Maybe you’ve lost your job, your identity, your security. Unemployment numbers are astronomical, leading to legitimate concerns about how to pay bills and put food on the table. And the breadth of the global pandemic means there’s no place we can go to escape its tentacles. With an unknown length and outcome, you might wonder how long you can survive. Everything you invested in is gone; all you value is lost, and hope is dwindling. Like many of us, Mary Magdalene also feared she had lost everything. Hope was a distant memory.

Mary Magdalene ~ Who Was She?

Meeting Jesus changed Mary Magdalene’s life. Before she met him, her demons defined her. But Jesus freed her from their control (Luke 8:2). He reversed her honor-status from shame to honor, earning her enduring devotion. Along with other women, Mary Magdalene contributed to Jesus’ support, enabling him to do for others what he’d done for her. Despite tradition, there’s no reason to identify Mary Magdalene with the sinful woman who anointed Jesus (Luke 7:36-50) or the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11). Instead, she was a faithful disciple, named first in most lists of women in the Gospels, a detail that reveals her honorable status. She was also the only follower present at Jesus’ crucifixion, burial, and resurrection.

Lost

Like his other followers, Mary Magdalene hoped Jesus was the Messiah, the one promised by God and the prophets. But then her dreams turned into nightmares. Dreams as broken as his body hanging on the cross, broken because Messiahs don’t die. Crucifixion meant his mission had failed. Messianic hope died at Calvary. How could everything go so wrong in only five days? Her shoulders shook as pain consumed her, and she gasped for air. The blackness of the sky and the shaking of the ground mirrored the bleakness of her future. She had followed him, committed her life to him, turning her back on everything else. How would she live? What would she do? Where would she find meaning? If she were no longer a follower of Jesus, who was she?

Nevertheless, Mary Magdalene joined the other women that Sunday as they made their way to the tomb in the early morning darkness. (John 20:1-18) While they discussed the challenge of moving the heavy stone that covered the tomb, the weight of the stone sitting on their hearts seemed immovable. Grief grew when they saw the empty tomb. Mary Magdalene raced to report the missing body to Peter and John. However, since she was a woman, they dismissed her tale as nonsense (Luke 24:11). Still, Mary Magdalene knew what she’d seen and what she hadn’t. Later she returned to search for Jesus’ body, feeling as lost as she assumed he was.

Found 

Peering into the tomb, Mary Magdalene saw two angels who questioned why she was weeping. When she turned around, she saw a man she presumed to be the gardener. Blinded by tears and devastated by the death of her dreams, she expressed her frustration and pain to the unknown man. But when he called her name, what she heard caused her heart to race and her eyes to focus.

            She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

John 20:16

A week before, Jesus had called Lazarus’ name to summon him from death to life. In calling Mary Magdalene’s name, Jesus also invited her to new life. Yet he pulled away as she tried to hold on to him. Misunderstanding the meaning of the resurrection, Mary wanted to recapture the past. Jesus, however, wanted to give her a future. Chad Veach encourages us:

Stop holding on to your history at the expense of your destiny. Stop holding onto something God has already let go.

Chad Veach, “Getting Past My Past”

Mary Magdalene Can Show Us the Way Forward

Feelings of hopelessness can hinder our ability to recognize Jesus, even if he’s standing beside us. Most of the time, we see what we expect, and Mary Magdalene didn’t expect to see a living Jesus. What about us? Where do we expect to encounter God? 

When we fear we’ve lost everything, we must do what Mary Magdalene did. Share our pain with God. Listen for his voice. Turn toward him, opening our eyes to his view of the future. Then let go of the past and walk into the new life he’s offering.

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:18-19

Now is the time to get ready for the future God’s preparing. Which way are you looking?