Luke 8:1-3
Out of whom went seven devils
She is named first among the women who followed and who ministered unto him of their substance. The support of the mission was, in part, theirs.
People of the Bible
Mary Magdalene
Out of her went seven devils, and out of her came the first sentence anyone spoke about the resurrection.
Luke introduces her in a list of women who travelled with the twelve and supported the work out of their own means, and notes that seven devils had gone out of her. That is everything the gospels say about her past; the long tradition that makes her a prostitute is a later confusion with an unnamed woman two chapters earlier. What the text does with her instead is put her at the cross, at the burial, and at the tomb, in that order, in all four gospels.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Mary Magdalene
- 01
- 02
John 19:25
Standing by the cross
She is one of the women who do not leave. Most of the twelve are elsewhere and the text does not soften the contrast.
- 03
Mark 16:1-4
Who shall roll us away the stone
She comes with spices to finish a burial, carrying a practical worry about a rock, and finds the worry already answered.
- 04
John 20:11-16
She, supposing him to be the gardener
She asks a stranger where the body has been taken and offers to carry it herself. One word, her own name, ends the mistake.
- 05
John 20:17-18
I have seen the Lord
She is sent to the disciples with a message about ascending to my Father and your Father. She is the first to say it, and she says it to the men who will repeat it.
Why it matters
She is the only person present at all three of the events the creed is built on. When the stone is found moved she runs for Peter and John, and when they go home she stays outside weeping. The scene that follows is the quietest in the gospel: she mistakes him for the gardener, he says her name, and she turns. Then she is sent, go to my brethren and say unto them, and the first resurrection sermon in history is one line long and she preaches it.
15 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
Matthew 27:57-66; Mark 15:42-47; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42
A Stone at the Door
Matthew 27:1-31; Mark 15:1-20; Luke 22:63-23:25; John 18:28-19:16
Behold the Man
Matthew 27:32-56; Mark 15:21-41; Luke 23:26-49; John 19:16-37
It Is Finished
Matthew 28:1-10; Mark 16:1-11; Luke 24:1-12; John 20:1-18
He Is Risen
John 20:24-31
Blessed Are They That Have Not Seen, and Yet Have Believed
