The first to see
Mary of Magdala
& the women
In Scripture · one title from tradition · Inner life imagined
Witness V of VI · Plum → dawn
02 In one line
The first person on earth to see it, and the last person anyone was legally required to believe.
03 In the books
A woman from a brisk fishing town on the western shore — a place that lived on catching, salting and shipping fish, and that knew exactly what it thought of her. The Gospels give her one line of history and it is a devastating one: seven demons. The series imagines what that cost, year after year, in a town small enough for everyone to have an opinion, and what it was to be given back a life she had stopped expecting.
She followed. She helped pay for the whole thing out of her own means, alongside Joanna and Susanna and Salome. She did not run when the men ran; she stood at a distance and watched the entire thing happen. And before dawn on the third morning she went out on the grey road with the spice jars, worrying about a practical problem — who will roll the stone away? — and walked into the most important morning in the history of the world.
She was the first to see it, and the first to tell it, and it was received as an idle tale.
04 In Scripture
Luke 8:2–3 — Mary called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out; she and other women supported the ministry out of their own resources. Mark 15:40; 16:1 — she is at the cross and at the tomb, with Salome and the others. John 20:1–18 — first at the tomb, first to the risen Christ, and she recognises him when he speaks her name. Luke 24:11 — the apostles regarded the women’s report as an idle tale, and did not believe them. Later tradition gives her the title apostle to the apostles.
What this series refuses to invent: the old, unbiblical claim that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. Scripture calls her afflicted, not immoral. It is a small decision that tells you how the whole series treats the line: where the Bible is silent, it imagines; where the Bible speaks, it obeys.
Luke 8:2–3
2and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out; 3and Joanna, the wife of Chuzas, Herod’s steward; Susanna; and many others; who served them from their possessions.
Mark 15:40–41
40There were also women watching from afar, among whom were both Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome; 41who, when he was in Galilee, followed him, and served him; and many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.
Mark 16:1–6
1When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, that they might come and anoint him. 2Very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. 3They were saying among themselves, “Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?” 4for it was very big. Looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back. 5Entering into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were amazed. 6He said to them, “Don’t be amazed. You seek Jesus, the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen. He is not here. Behold, the place where they laid him!
John 20:1–18
1Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went early, while it was still dark, to the tomb, and saw the stone taken away from the tomb. 2Therefore she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have laid him!” 3Therefore Peter and the other disciple went out, and they went toward the tomb. 4They both ran together. The other disciple outran Peter, and came to the tomb first. 5Stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths lying, yet he didn’t enter in. 6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and entered into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying, 7and the cloth that had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself. 8So then the other disciple who came first to the tomb also entered in, and he saw and believed. 9For as yet they didn’t know the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10So the disciples went away again to their own homes. 11But Mary was standing outside at the tomb weeping. So, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb, 12and she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. 13They told her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him.” 14When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, and didn’t know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?” She, supposing him to be the gardener, said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him, “Rabboni!” which is to say, “Teacher!” 17Jesus said to her, “Don’t hold me, for I haven’t yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brothers, and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had said these things to her.
Luke 24:10–11
10Now they were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James. The other women with them told these things to the apostles. 11These words seemed to them to be nonsense, and they didn’t believe them.
05 Her world
The hard little economy of a fishing shore, and the narrow world of what a woman was permitted to be, to do, and to testify — a world in which her word, on the most important morning in history, could be waved away as an idle tale.
06 What she carries
That grace entrusts its biggest news to exactly the people the world has decided to trust with nothing. And that the unlikeliness of the choice is itself a kind of evidence: nobody inventing a triumphant story would have made a formerly mad woman its first and founding witness.
07 A lesson
Being disbelieved does not make you wrong. Hold the thing you were given, even when half the world will call it an idle tale.
08 Threads
Healed by the Teacher; funds the ministry with Joanna and Salome; watches the burial that Joseph and Nicodemus carry out; finds their tomb empty. And at the very end she comes to tend the dying Miriam, and is told: you were right about all of it.
- Joseph & Nicodemus — Watches their burial; finds their tomb emptyThe borrowed tomb · The Women at the Tomb
- Miriam — “You were right about all of it.”The last door · The Gathering
09 Where they stood
10 Hear the opening
11 Her book
The Women at the Tomb (Book V)
Book Five
The Women at the Tomb
The witness nobody was required to believe.
Ebook · Paperback · Hardcover — From £4.99 (sample)
Which is harder to believe — that grace would reach the worst person you can think of, or that it would then seat you at the same table as them?