One Christian’s Easter Observations (II of II)
Warning: Below I offer a second set of two comments based on New Testament scripture that I believe have special relevance to our struggles (large and small) today. I welcome you to read on…and I respect a decision to stop here. I will return to eschewing such material in my next newsletter.
A Home above Ephesus. Iris, (most fortunately for me, my wife) and I walked up the hill from the toppled yet gloriously excavated splendors of Ephesus, an expansive ancient city of the Roman empire. We walked in a solid line several people wide, people from so many places, some wearing crosses, some burkas or hijabs, and some dressed in casual wear without religious symbols. We walked to a small chapel within a small, ancient house, a house where many believe that Mary (Jesus’ mother) lived after the crucifixion of her son. The chapel continually filled and refilled, repopulated smoothly by the steady flow of new arrivals. So many people of different origins kneeling and praying. So many women in particular, women from many places and of various faiths. They (we) all came to visit. We came to sit in a place that likely served as a home to a remarkable woman. They (we) came to consider her and her life. A life transcendent. A life not confined to or by place or religion…or time.
Mary Magdalene: institutionalized character assassination, misrepresentation, and marginalization. Different gospels portray the events of the first Easter morning somewhat differently, although John, Mark, Matthew and Luke all present women disciples as being at the center of events and all have Mary Magdalene at Jesus’ tomb. Below, I restate John’s account (20: 11-18), in my contemporary and colloquial language:
Sunday morning. Jesus pauses after rising from the dead, still enroute in his incomprehensible journey from life to death to resurrection. He pauses outside his tomb to console a sobbing Mary Magdalene. She has come on this first Easter to anoint his entombed body, the body of a teacher (rabbi) she had followed and then watched suffer and die horribly on Calvary on the Friday just passed. She finds the tomb open and in shambles-- unsealed, funerial wrappings strewn about, and empty. Jesus’ body is gone. She weeps and asks a figure standing nearby if he knows where she can find Jesus’ missing body. The figure recognizing her struggles, including her failure to recognize him, calls out her name, “Mary”. He thereby jolts her into recognizing him. The figure is Jesus. She calls out “Rabboni!” or Rabbi.
In other words, in this portrayal, Jesus has interrupted his unfathomable journey and persisted in being recognized in order to comfort one person: Mary Magdalene. She moves to embrace him, to cling to him, but he cautions her off--he has not finished his journey of transformation. He has not yet ascended to his father. Simply stated, he isn’t yet ready to be touched. That will come later, as Thomas (and others) will discover.
Jesus designates her as his messenger, telling her, in effect, to ‘tell the others I’ll be along in a bit’. Mary Magdalene gets to see him first and to talk to him first… alone. The others can wait. Jesus assures her. She can assure them. Mary Magdalene is, thereby, the apostle to the apostles. She carries Jesus’ personal assurance to a revolutionary mixture of women and men disciples, a group in which she has figured prominently, likely centrally. In a world that frequently silenced women, Jesus could not be clearer about her role as messenger, as speaker, as voice of the ‘good news’ of his resurrection.
...or about her unique prominence. From the moment that Jesus designates her as messenger to the moment of Mary Magdalene’s sharing of the word of the incredible, of Jesus’ mind boggling and faith founding return, she alone carries the ‘good news’. She alone therefore is Christianity. She alone. The same does not characterize any other person. Not ever.
The Catholic Church, Pope Gregory I in 591, punctuated the eliding of Mary Magdalene-- the discrediting and misrepresentation of Mary Magdalene-- in an Easter homily, conflating her with several other biblical women/Mary’s, and officially launching a longstanding portrayal of her as a penitent but ‘wayward’ woman. About 1400 years later (1996), another Pope (Paul II) officially removed the conflation…most likely a tad too late to alter significantly Mary Magdalene’s ‘image’… or influence.
Why consider this matter? Because one of, if not the most beloved and trusted disciple of Jesus, became discredited and conveniently (if ‘only’ relatively) marginalized. How and why might that have happened? A question worth consideration…
Truth, as best we can discern it, mattered then as it matters now. Imagine Christianity with women clearly and powerfully at the official center, perhaps even in the lead-- in the tradition of Mary Magdalene. Consider how that did NOT come to pass. Such consideration might help us to ‘go forth and to avoid this sin in the future’, perhaps even to make the old new.
From my tradition to yours, most respectfully and inclusively, Happy Easter!
Vade in pace.
(IF you wish to pursue this story further, then consider starting with either Meggan Watterson’s Mary Magdalene Revealed or James Martin’s "Who was Mary of Magdala?".)