Mary Magdalene
Sarah Bernhardt as Mary Magdalene (1887), painting by Alfred Stevens. Oil on canvas, 111.8 cm × 77.3 cm (44 in × 30.4 in). Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent
I will get this one thing out of the way:
Mary Magdalen did not look like a beautiful blond, 19th century, American actress named Sarah Bernhardt. However, the portrait by Stevens captures her vulnerability, love, humanity, and inner beauty.
Now, we can move on. This is Mary's feast day and it merits a dive into some of the history, biblical thought, and resources around her life so that you can do your own study and write your own commentary.
In any life, there are lessons. I encourage you to find the lessons of her life.
As darkness faded into dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came, bereft, to the tomb, sensing that she would never again call any man, "Teacher," or "Master."
Those days had passed with all of their possibilities, hopes, and assurances that life made sense because her teacher had made sense to her ...
... to her heart.
“Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.” - John 13:13
“… The Master is come, and calleth for thee.” - John 11:28
“If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet.” - John 13:14
“Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.” - John 20:16
As the sun broke through the veil of night, Jesus, the Light, suddenly stood before her, unrecognized and ordinary like a gardener.
It was in speaking that it all came back together. It was in speaking simple questions and calling her name. Hope arose again. He had risen from the dead.
He is our Master Teacher, who so identifies Himself. But He is also the Master who calls us by name and washes our feet as a lesson to us that the true master is he who serves. He is our Master and Lord and example. If any could demand mindless obedience, it is He.
From the beginning of His ministry as He began to call out disciples, He was recognized as the Master-Teacher of life. When He came to Bethany for Lazarus and called for His sisters, it was as the Master. When He gathered with His friends in the upper room (for He had come to call them friends), it was the Master who bent down to perform the role of a slave. Then, at the garden tomb, the one who had endured the indignity and pain of the cross called for Mary. And she recognized Him as Master.
It is not our knowledge of Him or recognition of His position that makes Him the Master, but His knowledge of us and His call in our lives. The Risen Christ stands before you. He is calling your name. Can you see Him? Can you hear Him? What shall you call Him?
Acknowledge Him today as the only rightful Master of your life.
"Modern Protestants honor her as a disciple and friend of Jesus. Anglican Christians refer to her as a saint and may follow her example of repentance.... The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America honors Mary Magdalene on July 22 as an apostle.... Presbyterians honor her as the "apostle to the apostles" and, in the book Methodist Theology, Kenneth Wilson describes her as, "in effect", one of the "first missionaries"." - excerpted from Wikipedia
As the deer longs for the water-brooks, *
so longs my soul for you, O God.
My soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God; *
when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?
My tears have been my food day and night, *
while all day long they say to me, “Where now is your God?”
I pour out my soul when I think on these things; *
how I went with the multitude and led them into the house of God,
With the voice of praise and thanksgiving, *
among those who keep holy-day.
Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? *
and why are you so disquieted within me?
Put your trust in God; *
for I will yet give thanks to him, who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;
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 around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?"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.
Mary in the Garden
Originally posted in Kings River Life
“At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid.” — John 19:41
It was early in the morning, very early indeed. There was no alarm to awaken them. They dutifully arose and still asleep, walked silently to the place they had no desire to be to do the thing they had no desire to do.
It was a lovely, lonely garden, tucked away, with nothing much in bloom –
It was a cave hewn away from a hill, a hole in a rock, a room of gloom and doom.
Every fragrance from a flower was tucked into a jar of glass,
Collected, condensed, and compacted, waiting for the death-knell days to pass.
Came Friday, Saturday, Saturday, Friday, Sat-ur-day.
The last time in a garden, they had gone away to pray.
But now, there was no use, no hope, no call to come, no one to care –
It was just a dead and dying garden and death itself, and the dead, without a prayer.
Life began in a garden and there it seemed to end. Yet, it was there, in a garden that it began anew.
There is some controversy about the exact location of the garden tomb. There is little controversy about the report that Joseph’s tomb was in a garden and that he lent it to the Teacher.
Mary met one she supposed to be a gardener there. He was a gardener, and more.
She and others had come to anoint His body and grieve His loss and meditate upon the meaning of a meaningless future without Him. They had brought incense and spice to compensate for the putridity of the lifeless garden, to sanctify the empty shell, and preserve, for a moment, the decaying flesh for the one who had animated that body and animated life itself.
How often, He had taken His band of brothers to the gardens to pray. He made gardens of hope wherever He went. The wilderness could blossom. Deserts exploded with beauty. That’s the way He was and was no more.
That would change. It would change with such a tidal wave of unexpected hope and surprising light that the eyes of their hearts would have to refocus on His resurrected presence before they could begin to realize that He was again among them.
In a moment, everything changed and they had not anticipated it. They had been taught to hope, but they had not learned how. They had no frame of reference for such appalling and audacious hope. They did not know how to respond.
C. Austin Miles tells his story of a personal journey to such a garden of his own heart,
“I read…the story of the greatest morn in history: ‘The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, while it was yet very dark, unto the sepulcher.’ Instantly, completely, there unfolded in my mind the scenes of the garden of Joseph….Out of the mists of the garden comes a form, halting, hesitating, tearful, seeking, turning from side to side in bewildering amazement. Falteringly, bearing grief in every accent, with tear-dimmed eyes, she whispers, ‘If thou hast borne him hence’… ‘He speaks, and the sound of His voice is so sweet the birds hush their singing.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ Just one word from his lips, and forgotten the heartaches, the long dreary hours….all the past blotted out in the presence of the Living Present and the Eternal Future.”
