Giving Mary Magalene Her Due On Holy Tuesday

Mary Magdalene stayed outside the tomb weeping.

And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb

and saw two angels in white sitting there,

one at the head and one at the feet

where the Body of Jesus had been.

And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”

She said to them, “They have taken my Lord,

and I don’t know where they laid him.”

When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?

Whom are you looking for?”

She thought it was the gardener and said to him,

“Sir, if you carried him away,

tell me where you laid him,

and I will take him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary!”

She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,”

which means Teacher.

Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me,

for I have not yet ascended to the Father.

But go to my brothers and tell them,

‘I am going to my Father and your Father,

to my God and your God.’”

Mary went and announced to the disciples,

“I have seen the Lord,”

and then reported what he had told her.

 

John 20:11-18 

Elizabeth A. Johnson has pointed out that the Catholic lectionary would seem to be rigged to keep the majority of Catholics from hearing this account which gives Mary Magdalene not only the honor of being the first witness to the risen Christ but also makes her the first preacher of the Resurrection, being commissioned directly by Jesus who sends her out to preach it to the male apostles and disciples, something that you can understand would lead future generations of men to want to suppress as they turned her into a reformed prostitute, all the better to marginalize her and the better to suppress the right of Women to leadership in the Church. And that's all a valid point, its proof being right there in the very texts that are considered authoritative. The modern lectionary does that by putting this text on the Tuesday of Holy Week, not on Sunday when more people would hear it and, you can bet, notice this point.

I find every time I look at these passages that I notice things I never noticed before, things that are full of meaning. In this one this year, this part jumps out at me,

Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me,

for I have not yet ascended to the Father.

But go to my brothers and tell them,

‘I am going to my Father and your Father,

to my God and your God.’”

I've read people who point out that in the John Gospel, the point of view that Jesus shared in the divinity of God the Father was either downplayed or not present. The status of Jesus in relation to God in this passage "my Father and your Father" seems to me to imply that Jesus had the same relationship to God that we do. You have to wonder what that means for our relationship to God in relation to that of Jesus. If you think I'm implying I have some insight into that, well, I don't, I have questions not answers.

It is clear in this passage that Jesus is giving Mary a status as a preacher, an evangelist AS A WOMAN (he addresses her as "Woman") that gives her an authority or at least whatever status that priority as a bringer of news and first-hand experience, specifically to men (telling her to tell "my brothers") that he didn't choose to give to presumably Peter and John and the rest of what would soon be the central leadership of the Church, including, I'd guess James the brother of Jesus, perhaps the first leader of the Jerusalem church as described in Acts, the ones who Paul acknowledged along with Peter as the leaders of the Church there. 

 

I would also point out that John clearly identifies by implication that Mary Magdalene is Jewish, with a comment for the gentiles who didn't know Hebrew and wouldn't get that. 

 

She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,”

which means Teacher.

 

Just another problem for the theory that the author of John was what would be called an "antisemite" today. The problem of the Gospel of John is that he didn't use enough adjectives and adverbs when he talked about different groups of Jews, which, for a nation led to stupidity at least in part by the influence of an over-rated writer promoting his over-rated writing teacher at Cornell University , should be a lesson as to how dangerous it is to leave out those parts of speech in search of some idiotically deemed "elegance" of style. Elegance of style can apparently get people killed in the fullness of time.   I imagine some 1st century Greek "Elements of Style" being responsible for that.