04/05/2026
Mary Magdalene and the Resurrection | by Erika Kobewka
Artwork: “The Risen Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalene” by Rembrandt
I have often wondered, where does Holy Saturday end and Easter Sunday begin? At midnight of Sunday? At the empty tomb? When did the resurrection actually happen? I ask these questions because, as I have read the Gospel accounts of this miraculous, joyous, and wondrous event, some of the first human encounters with the resurrection of Jesus certainly do not carry the same celebratory nature that most of us have come to expect in our Easter church services. Within the Scriptural accounts of this day, there are multiple expressions of confusion right alongside the emotional experiences of acute grief—tears and weeping, shock and bewilderment, loneliness, anxiety, and doubt. Cognitive dissonance on a physiological level. I think any psychologist will tell you that these are some of the most natural human responses to loss, and they all have a place, even when face-to-face with a miracle.
Easter Sunday begins where Holy Saturday ends: the second sunrise after a horrific day and on the heels of staggering loss. It is perhaps because of my own journey but, in recent years, my imagination has been utterly captured by the first eye-witness to Christ’s resurrected body, Mary Magdelene. John’s account reads, “early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb…” (John 20:1). As is so common for the bereaved, helplessly awake at all hours, Mary arrives at the tomb before daybreak, grief-stricken and literally clutching the embalming spices of death (Luke 24:1). Mary isn’t coming to the tomb hopeful and expectant, she is holding vigil. When she sees the stone removed from its place, her first thought isn’t a miraculous resurrection of the dead but a violation of her deceased Lord’s body. Surely this was grief upon grief for her...
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https://www.vineyard.ca/mary-magdalene-and-the-resurrection/