So, he wrote the devastatingly beautiful hymn, “In the Garden.”
I know little about your garden, whether it be a budding garden of emerging beauty or a dormant patch of ground, whether it is a garden of intimate prayer or a garden of sorrow. I only know of this one garden that is the source of all seeds of life. It is the garden of resurrection.
An earthquake rattled the ground and shook the foundations. A stone rolled away and a cold, death hole in the rock took a deep breath of fresh air and out walked Life Himself.
And in He walks into our worlds of despair and hopelessness. Along the road to Emmaus, He walks with us. Into our upper rooms of seclusion and fear, He walks. Into the dark gardens of our personal Gethsemanes, He walks. Wherever we walk or fall, He comes and when He comes, we often mistake Him for just another gardener until He speaks or breaks the bread of life.
Our hearts burn within us. There is a rekindling of the fire of possibility. We are rattled to the core and the sun rises on a new day, a Sun-day!
There was nothing intrinsically attractive about the garden tomb. There is nothing intrinsically attractive about our barren circumstances. We wallow in our defeats; we hover under the stress of our worst nightmares; we wander aimlessly from the village to the tomb and back again without any sense of direction pondering the meaning of that which is meaningless.
And then …
And then, we hear someone calling our name as clearly as we have ever heard it. It is the voice of One who not only knows our name, but knows us in all of our pain, failure, sin, and sorrow. It is the voice of One who loves and accepts us. It is a credible voice. It is the voice of life. It is the voice of resurrection. It is the voice of Jesus.
He says things like …
“Because I live, you shall live also …”
“I am with you always …”
“I will never leave you or forsake you …”
“Go therefore and make disciples …”
“Be steadfast …. Your labor is not in vain …”
“Rejoice and be exceeding glad …”
“I go to prepare a place for you …”
“I am the way, the truth, and the life …”
“I am the resurrection and the life …. Do you believe this?”
Do you believe this?
Do you?
Grab your Easter basket, put on your Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it, and don your Easter duds. Hop in your car and head to the nearest church, but stop a moment along the way and reflect. You can go through all the motions of Easter and fill yourself with Easter goodies and still be carrying perfume to a hole in a rock if you do not believe that this celebration is more than a seasonal exercise in dead ritual.
Life began and ended in a garden and it is in a garden that life began again. It can for you today as well! The tomb is empty and the earth is full of the glory of God. Messages and indicators of death surround us, but this day, and all who have met Him alive in the garden testify to this reality: Life overcomes death
Come to the garden!
Another Devotional — Two Marys
“Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? … Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.”(Excerpted from John 20:15- 16)
Once, there were two Marys, one from Nazareth and one from Magdala, a Christmas Mary and an Easter Mary. Their lives and their journeys overlapped. Each found Jesus in the midst of crisis. Each submitted to the Master in humble consecration. Each loved Him with pure and sincere love.
Mary, the mother of Jesus received an angelic announcement of Jesus’ coming. Mary Magdalene received such an announcement of His resurrection — and then, she saw Him! Mary of Nazareth submitted her life as the handmaid of the Lord; Mary of Magdala as a disciple.
Both Marys were shocked and dismayed by their circumstances. Both came to the place of rejoicing and praise through encounter with the Lord. It is always Easter at Christmas for the Christian and always Christmas at Easter. In our dismay and bewilderment with the circumstances of our lives, we receive the Jesus message as a whole package and we submit our lives to Him.
Mary of Nazareth began her journey with Jesus before He was born and followed Him to the cross and beyond to the empty tomb. Mary Magdalene joined Him later in the journey, but had the same quality of encounter with Him. It is the encounter that we must have.
Come to Mary’s house today and let Jesus be conceived in your heart. Come to the manger and rejoice at His birth. Come to the cross and let His blood wash away your sins. Come to the empty tomb and receive His life eternal Come to Jesus today, and worship Him.
It’s Christmas! Happy Easter!
Why Are You Weeping?
"Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her" - John 20:18
The sequence is familiar. The characters are well known. The story is dear to our hearts. It was the first day of the week. It was early in the morning. Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb. She saw that the stone had been removed. It was the stone that was placed to prevent theft of the body of Jesus.
It was early in the morning. She ran and went to Simon and the other disciple, most likely, John. She was distressed and disturbed. She assumed that the body of Jesus had been stolen. It was all that they had left of Jesus.
The two disciples ran. The one with the special relationship with Jesus ran ahead and reached the tomb first. He bent down, and saw the wrappings lying there, but he didn't go in. Simon followed and entered the tomb. Then the other disciple went into the tomb.
John tells us that he saw, and he believed. What did he see? What did he believe?
He saw, and he believed, that the tomb was empty. Today we continue to confess that the tomb is empty. But none of them really knew what that meant because they were yet to understand the scriptures and how the scriptures taught that Jesus must rise from the dead.
Mary was outside the tomb. She was weeping. She is the first person after the resurrection that Jesus spoke with.
Why are you weeping?
She replied that they had taken her Lord and she did not know where they had placed him. Then she turned around and she saw the man with whom she had been speaking. But she did not recognize Jesus. She thought he was the
When Jesus called her name, Mary, the lights came on for her. There's something about Jesus calling your name. Have you heard him in the dark corridors of your life? Have you encountered him among the gravestones calling your name?
She knew him. In Aramaic, she called him “Teacher.”
After a bit more conversation, Jesus gave her a job. She was to go and tell Jesus’ brothers that he was alive. And she did. This Easter, is there a greater message that you can convey?
I have seen the Lord.
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