Turning from death to life: a biblical reflection on Mary Magdalene - John 20:1-18 - "Turn to God - Rejoice in Hope": Unfolding the Eighth Assembly Theme

Ecumenical Review, The, April, 1998 by Dorothy A. Lee

Turning towards community

There is one final sense of turning in Magdalene's story in John's gospel, though the verb itself is not used. After the Christophany, Magdalene turns back to the community with the commission she has been given: the message of the risen one. Her words of faithful witness, "I have seen the Lord" (20:18), ring out in joy and hope beyond the pages of the gospel. It is a cry of faith, an unheard-of exultation in the midst of grief and pain. It represents the community's call to mission, to bear witness to the love of God in our life together and in our commitment to those who are poor, exploited, disabled. The call to mission is also a turning towards creation, a creation threatened by greed and exploitation; to rediscover the perception of Christ at the heart of all reality -- each land and culture, each living creature, each flower and blade of grass:

Thou art the joy of all joyous things,

Thou art the light of the beam of the sun,

Thou art the door of the chief of hospitality,

Thou art the surpassing star of guidance,

Thou art the step of the deer of the hill,

Thou art the step of the steed of the plain,

Thou art the grace of the swan of swimming,

Thou art the loveliness of all lovely desires.(34)

In the end, God turns us towards one another and towards creation, with the same song of joy and hope on our lips. We are turned in love to the world because it is the place of God's dwelling, the lands of God's ancient dreaming. We turn to face its beauty and terror, its grace and suffering. Without this turning to creation, our lives are self-defeating, an ineffectual revolving on the one spot, a renouncing of what God has made and what God has become. With Mary Magdalene, we are called to share in the mission of the Living God whose purpose is the union and communion of all things in Christ (17:21-23).

Conclusion

The story of Mary Magdalene's search at the tomb is an elaborate narrative of turning. The conversion to Easter faith which Mary experiences -- her Johannine role as witness to the resurrection -- represents the movement from grief and despair to hope and joy. That movement is made possible only by her willingness to face the darkness of the tomb, and to seek the Christ of her longing with persistence and courage. This complex interaction of turning is itself dependent, as we have seen, on a deeper and prior turning: that of God towards the world in the incarnation, facing suffering and death, transforming death into life. It is the Word-made-flesh who brings to birth the community of faith -- the one who is eternally turned towards the divine presence. In this sense, turning has to do with communion and intimacy; it is a key image unlocking the meaning of salvation. As the church, hearing the echo of that distant apostolic cry, we too participate in the steps of the dance, sharing the journey towards God with all creation: the painful yet ecstatic turning from darkness to light, from death to life.

Coda: a meditation on turning

This meditation is not intended as historical reconstruction, but rather as imaginative entry into the text of John 20:1-18, using the character of Mary Magdalene. It is written from the perspective of an Anglo-Celtic woman living in the Southern Hemisphere -- in an ancient land whose peoples loved the earth of their Dreaming and whose ancient ways were ravaged by European colonization.