The Magdalene Motivation

This is the feast day of St Mary Magdalene, dubbed “Apostle to the Apostles” because of her witness to the doubting (at the time) disciples of the Resurrection of Jesus. Today’s Gospel reading from John 20 reminds us of the initial encounter the Magdalene had with the risen Lord. This very account (along with the other Gospel accounts of women discovering the empty tomb) is a huge point in favor of the historicity of the Resurrection – without which, as St Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 15 – “our preaching is useless, and so is your faith”. The simple reason is that a woman’s testimony was considered unreliable – and hence, inadmissible – in a Jewish court of law in Jesus’ day (thankfully, things have changed).

Put it this way: if you’re authoring a Gospel, and your’re trying to convince Jews (and Gentiles) that Jesus is the Messiah, you would never write that women were the first to discover the empty tomb and encounter the resurrected Jesus.

Unless, that is, it actually happened that way.