Easter - the symbol of new life. I want to talk about some of the Easter symbols in the story today and then to look at one person - Mary Magdalene and her communities and ask what about her resurrection?

What of the stone? The stone was a big issue for the women. How were they to anoint Jesus' body if they couldn't get the stone removed? One symbol of the resurrection is that the stone was rolled away. Stones that prevented women's ministry were gone. Stones that represented the power of patriarchy, the Roman military machine were gone. Stones that confined Sophia Christ to one place, one culture, one philosophy, were gone. Stones that hid the wide open paths of truth and life were gone.

What of the empty tomb? Mary Magdalene saw that the tomb was empty and thought the body must have been taken away but resurrection means that the Living One is out ahead. Those who have been victimised and crucified are raised up. The empty tomb is a space where meaning can be made out of these events. It is a place for exploration and reflection. The Living One calls us into this space.

A common interpretation of the empty tomb is that this is proof of the resurrection but here is a broader understanding. Reflecting on the empty tomb as an open space for making meaning could be more life giving as the way is opened up for meeting Sophia Christ in liberating action.

What of the two angels? In the story of the resurrection in John's gospel it is not Peter and the other disciple who meet an angel but Mary Magdalene and she meets not one but two angels. At a critical time to a critical person angels, messengers of God, appear. Their question to Mary is the same as the risen Jesus' question -Woman why are you weeping?
The messengers of God turn her round to see the Living One. It takes a while for Mary Magdalene to realise she does not have to worry about a dead body, a living person is in front of her and this person is calling her by name. Calling her into a new and creative space and sending her with the message of life and hope to the other disciples ie ordaining her as "apostle to the apostles". The two angels began a new journey for Mary where she too is a messenger of God.

What of Mary Magdalene? I want to touch on her journey through history as an example of death and resurrection for our own life journeys and the journey of our community.

In the Scripture it is clear that Mary of Magdala is a leader amongst the women. Her name always comes first and she is known by the place she comes from rather than as mother of..or wife of..or daughter of..as the other five Marys of the New Testament are often named.

In today's reading we meet her in grief, in weeping and then in resurrection life as she is named by Sophia Christ and commissioned. Renewed in Christ she joyfully fulfils her commission as an apostle.

When we move on to the next century we find that there is a power struggle between Mary Magdalene and Peter. Peter represents the official church and Mary the enlightened Gnostic. Peter won out as we know and Mary, in early church history was effaced - a type of death. It is the medieval mystics who bring Mary Magdalene to life again in multilayered images. They see her as representative of the church - the one who sought the living Christ.

As the first to see the risen Christ she also reverses the guilt of Eve who brought death into the world. With Mary Magdalene the shame of the female gender is removed. Positively Mary Magdalene is in line with Miriam the tambourine prophet and she proclaims with joy.

The mystics understood the angels in the tomb to represent the humanity of Christ by being at the place where Christ's feet had been and the divinity of Christ by being where his head was laid. Mary, they believed, already by her anointing and holding has a special understanding of Christ. She is an image of the understanding that every Christian must have.

Jumping to the Baroque era Mary Magdalene is treated as a whore -another death experience. In the art of Rubens, she is a semi naked seductive figure. The unnamed sinful woman who anointed Jesus' feet in Luke's gospel has become Mary Magdalene, the sinner, and the emphasis is on her sin, not that she was healed and offers a way to discipleship. She has been buried under the image of prostitute. This burial continues in the nineteenth century where her main image is that of a kneeling penitent sinner.

Resurrecting Mary Today
Mary is never described as kneeling in the New Testament only as standing - by the cross and in the garden. Stand up Mary! We will sing soon. Mary is not holding onto the past but moving to the future.

She is not a prostitute or a saint but a speaker and a preacher. She acts in solidarity with the dying, and in sympathy with the tortured. She has the courage to mourn, the endurance to defend new insights and the imagination to overcome resignation and global fears.

In our own time if we-look into that imaginative space of the empty tomb we can see her striding out with Sophia Christ, gathering our resurrection community around her.

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