Mary Magdalen’s love of Jesus shines through

By Mirelle Mason
Creighton University
School of Pharmacy

Love certainly plays a key role, one could even say the dominant role, in our walk with Jesus. Mary Magdalen provides us with an amazing example of how we should live out love in our lives.

In Solomon’s Song of Songs, we are provided with, perhaps, the best way that we could understand true love in our world –  the love found in a marriage relationship. It is no coincidence that Jesus often used marriage to help us understand his love for us, his bride, the Church.  The pure, spontaneous love described in the beginning of Chapter 3 of that book speaks of a love from the heart that drives one to seek out the focus of that love.  A perfect picture of Jesus seeking us.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul reminds us of that kind of love that Jesus demonstrated for us as he died for our sins. Jesus demonstrated the kind of love found in the Song of Songs where one no longer lives for oneself, but for the one we love.  The kind of love that makes us a new creation, a creation that begins to understand that love really is the fulfilling answer for how we should seek to live out our lives each and every day.

Psalm 63 speaks clearly and eloquently to the reality of that new creation, the one where we become “all in” for Christ. It speaks to an unquenchable thirst for God’s love and his presence in our life.

While these and other passages throughout God’s word provide us with powerful insight into God’s love for us, we return to Mary Magdalen to see a near perfect example of how that kind of love looks in reality, even in our own reality. Mary had been with Jesus, witnessed his love in action, had been cured of an ailment by Jesus and had helped to care for his needs during the later stages of his earthly ministry. She had witnessed Jesus’ love firsthand and seemed to have developed an unquenchable love for her Lord. But her world was turned upside down that fateful Good Friday morning when Jesus suffered that unimaginably cruel death.  Three days later, her love drove her back to the tomb where she was shattered once again as she saw the stone was rolled away, and she thought she had lost Jesus, again, in death. Through tears, she ran to tell the disciples and then returned with them to Jesus’ tomb. After confirming Mary’s story, the two disciples left and went back to tell the others, but it is interesting to note that Mary stayed behind at the tomb, crying. She was obviously broken-hearted, but God’s amazing love stepped into the picture. As she glanced into the tomb, two angels appeared – which alone helped to turn her tears into hope. But if that were not enough, she turned around to see Jesus to complete her transition from sorrow to pure, unimaginable JOY.

Was it a coincidence that God chose to use Mary Magdalen in such a key role in this story?  Or perhaps could it be that even though she did not clearly understand what was happening, her love for Jesus was real and he cared for her in her time of sorrow, even to the point of turning that sorrow into JOY.

Dear Lord, help me to never forget, even for a moment, that the thirsting in my heart can only be quenched by you. Help me to follow Mary Magdalen’s example of true love for you and to live out that kind of love in my interactions with all those you have placed in my day-to-day life. In Jesus’ holy, holy name – Amen.

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