The Three Mary's
An Icon for Eastertide.
God chose women to first bring the good news of the resurrection of Jesus to the world.
The women who went to the tomb that first Easter morning weren't going there seeking resurrection. They were going to perform one last act of loving presence—to anoint a body. But in that act of being with, even in death, they became the first witnesses to new life.
In the Icon Christ’s mother wraps her arms around Mary Magdelene and “the other Mary” as they go from the garden tomb to proclaim Christ’s resurrection.
Each gospel tells a different version of easter morning. It could be easy miss the point of the story and get lost by the amount of exegesis that has gone into the who’s who of Mary’s in the Gospels. There is Mary (mother of Jesus), Mary Magdelene, “the other Mary”-Mary (mother of James and Joses/Joseph), Mary (wife of Clopas) and Mary of Bethany.
In Mark and Luke, the gospel writers mention many women, “the myrrh-bearers” going to the tomb easter morning. Some historians believe some of these Mary’s in the gospels could be the same person. (i.e. Mary, Christ’s mother and Mary the Mother of James) In Luke, Mary the wife of Cleopas is interestingly also considered to be the “unnamed follower” with Cleopas as they walked on the road to Emmaus with a risen Christ they did not recognize. (tradition also holds that Mary and Cleopas were Jesus’ Aunt and Uncle!)
In Matthew, it is Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” who go to the tomb.
In John’s Gospel, it is Mary Magdalene alone who first sees the risen Jesus, mistaking him for the Gardener.
Although, as some could point out, Jesus’ Mother is not described in any of the Gospels as being present with the women coming to attend to the body of Jesus and saw the empty tomb. However, in his work, ‘The Life of the Virgin,’ St Maximus the Confessor draws on the Church’s tradition to say that Mary was “inseparable from the tomb” and so was there on the Sunday morning when the other women arrived. This belief has been preserved in the traditional iconography with many icons of the myrrh-bearing women, when studied closely, contain Mary, the Mother of God with the other women, denoted by MP ƟY (a Greek/ abbreviation for Mater Theos; Mother of God) inscription is clearly written in her halo.
Regardless, I hope this icon can continue to remind us that in a time where women were excluded and overlooked, when Christ was crucified and buried, and the male apostles fled and hid, it was the women who stood by Christ in his suffering and death, and became the first witnesses and preachers of the gospel.
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