Resurrection Sunday – April 5, 2015

Mary Magdalene believed that she had lost everything when Jesus died. John’s Gospel tells us that, when Jesus died on Calvary, Mary Magdalene stood at the foot of the cross with Mary, the mother of Jesus and John, the beloved disciple, as the dying Jesus entrusted His mother and John to each other. She witnessed at first hand the brutal death on the cross of one that she loved so much. We don’t know why it was that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb alone on Easter Sunday morning. Was it that she and the other women had agreed to meet there? Did she, perhaps, want to spare Jesus’ mother the agony of seeing her son’s body before it was completely prepared for burial? On the day of His death, those preparations had been interrupted by the onset of the sabbath. Mary’s journey was solitary also risky. Guards protected the tomb lest any of Jesus’ disciples tried to remove His body. They were rough men; and she was a solitary woman. In those days, as now, in so many places, a woman had little status. Mary Magdalene was the first witness of the resurrection. Yet her unexpected news, so beyond the imagining of any of the apostles, had less credibility in the society of her day precisely because it was reported by a woman. Peter and John wanted to verify her story for themselves. It was only when they entered the tomb of Jesus that they realized the truth of the resurrection.