Easter Day 31st March 2024:Isaiah 25:6-9, Acts 10: 34-43 and John 20:1-18
Jesus said to her, 'Mary!'
Mary Magdalene: a woman known and called by name.
She stood at the cross, watched the burial and returned to the tomb: weeping at daybreak.
Last night at St Paul’s, Reza, Lily, Halle-May and Omid were also called by name - in part because of what happens next.
Like them we are called by name because Mary’s tears were not the end. We’re called because of her witness.
Sometimes Mary’s faith and faithfulness have been spun into fantasy.
Some discredit or diminish her - others find in her a reason to hope.
In the Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown reduces her to the matriarch carrying Jesus' secret blood-line.
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ presents her as the sinful woman who repents.
In Judas, Lady Gaga narrates the story of a woman who knows love, betrayal and forgiveness.
Mary: called by name from a small village called Magdala.
She walked from Galilee to Jerusalem because she saw in Jesus the depth of God’s love for us, allowed forgiveness and hope to fill her heart.
That same heart breaks today in exhaustion and grief. She is utterly spent in love.
May weeps.
The emptiness of the tomb unleashes raw emotion; the silence and cries that grief brings; the disrupted relationships and yet the desire to be with others.
She tries to describe what she sees to Peter and John - telling them what she fears or thinks she knows.
They run away from her and towards the tomb: caught between sight and insight, belief and bewilderment, they go home.
Mary doesn't run. She stays. She stands alone. Weeping.
Another voice repeats the angel's question; and she repeats her conviction.
This is death. This is final. This is emptiness.
Supposing him to be a gardener, she meets his whys with her own ifs.
The space and the silence is shattered by one word: her name.
Here she is called. By name.
She is known. She is seen.
She addresses her Lord as Rabboni!
The unbelievable has happened in history: Jesus has been raised from death, all creation is bound to him in this living hope. The hope that love wins. Death is not the final world; forgiveness, renewal and joy echo throughout the world.
For Mary, an instinct as strong as grief compels her to reach out.
In love she wants to hold and be held.
Love replies, saying: Do not cling on to me.
In him, death was the beginning of life, not the ending of love.
The lost intimacy of touch translates into the powerful embrace of story.
For us, as much as Mary Magdalene, embracing new life means letter go. She teaches us how.
She points us to the risen Lord who loves us from loss to life, sorrow to peace.
In her grief and loss, she is called by name; she is brought home, to a place of peace; in her letting go she is sent.
She cannot cling on to her risen Lord; but she continues to walk in his light.
Mary walked from despair to hope. She learned to live and love more abundantly, more intensely, more lightly.
This woman, this Mary, is the passionate, committed, intense and faithful witness to resurrection.
Her pain, tears, honesty and longing are gathered up. She shows us how to live, moment by moment.
It's a profoundly sacramental pattern of life. We are renewed in our bodies - each Eucharist a foretaste of the heavenly banquet of well matured wine - and broken bread.
Love shown in such signs reminds us all that we are can become a means of grace and hope and good news to others. She goes to her brothers to face their needs and expectations with the words 'I have seen the Lord'.
She embodies the conviction we hear when Peter himself speaks : the love of Christ which urges us on; the death that overcomes death; risen life lived for others; the liberation of forgiveness.
We are a new creation - Peter, like Mary, recognizes that love is known in the particular: we are called by name, through a veil of tears, to be witnesses to the fact that God’s desire is for communion.
In the power of the Spirit, may we, like Mary, witness to the love of God made manifest in Christ Jesus. Love that forgives the past; love that transforms the present; love that enlightens hearts, minds; love that brings the life that is life
Mary Magdalene and the Gardener - Jay Hulme.
At first Mary thought He was a gardener,
this miraculous Son.
She saw the dirt under His nails
though the tears in her eyes,
and saw not the grave, but the bringer of life;
And how was she wrong, then?
This woman wrapped in grief,
who saw the dirt of a borrowed tomb,
and thought at first of things which bloom;
Which turn their heads to the sun,
and burst into joyous colour.
© Julie Gittoes 2024
