59: Meditations on the resurrection, part 6: Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene, it seems, understood a lot more about Jesus than the disciples did. No wonder the relationship is such a source of fascination and bad romance novels.

But the Bible doesn't tell us much about her at all. Some equate her with the adulterous woman who was almost stoned to death, and some with the one who anointed Jesus' feet. It becomes more confusing because it seems that two-thirds of the women in Jesus' life were named "Mary".

Easter morning finds Mary Magdalene sobbing before an empty tomb. Others had already seen it and gone home scratching their heads, but she couldn't just get over it like that. Two angels ask her why she is crying. In possibly the least astonished reaction to an angelic appearance recorded in the Bible, Mary tells them that her Lord has been taken away.

Jesus appears on the scene and asks her the same question. She does not recognize him at first, but when he says her name, she gives a cry and, apparently, embraces him. He tells her not to touch him (I think his words could even be translated as "stop touching me").

The resurrected Jesus was frequently not recognized immediately by those who knew him. The moment of recognition, when it comes, seems to have some personal significance for each of them.

Mary Magdalene recognizes him when he speaks her name. The Bible tells us that he had driven seven demons out of her. She recognizes the voice that had called her, by name, from out of the darkness of demonic possession. Was that moment a reminder of her first contact with the Light? Did it go back even beyond that -- was it originally maybe not so much a "calling by her name" as a "giving her a name"?

Many people tell us we have a choice as to whether or not we want to follow Jesus, but sometimes I wonder whether all of us really do. I live my day-to-day existence as if I had a choice in the things I do, but when Jesus called me, did I really have the possibility of rejecting the Call? I don't really feel that I did. I found, I think, what the Book of Common Prayer refers to when it says, "Your love compels us to come in." Compels.

The moment of being called. Was this what Mary Magdalene was re-living, or remembering, when she heard her Master call her by her name in front of the empty tomb?