On the first day of the week,
Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
Mary Magdalene's love for Jesus caused her to desire to be near even to his body. Her love was so ardent and intense that it was like that of the Bride from the Song of Songs. She sought him whom her heart loved- She sought but did not find him. But neither the darkness of the night nor the absence of the body dissuaded her. Even in the midst of crushing sorrow her search continued, enlisting Simon Peter and the others to help.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
"They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we don't know where they put him."
Her tears did not seem to be tears of despair. She did not seem to have entirely surrendered her claim on Jesus nor her certainty of his upon her even in spite of his death. It was as though she somehow intuited that she could still be near to not only his body but Jesus himself is she just persisted. Hers seemed to be the tears of a lover who felt herself momentarily shunned but hoped to be embraced once more.
"For a brief moment I deserted you,
but with great compassion I will gather you.
In overflowing anger for a moment
I hid my face from you,
but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,"
says the LORD, your Redeemer (see Isaiah 54:7-8).
Her unwillingness to abandon her search made her notice the angels sitting where the Body of Jesus had been. Her love kept her in position to be present and hear those words of Jesus, "Woman, why are you weeping?" But her love was not enough to reach through and recognize that voice immediately. She was for a moment, a stand in for the first woman and all of humanity, weeping for goodness lost, and all that might have been. Her tears were those of one who knew that God was good, and that Jesus was good, but could not see a way beyond her present sorrow and loss. No human love, however, ardent, could cross that threshold and restore what had been broken. It had rather to be first crossed from the other side.
Jesus said to her, "Mary!"
She turned and said to him in Hebrew,
"Rabbouni," which means Teacher.
She had been called woman. But now she was called by name. Her heart was not to be healed merely generically with, but as an individual. The ways in which she had been hurt by the world, by her own sin and those of others, by disappointments that were not sin, for all the hopes unrealized, all of these were taken up in the healing and restoration that Jesus brought to her in his risen flesh. He healed the wound of original sin, but also brought healing that had the power to wipe away every tear. It was in the way that Jesus knew her so deeply and so entirely that she was able to recognize him. Only Jesus himself could know her in this way. And the more she let herself be known by him the more her own sorrows were transformed, the more she became all that Jesus himself knew she was meant to become.
I am the good shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know Me (see John 10:14).
She tried to cling to Jesus, but he would not be held. There was still work to do, still more who needed to hear the joyful tidings of the resurrection. She longed for the consummation of her love when she could finally rest entirely in the beloved. But the mission remained. The Gospel had to go forward to the world. And she was to be the very point from which that spread would begin as Jesus made her the Apostle to the Apostles.
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples,
"I have seen the Lord,"
and then reported what he told her.
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