Telling Mary Magdalene's Story (by Dr. Jennifer Powell McNutt)

5 Strategies for Preaching on Mary Magdalene this Easter

Hey, this is Nijay, I am so excited to have this guest post by my friend Dr. Jennifer Powell McNutt, inspired by her award-winning book THE MARY WE FORGOT. Enjoy!

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Telling Mary Magdalene's Story

5 Strategies for Preaching on Mary Magdalene this Easter

by Dr. Jennifer Powell McNutt

It’s that time of year again. The Easter sermon is right around the corner, just days away now.

Every pastor feels and knows the weight of it. If your church wants to connect with irregular attenders or even non-attenders, this is one of the few days they are bound to walk through your church doors (Christmas and Mother’s Day too, according to Lifeway Research).

Preaching the core message of Christianity, what Paul describes as “of first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3a), is a serious and precious responsibility.

I’m not here to pile on the pressure but to offer five helpful strategies for faithfully preaching on Mary Magdalene this Easter based upon Scripture and in light of my book, The Mary We Forgot: What the Apostle to the Apostles Teaches the Church Today (Brazos, 2024).

There’s no Easter sermon without the witness named by all four Gospels as present at the empty tomb that resurrection morning. How can we guide congregations toward recovering a biblically-rooted and theologically sound Mary Magdalene this Easter? Here are five ways.

1. Mary Magdalene was a Disciple

It’s probably safe to say that most of the people filling the pews on the Sunday of Easter morning do not realize that “many women” joined Jesus along with the Twelve from Galilee to Jerusalem (see Luke 8:1-3 but also Matt. 27:55b, Mark 15:41, Luke 23:55). They likely don’t know the names of those women or how they fit into Jesus’ itinerant ministry. Because that part of Jesus’ ministry is unclear to so many, that also means that they will likely need extra explanation as to why Mary Magdalene and the women (in the Synoptic Gospels) were at the tomb in the first place.

It will be necessary to explain that they are not unknown women but among Jesus’ disciples. Therefore, their witness is not limited to the garden (though the most pivotal moment) but includes all the moments with Jesus leading up to the garden. Their witness would include the fact that Christ healed and taught them, that they served as financial contributors and participants in his ministry, and that they witnessed his death on the cross and burial in the tomb. When Mary Magdalene responds to Jesus in the garden, “Rabboni!” or “Teacher!” in Aramaic, we can see their relationship as teacher/student (or disciple) play out (John 20:16). Mary Magdalene was among Jesus’ disciples.

Takeaway?

This Easter, we can share that because Mary Magdalene traveled with Jesus, her witness already bore weight before she was chosen to steward the good news of Christ’s resurrection. In reminding congregants of that fuller backstory, it becomes clear that Mary Magdalene (and the women) are not a random part of the story or even a fleeting part; they are integral.

2. Mary Magdalene was Delivered from Demons

Everyone knows the name of Mary Magdalene, but it can’t be assumed that they know the way that she is revealed in the Gospels. The fog of confusion that surrounds her is the result of centuries of complex reception history that is a mix of biblical and extra-biblical renderings as well as modern, fictitious retellings since the 20^th century. In the western tradition, she is most often associated with prostitution. By this rendering she is recast as an archetype rather than an historical figure and projected upon in a way that draws her story away from the Gospel accounts and what it means for her to point us to the risen Christ.

The fact that Scripture introduces her as delivered from seven demons is not something we should ignore or gloss over. It is more than an opportunity to highlight the suffering she faced (see when Jesus talks about the significance of seven demons in Matt. 12:45) since we are not actually invited to remember her suffering backstory but to remember her healed. In my view, it is especially an opportunity to emphasize the total, saving power of Christ to recover one lost to the grip of darkness. And by recognizing the power of Jesus as exorcist, the identity of Jesus as Savior and King is magnified through the story of Mary Magdalene. As Jesus points out, “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt. 12:28). Connecting the dots on this backstory – instead of prostitution – is an opportunity to help the church understand the power of her witness at the tomb when Jesus walks out of the grave alive.

Takeaway?

This Easter, we can highlight for our congregations that Mary Magdalene points us to Jesus Christ – his power and identify – in a particular way because she was delivered from seven demons.

3. Mary Magdalene Wept

Mary Magdalene’s tears are highlighted in John 20, and we should pay attention. At certain points in church history, they have been misinterpreted as a mark of her penance for sins. By this reasoning, her emotion has been equated with Peter’s, who cried after betraying Jesus three times, and with the “sinner woman” of Luke 7, who weeps out of love and gratitude for Jesus’ forgiveness of her. None of these readings fits the context of the narrative or the reasoning of the text.

