Why "Red Egg" anyway?
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 5:04PM The first person Christ appeared to after his Resurrection was his friend and follower Mary of Magdala. She couldn't recognize him at first and mistook him for the gardener. But when he called her by name, she turned and said to him, "Rabboni, that is, teacher..."
"Noli me tangere," Jesus said. "Do not cling to me. I must rise to my Father first."
Mary of Magdala is often confused with other women in the gospels. But she is not Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. And she is not the woman caught in adultery.
She appears to have been a woman of means who helped support Jesus and the disciples. She was a myrrh-bearer because she purchased and brought myrrh and spices with which to anoint Christ after his burial. And she is an apostle to the apostles because she was sent by Christ himself to announce his Resurrection to them.
Traditions say that Mary of Magdala spent much of her life in contemplation and prayer after the Ascension. One legend is that she sailed—or drifted in a small boat—to the south of France with Joseph of Arimathea and Salome and "the other Mary" who had gone to the tomb to anoint Christ's body, too.
As the first witness of the Resurrection, she would proclaim, "He is risen!" and would hold an egg as a symbol of that transformation. One day she attended a banquet of the Caesar Tiberius.
"He is risen!" Mary proclaimed.
"He is no more risen than that egg is red," Tiberius scoffed.
Mary stretched out her arm and opened her hand. The egg was red.
Identity, Mary Magdalene, Red Egg | in Red Egg: who we are
Reader Comments (3)
To me Red Egg is a symbol of:
-the power of a woman
-the power of the truth
-the power of transformation
Chris and Debi, thank you for this! I love
knowing what's behind the name....had never
heard this story of the egg.
It seems true that the process of transformation
indeed requires a kind of death and all that goes
with it...grief,fear and loss of hope. As I consider the state of our world and country and political process, and long for transformation, I must also accept the death of what is, and not resist its pain. Christ on the cross accepted and did not resist. Like Mary I hope to be surprised and amazed at resurrection.
What you write is beautiful, Brian. What a mystery. How often (and understandably) we run from this death and pain and grief and fear, and yet, like you say, transformation seems to point the other way.
I love how and when we sit together at Sweetwater. What synchonicity that the last time we did we found ourselves talking about variations on this theme.