Easter Monologue: Mary Magdalene

Here’s a monologue from the perspective of Mary Magdalene.  It was written by Mary Mae Swartzentruber.

Monologue
(based on the events in John 20:11-18)

I have seen the Lord!

You don’t seem surprised. You are thinking, Mary Magdalene, of course you’ve seen the Lord. You walked with him daily after he healed you.

That’s not what I mean. I saw him risen – alive!

You might not know how I felt: I was there, at the foot of the cross, when Jesus gave Mary and John to each other. Who did I have? No one!

I was there when he said, “I’m thirsty,” and they gave him a swab of vinegar. What could I do? Nothing!

I was there when he said, “It is finished.” Who would have thought it would come to that? A dead man on a cross—God forsaken! Was this the glory he had intended? Was this God’s way of acting?  God-forsaken – alone - lonely. As a daughter of Jerusalem, the one thing I had learned was to mourn.

I loved him. I had followed him. I would stay with him! – when the Sabbath was over, of course.  I thought the worst had happened, until I got to the tomb that morning. The stone had been moved – they couldn’t even leave a body in peace! Surely the Master had deserved a proper burial. Later – I wondered why I hadn’t walked right in! Instead I ran to tell the others – what they had done to our teacher and friend’s body Peter and the beloved ones left – running, but I couldn’t stay still long enough for them to return. I set out again.

Why? You ask.

To cry, of course, near to his last resting place – or to find out where he was taken!

Now I had the courage to look in and two messengers guided us. Would you ask a visitor at a grave site why she is crying?

I was so lonely – without Jesus. He meant everything to me!

Then the gardener came and asked the same thing, adding “Whom are you looking for?”

Looking for? “Just a body – to give it a proper burial now that it’s been desecrated.”

Then a wonderful thing happened. “Mary!” The gardener knew my name. No one knew me that well and loved me so much as Jesus! “Mary….”

He had told us once that he calls the sheep by his own name and they know his voice.

Teacher and Master!

I wanted to cling to him forever – not ever to enter such despair again. But I couldn’t.

His words were beautiful – “Go to my sisters and brothers and tell them that I am on the way.
     To my Father and your Father
     To my God and your God.”
     Equality, love, unity. He was one with us!

Not only was I freed from that deep despair, but then I knew this was not only a teacher of Israel, the Lord –God has acted in this Jesus. I have seen the Lord!

~ from We Have Seen the Lord: Four Easter Monologues (John 20), written by Mary Mae Swartzentruber, Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church, 1989. Posted in the From Our Churches archive on the Mennonite Church Canada Resource Centre website.  http://resources.mennonitechurch.ca/FileDownload/15167/4_Easter_Monologues.pdf