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Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
July 22, 2024
The Feast of St. Mary Magdalene
John 20:11-18
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
Meditation by Jeremy O’Neill
Many of us have had the experience of running into someone we know in an unexpected place. Their presence could be a surprise because we have fallen out of contact with them, or we had thought we were separated by geography, or we thought that the context didn’t match places we expected them to spend their time. These moments are often jarring as well as joyful. We might be startled, embarrassed, uncomfortable, excited, hopeful, or many other emotion.
Now, when Mary Magdalene sees someone from her past, it isn’t just a long lost friend who moved away. She sees Jesus, the man whom she had followed and the man whom she had seen crucified. She recognizes him, after a slight delay, as a teacher. I can’t imagine the shock of seeing a person we saw die resurrected and speaking to us, and I do not blame Mary for mistaking Jesus for someone else at first. I often wonder what our reaction might have been if we were in Mary’s shoes. Would we assume we were hallucinating? Would we run away? Accuse the person of being an imposter of the person we loved? Mary has an important job to do, however, as she goes and tells the disciples and is the first person to spread the Good News of Christ’s resurrection.
Though I am not someone who has a quick answer or any notion of clarity when someone asks me about my theology, I do find myself talking a lot about how God shows up in unexpected places. I love many of the details of this passage, and believe that each can tell us something about what it means to be a follower of Christ. First of all, there are very few instances of people we might expect being the ones who show us Christ’s divine power. It is Mary Magdalene, who was thought to be a sinner, who is first person to see the Resurrected Christ. I also love that she mistakes him for the gardener, which calls us to question how many times we fail to recognize the work of God amongst our daily lives.
Finally, I love that Mary was there with Jesus at the cross. She was there in what everyone thought would be his darkest and final hour and is now forever blessed with seeing him in his moment of glory. It is easy to be a Christian when everything is going right. Our faith, however, calls us into a life of following Christ even through the dark or when out last memory of Christ is that of his death.
I hope that we can try to be with each other at the cross. It can be easy to isolate in moments of fear, but for many of us what we need in those moments is community. In turn, I hope that we can do a better job of weeping with our neighbors in moments of grief as well as celebrating with them in moments of joy and new life. Amen.
Prayer
Almighty God, whose blessed Son restored Mary Magdalene to health of body and of mind, and called her to be a witness of his resurrection: Mercifully grant that by your grace we may be healed of all our infirmities and know you in the power of his unending life; Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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