Mary Magdalene and the Red Egg of Courage

What do you think of when you think of Mary Magdalene? She has been maligned and mistreated by the Church over the centuries. In medieval Western Christianity, Mary Magdalene was erroneously labelled as a repentant prostitute. In the late 6th century Pope Gregory I conflated her with Mary of Bethany and the unnamed 'sinful woman' who anoints Jesus' feet in the Gospel of Luke. In 1969 the Roman Catholic Church admitted quietly that it had been mistaken in this matter, but the slur stuck and this misunderstanding has persisted into modern times.

If we search beyond the church doctrine and look again at the early Christian writings we may find that a different picture begins to emerge. To me, Mary Magdalene, like her namesake, Mary Mother of Jesus, exemplifies courage.

The poet Mark Nepo says, “The word courage comes from the Latin, cor, which literally means heart. The original use of the word courage means to stand by one’s core. This is a striking concept that reinforces the belief found in almost all traditions that living from the Center is what enables us to face whatever life has to offer.”

The canonical Gospels tell us that the while the disciples fled when Jesus was convicted and sentenced to crucifixion, Mary his Mother and Mary Magdalene had the courage to stay by his side until the end. Mary Magdalene was the first person to witness the resurrection of Jesus Christ and tell the other disciples, who did not believe her story. For this reason, she is known as the Apostle to the Apostles.

After the resurrection, Mary Magdalene disappeared from the official Christian story. She is not mentioned in Paul's Epistles or the Acts of the Apostles. Yet over the centuries, many legends about Mary Magdalene have developed. The truth of a legend is not dependent on historical fact, but the internal truth of the story. In a legend of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Mary Magdalene, a woman of independent means and influence, procured an invitation to dine at the court of the Emperor Tiberius Caesar in Rome soon after the crucifixion of Jesus. She went to Rome on a mission to protest against Pilate’s miscarriage of justice and to announce the resurrection, bringing with her an egg as a symbol of new life. The emperor scoffed at her words, "Christ is Risen!", saying, “Christ rose from the dead as surely as that egg in your hand will turn red!” The egg immediately turned red - the colour of blood, the colour of the heart, the colour of courage. The Emperor was astonished and agreed to remove Pilate from office.

In the mid twentieth century, gnostic writings were discovered, books that had been excluded from the canon of the New Testament. In some of these works, Mary Magdalene is shown as a visionary leader whom Jesus loved more than the other disciples.

There is even a Gospel devoted to her, The Gospel of Mary, which portrays Magdalene as being so close to Jesus that she receives secret teachings from him, teachings that he did not share with his other disciples because only Mary Magdalene was spiritually mature enough to understand them. We only have fragments from this Gospel, which is dated to the second century. It includes the following passage,
“Then Mary stood up, greeted them all, and said to her brethren, Do not weep and do not grieve nor be irresolute, for His grace will be entirely with you and will protect you. But rather, let us praise His greatness, for He has prepared us and made us into Men. When Mary said this, she turned their hearts to the Good, and they began to discuss the words of the Savior. Peter said to Mary, Sister we know that the Savior loved you more than the rest of woman. Tell us the words of the Savior which you remember which you know, but we do not, nor have we heard them. Mary answered and said, What is hidden from you I will proclaim to you. And she began to speak to them these words: I, she said, I saw the Lord in a vision and I said to Him, Lord I saw you today in a vision. He answered and said to me, Blessed are you that you did not waver at the sight of Me. For where the mind is there is the treasure.”

At the end of the Gospel, after Mary has told the disciples of Jesus' secret teachings, which describes the soul's progress through various spiritual levels, her authority is questioned by Andrew and Peter, who find it difficult to believe that Jesus preferred a woman to them.

Sadly, such misogyny is alive and well in our world today. Despite progress made in women's rights, women are still routinely disadvantaged and stereotyped. Worse, women are disproportionately exploited and abused, all around the world. May the courage of Mary Magdalene inspire us to stand up against these forces of patriarchal oppression, to call out injustice and work towards equality and freedom for all. May we encourage each other, for this is our work, as a religious community – to give each other the strength of heart to stand by our core and live from the centre.