Mary Magdalene: The Tower

Faith of Our Mothers 7

In John’s Gospel (20:1-18) we meet Mary Magdalene at Jesus’ tomb after his resurrection. She appears there without introduction, which implies that she needed no introduction because she was a prominent and well-known member of the early church. Unfortunately, 2,000 years down the track, we don’t know much about her at all, and she has been both venerated and slandered over the years by people inventing backstories for her.

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Until recently most readers assumed that Magdalene meant “from Magdala” and it was taken for granted that Mary came from a town called Magdala. Most readers were, of course, unaware that no such town existed. Elizabeth Schrader and Joan Taylor have published some excellent scholarship that, in my opinion, demonstrates conclusively that her name, Magdalene, does not refer to where she was from but to who she was. It was an appellation, or a nickname.

We know that Jesus was in the habit of giving his disciples nick-names: Peter, the Rock and the Sons of Thunder, just as God, in the Scriptures, had changed the name Sarai to Sarah. So perhaps it was Jesus himself who called Mary The Tower, which is what Magdalene means, presumably because she was a tower of strength, wisdom and conviction to the other disciples.

Mary Magdalene is the first person to speak to Jesus after his resurrection, and Jesus gives her the commission of taking the good news about his resurrection to the other disciples. She has therefore been called the apostle to the apostles.

As far as we can tell, in John’s Gospel the reason she was the first to see Jesus is that she was weeping outside the tomb. The male disciples have been rushing about in their anxiety, but she stays still. In her time and culture, mourning was women’s work.

It is not that men didn’t grieve, but mourning rituals were taken seriously and it was women who took the lead in ensuring that mourning was done properly. There were professional mourners, as we have grief counsellors today – not exactly the same but fulfilling a similar function – and they were usually women.

So it is not just that it is a woman who sees the resurrected Jesus for the first time, but it is a woman carrying out important woman’s work. After his resurrection, Jesus did not reveal himself first to men doing men’s stuff, but to a woman in the very act of being a woman. That is where Jesus finds her and commissions her as an apostle – a witness to the resurrection, commissioned to let others know.

And that’s why I’ve included images of Barbie in these posts. Whatever you think of her or the movie, Barbie represents unashamed and unabashed femaleness. And that is what we need in the church. I don’t mean women who feel we need to look like Barbie, but women who are completely themselves as we take up our call to be life-givers, theologians, prophets, priests, disciples and apostles. To do those things is not to take on male roles, but to take our place in human roles.

Let’s Pray

God who sees and calls your daughters,
Help us to honour and respect
The women you raise to towering prominence in the church;
Help us not to envy or slander them
But to find shelter in their strength,
To hear them, follow them and learn from them
About life beyond the tomb,
Hope beyond despair,
And celebration beyond the deepest grief. Amen.

We often have the opportunity to reflect on Mary Magdalene at Easter. Here is one of my Easter sermons:

With Love from Rev Margaret

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