2026.07.26 | Mary Magdalene
“Faces of Our Faith: Mary Magdalene”
John 20:11-18
Preached by
Rev. Brenda Loreman
Eden United Church of Christ
Cherryland, CA
26 July 2026
Today we bring our summer worship series about the Faces of Our Faith: Bold and Untold Stories to a close. We’ve explored 14 different figures from that Bible, told their often-untold stories, and heard how their faith had an impact on those around them. We’ve also heard wonderful testimony from our own congregation about the faithful folks who influenced their spiritual journeys. I’m grateful to Lorenzo, Dave, Jeffra, Bob, Allie, Sam, and Becki for having the courage to tell their stories!
The final story in our series is Mary Magdalene, which is very appropriate, since last Wednesday, July 22 was Mary Magdalene’s feast day. I love Mary Magdalene. I have a stack of books about her, I’ve taken classes and workshops about her, and I love sharing the things I’ve learned about her. I have so much information to share that I could preach an entire sermon series on her. Unfortunately, I only have ten minutes today. So I’m going to offer you some of this information in the form of a list: seven things you may not know about Mary Magdalene, but should.
Mary Magdalene is one of only two named women who appear in all four of the canonical gospels. The other named woman? Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary Magdalene is a witness to the crucifixion in three of the four gospels, and is a witness to the resurrection in all four. In John, she is the first and only witness at the tomb. Jesus appears to her first. This leads me to assume that Mary was not a symbolic character invented by the gospel writers, but was an actual follower of Jesus who had an important role in his ministry and in the early Jesus movement following the resurrection.
Centuries of art, commentary, and stories have portrayed Mary Magdalene as a penitent prostitute. She was not. Nowhere in the gospels does it say that she was a woman of ill repute, or even that she was a sinner. Luke mentions that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her, but that in and of itself does not indicate that she was sinful. The misconception of her character was likely caused by a sermon written by Pope Gregory the Great in 591. Gregory conflated Mary Magdalene with the unnamed woman who anointed Jesus’s feet in Luke’s gospel— a woman who is described by Luke as a sinner. Although Gregory was preaching about forgiveness and probably not trying to malign Mary, the damage caused by this idea has echoed through the centuries.
In the Eastern Orthodox church—the form of Christianity practiced in the Middle East and Eastern and Southeastern Europe—Mary was never seen as a prostitute or a sinner, and instead is revered as the “Apostle to the Apostles” and honored for her role in being the first witness to the resurrection and first to tell all the other disciples that Jesus had been raised. She is named “Myrrhbearer” and “Equal to the Apostles.” Orthodox tradition claims that she traveled to Rome and confronted the Emperor Tiberius.
The south of France also has a tradition of stories about Mary Magdalene. According to medieval legends, Mary fled the Holy Land in a boat and traveled to the south of France, landing at the site of the town now known as Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (Saint Mary of the Sea). The legends say that she spent the last 30 years of her life in contemplation in a cave nearby in the mountain of Saint-Baume. The French madeleine cookie was probably not named after Mary Magdalene, but it has become associated with her in the two centuries the cookie has been around.
The name “Magdalene” probably does not refer to a place. The word “Magdala” is likely a Greek version of the aramaic word “migdal,” which means “tower.” Although it’s possible she was from a town named Tower, it’s also quite possible that “Tower” was her nickname. Just as the disciple Simon was known as “Peter, the Rock,” and James and John were known as “the sons of thunder,” Mary, as a close disciple of Jesus, might have given her the name “Mary, the Tower.” Further evidence that this is the case is that several ancient authors—including St. Jerome in the fifth century—actually understood Mary’s nickname to be rooted in her character rather than her home town. (1)
Mary Magdalene has her own gospel. Likely one of the many early gospels that circulated among Christian communities in the first three centuries of the faith, “The Gospel of Mary” was deemed heretical by the emerging orthodox leadership of the church once the canon of the New Testament was decided. Copies of it were probably destroyed by the church hierarchy or hidden by those who revered it as a sacred text. It first resurfaced in Egypt in 1896; since then two more fragments have been found. Unfortunately, the gospel remains fragmentary; six pages are missing from the beginning, and three are missing from the middle. The gospel tells of a resurrection appearance of Jesus to the grieving disciples. He tells them to be wary of others, to not create new laws, lest they be bound to them, and he urges them to seek the peace of the Christ—the child of humanity—which lies within them. When Jesus departs from them, the disciples are frightened and in fear for their lives. Mary addresses them, and tells them not to be afraid, that the strength of Christ will be with them and the grace of Christ will shelter them; she then turns their hearts to God, and she reminds them that Jesus came to teach them how to be fully human. In the narrative, Mary is portrayed as a wise and authoritative teacher and a disciple who was part of Jesus’s inner circle.
Mary may have originally had an even larger role in John’s gospel. Recent scholarship has revealed that later editors may have inserted the character of Martha into the narrative about Lazarus and his sister Mary in Chapter 11 of the earliest copies of the Gospel of John. Adding Martha—essentially giving some of Mary's lines to an additional sister— diminished the role of the sister Mary and weakened the relationship she has with Jesus. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer, the young scholar who noticed the editorial changes and put the pieces together, believes that the Mary of Chapter 11 is none other than Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene is not only the one who comes to the tomb to see the risen Christ and is then the first apostle, but she is also the disciple who anoints Jesus, and the disciple who recognizes that he is truly the Messiah, in the words given to Martha in John 11:27, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world,” then she must have been a powerful and important disciple among the followers of Jesus.
Like Eutychus and the Daughters of Zelophehad, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, like Shiprah and Puah and Lydia and Anna and the Ethiopian Eunuch, Mary Magdalene was bold and courageous, an ordinary person who who had an extraordinary impact. May we, also, continue to be bold and courageous, living out our faith like all the saints of God. Amen.
Notes:
(1) Yonat Shimron, “Was Mary Magdalene really from Magdala? Two scholars examine the evidence,” Religion News Service, Jan 7, 2022. Accessed on Jul 25, 2026. https://religionnews.com/2022/01/07/was-mary-magdalene-really-from-magdala-two-scholars-reassess-the-evidence/