Easter Sunday
I love this Gospel reading every year because Mary Magdalene is my gal.
She’s been one of my favorite saints ever since I played her in a production of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, a casting offer I received on her actual literal feast day that year.
But what strikes me the most about this reading, every year, is that it is only when she returns to the place of desolation that she finds her miracle.
How often have I, in my own life, faced a situation that felt hopeless, certain that I have messed it up beyond repair and that things are irredeemable? Too many times to count. And yet I doubt that I would have ever had the bravery of Mary Magdalene, to return back to the place where her heart was broken only the day before. Even though she had just witnessed her best friend be brutally tortured and killed, she still had a job to do, to show up and anoint his body. And I think of what she would have missed if she had failed to show up.
Too often I am more like Martha, the sister of one of our other Biblical Marys. Who when Jesus showed up to raise Lazarus from the dead, as a foreshadowing of his own resurrection, laments: “Lord if you’d only been here, my brother would not have died.” What I and Martha so often fail to realize is that in order for a miracle to come about, the Lord sometimes requires full dead conditions first.
I don’t know why this is. I’ve pondered this through the past Lent. Why bother burying something only to dig it up again? Why does He allow something to fully pass away before bringing it to life again? Why doesn’t He intervene? Why doesn’t He show up sooner? I think “perhaps He is teaching us to live without it.” A fast is always a good thing. Sometimes he could be allowing those circumstances to show us how much something actually means to us. Often I think He just wants to strengthen our reliance on Him.
But let’s get back to Mary Magdalene. I think it’s so perfect how Mary mistakes the risen Jesus for the gardener. So often when I have been in these situations that feel unredeemable, too little too late, and messy beyond belief, Jesus quietly gives me this image of Himself as the perfect Gardener. “See?” He tells me, “I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. You think this is too messy? I know exactly how it all got tangled in the first place.” When I am sitting there, kneeling in the dirt, staring, and overwhelmed at the mess I’ve made, He rolls up His sleeves alongside me and gets to work.
I invite you this Easter season, to take the words of the Angel to heart: “Do not be afraid!” Run back to the tombs and dead places in your heart, certain that Jesus will meet you there to til the soil of your soul so perfectly, into resurrection and new life.
Audrey Herold is an actor and arts administrator in Seattle, Washington. She received her BFA in Acting from Trinity Western University outside of Vancouver, BC. She currently serves on the board of the Catholic Artist Connection.
You can find out more about her here.