What lessons can we learn from Mary Magdalene?
This question could inspire several chapters, or even several books. Indeed, I guess it already has done that and more. The New Testament character known to us as Mary Magdalene offers us many nuggets of wisdom. I will touch on just a few here:
First, with our tongues planted firmly in our cheeks, we would note that the woman teaches us the dangers of giving our daughters common popular names. The New Testament has no shortage of Marys—the mother of Jesus, the sister of the mother of Jesus, the sister of Martha, the “other Mary” who accompanied them to the anointing of the body, and the Magdalene, just to name a few. Was the Magdalene the woman with the unclean spirits, or was she the woman who wept before Jesus and dried his feet with her hair? Was she the one who sat at Jesus’ feet while her sister Martha served the guests? It can be difficult sorting out what lessons we can learn when identifying the correct Mary is not easy.
But more importantly, Mary Magdalene teaches us to be brave. While the Romans were torturing and crucifying Jesus, his male disciples fled to avoid arrest themselves. Mary Magdalene stayed and witnessed the flogging, the nailing to the cross, the slow, painful death, the removal of the body from the cross, and its placement in a nearby cave. It was she who saw where they laid him so that she could return after the Sabbath to anoint his body. It was she who first learned that he was alive again.
Third, Mary Magdalene teaches us that women are not second-class in Jesus’ eyes, no matter what rules and restrictions that his male followers may have imposed later. As mentioned above, she was present at the crucifixion while all the men had run and hidden. Any stories about what happened at the crucifixion likely came from Mary because the men were not there to witness it. (For this reason, I believe that Mary was probably the “beloved disciple” to whom the dying Jesus entrusts the care of his own mother in the crucifixion story told in the Gospel According to John. The male-dominated church decided many years later that, since they were attributing authorship of that gospel to a disciple named John, then John himself must have been the beloved disciple. But there is nothing in the gospel to back up such an assertion other than the author quoting Jesus, “Woman, behold your son,” from the cross. John’s gospel was written 60 to 80 years after the crucifixion and decades after the destruction of Jerusalem. If the decision had already been made to highlight the men and downplay the women, changing the gender on one noun would not have been difficult. Or it is even possible that he was telling his mother to behold himself rather than the beloved disciple.)
Fourth, she teaches us the value of persistence. Mary, the first witness of the resurrection, tells the male disciples and they refuse to believe her. In the Gospel according to Mark, the first account to be written and widely circulated, the male disciples continue to disbelieve her even after others have come forward, until Jesus himself appears to them. Matthew, written 10 or 15 years later, expands on the story but leaves it for Jesus to meet up with the males back in Galilee. Luke, written even later, also recounts that the males disbelieve her but allows Peter to run to the tomb to see for himself. Finally, in John, Mary tells the males that the body has been removed, and two of the men come to the tomb, find it empty and then go home. Mary stays behind and sees Jesus after the others have left. In all four differing accounts, it is Mary who refuses to give in to the men’s skepticism but instead tells the disciples—and thus the world—that Jesus is alive. In later years, the so-called “church fathers” created the structure that elevated men and degraded women. But in the days of the very birth of the church, a more likely story emerges:
Men gave speeches and wrote history books about their own noble deeds. But women did most of the work.
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