) Mary replies in confusion, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”
Mary’s surprise is normal. She has seen death and knows it never gives back its captives. Mary, like many of us overwhelmed with the pain of a broken life, is in despair.
Then she straightens up and sees another figure. Mary assumes it is the gardener. He asks the same question as the angels, adding, “Whom are you seeking?” “Sir,” Mary replies, “if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Heartbroken, she looks away again.
Only in this case, Jesus is not gone. The Living One, who died for our sins and who now is alive forever, who holds the keys of Death and Hades, decides to reveal Himself to this disconsolate, distracted disciple. It only takes a word: “Mary.” It is a greeting of familiarity, of relationship.
Mary turns in wonder. This Man is no gardener. The One who freed her from the worst terrors of hell knows her by name, just as He knows yours. In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King, the hobbit Sam sees Gandalf the wizard back from the dead and exclaims, “I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue?”
The resurrection of Jesus means that one day everything sad is going to come untrue—for Mary Magdalene, and for all who turn to Him in faith.
Stan Guthrie is Minister of Communications for New Covenant Church in Naperville, Illinois.
TINTORETTO - Magdalena penitente (Musei Capitolini, Roma, 1598-1602) - copia.jpg. Public Domain.
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