On other occasions, the church has treated her tears as a signal of her disbelief in Christ. Shouldn’t she know that Jesus would be resurrected? More recently, though, the emotionality of Mary Magdalene for Jesus has been twisted into romantic sentiment.

Mary Magdalene’s weeping certainly indicates a deep grief and devotion to Jesus, but there’s more to say here. It’s not only the fact of her weeping that we are invited to see but the fact that the Gospel writers would share that detail at all that should draw our attention. At a time when the emotions of women were considered a valid reasons for preventing the legality of their testimony, the Gospel writers dare to share what actually disadvantages their claims. Sure enough, a formidable early critic of Christianity would question the validity of Christ’s resurrection because it was based on the testimony of a so-called “frantic woman.” The fact that the Gospel writers share her tears is a signal to the trustworthiness of the account itself.

Takeaway?

This Easter, we can encourage our congregations to reflect on the tears of Mary Magdalene as evidence of the trustworthiness of her testimony for us today.

4. Mary Magdalene Clung to Jesus

If you are preaching on John’s Gospel in chapter 20, then you will need to grapple with a long-time mis-translation regarding whether or not Mary Magdalene touched Jesus. For most of Christian history, it was claimed that Jesus refused her touch based upon the Latin interpretation of the text. Early Christians made sense of this strange interaction to sort out Christological and Trinitarian heresies at the time. Eventually though, it came that Mary Magdalene was deemed unworthy of touching Jesus in that moment, which does not sit well with how we see Jesus interact with others including women throughout his ministry before and after his resurrection.

A lack of clarity on whether Mary Magdalene touched or didn’t touch Christ has had gnostic implications for Mary Magdalene’s part in the story. If Mary Magdalene did not touch Jesus at all, then this opens the door for questions regarding the true bodily presence of Christ and suggests leanings toward the Gnostic heresy that denies the incarnation of Christ and his bodily death and resurrection. This is partly why, in my view, the modern church has been so prone to disruptions by the translation of the Gospel of Mary in the 20^th century, which essentially claimed that Mary Magdalene encountered Jesus in a dream rather than in the garden (see my substack, THE MCNUTTSHELL, for more on this).

When we return to the original Greek, we can recognize that the negation followed by the present imperative of the verb indicates the forbidding of the continuation of an action. The touching then is happening in a durative manner, which means that she is holding on or clinging to Jesus. This matters not only for affirming the bodily resurrection of Christ but because it also confirms the apostolic status of Mary Magdalene who heard, saw, and “touched” Christ (1 John 1).

Takeaway?

This Easter we can highlight how Mary Magdalene clung to the risen Christ as an affirmation of the bodily resurrection and of her apostolic status before he commissioned and sent her to proclaim the Good News of his resurrection to the remaining followers.

5. Mary Magdalene Ran

When preaching on the Marcan Gospel, the running of Mary Magdalene is most often identified with fear. The text records the following: “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (Mark 16:8). Here Mark humanizes the women as grappling with their amazement, the risk that they face, and the call to courage. It’s all very dramatic and too many Easter sermons simply stop there.

But there’s no need to leave the congregation with the cliffhanger wondering, did the women say anything? The Gospels are clear that Mary Magdalene and the women (joining her in the Synoptic Gospels) were faithful to share with the followers of Christ what they had seen. This is not long delayed or hidden. In fact, Mary Magdalene runs to share the news.

I honestly cannot count the number of sermons that I have heard which emphasize the running competition that takes place between Peter and John in John 20 without recognizing that Mary Magdalene was also running. Does the congregation know that third runner?

John 20 highlights Mary Magdalene’s running first with the urgent news that the body is missing from the open and empty tomb. She rushes to Peter and John to share, who also run to the tomb in response. They are all three running, which means from my reading that Jesus could have revealed himself to Peter and John in that moment but did not. Instead, Peter and John leave the tomb while Mary Magdalene lingers. He calls her by name and she knows his voice. She clings to him, and he commissions her. She runs to share the Good News that she has “seen the Lord!” and to share Jesus’ own words, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Takeaway?

This Easter our congregations can know how Mary Magdalene’s running shifted from worry to joy at the commissioning and sending that Jesus Christ gave to her as messenger or apostle of the resurrection.

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BOOK DISCOUNT

For more ideas about how to faithfully interpret Mary Magdalene according to the Gospels, check out Jennifer Powell McNutt’s book, The Mary We Forgot (Brazos, 2024) on 30% discount through Baker Book House this Easter. For more writing consider subscribing to her substack THE MCNUTTSHELL or follow at @jpowellmcnutt on social media.