Mariann Budde and Mary Magdalene

Two women who embody Christlike courage in the face of fear

The Bible has long been portrayed as a text filled to the brim with dos and don’ts, a massive rulebook of moral imperatives designed to keep us on the straight and narrow path toward an upstanding life.

And while it’s true that there are many commands in Scripture given to different people in different situations throughout history, do you know what the most common instruction is? The most repeated directive that transcends time and place, culture and context is simple:

Fear not.

“The most often repeated commandment in the Bible is 'Do not fear.' It's in there over two hundred times. That means a couple of things, if you think about it. It means we are going to be afraid, and it means we shouldn't let fear boss us around.”

Donald Miller

I love how Donald Miller explains the frequency of this “fear not” command in the Bible by breaking it down into two assertions:

1. We are going to be afraid.

2. We shouldn’t let fear boss us around.

When I think about a biblical character who embodies courage in the face of fear, I think of Mary Magdalene. And when I was introduced to Mariann Budde’s work this week, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the two women.

Mariann Edgar Budde has been an Episcopal priest for as long as I’ve been alive and has spent her entire adult life doing her best to courageously follow Jesus regardless of the circumstances. For example, Rev. Budde oversaw the removal of the stained-glass windows honoring Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson at the Washington National Cathedral despite tremendous pushback.

Mariann went viral this week when she preached the presidential inauguration service in front of President Trump, Vice President Vance, and other members of their cabinet. Looking at President Trump, she said, “Millions have put their trust in you. And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now.”

Rev. Budde went on to specifically identify LGBTQ+ folks, immigrants, and refugees as vulnerable populations who we should care for.

I posted a clip of the sermon here:

The pushback against Rev. Budde’s comments were swift and severe. President Trump called her a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater” and demanded an apology. Republican congressman Mike Collins tweeted that she "should be added to the deportation list,” despite Rev. Budde being an American citizen. Newsmax commentator Todd Starnes wrote that Rev. Budde “spewed hate at Donald Trump.”

When you worship power, a sermon on the mercy and love of Jesus sounds like “spewing hate.”

Mariann Budde courageously spoke the truth even when she knew it was going to cost her. She stepped up, overcame fear, and followed Jesus even when it was difficult.

Mary Magdalene did the same thing.

Did you know that Mary Magdalene is one of the few people Jesus calls by a nickname?

It wasn’t uncommon for people in Jesus’ time to be identified beyond their first name. For some people it was by the patriarch in their family. Another female follower of Jesus was known as Joanna the wife of Chuza. One of Jesus’ disciples was known as James son of Alphaeus.

For others, they were identified by where they were from. Like Joseph of Arimethea, the man who took care of Jesus’ body and put it in his tomb after he died on the cross. We also see this with another Mary who knew Jesus: Mary of Bethany.

Mary Magdalene was most likely from the town of Magdala, an ancient fishing city on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. But she didn’t get the typical identification by locale which would have been “Mary of Magdala.” She is called Mary Magdalene or sometimes just Magdalene.

No doubt it was a reference to her hometown, but it went deeper than that. Magdalene is a nickname that means “tower,” and scholars think that Jesus and other early Christ-followers gave her this name because of her steadfast faith— a faith that withstood even the most difficult circumstances.

The only other followers of Jesus who had nicknames were Jesus’ closest friends: Cephas, who Jesus nicknamed “Peter,” which means “rock,” and brothers James and John, who Jesus nicknamed the “sons of thunder.”

These three (Peter, James, and John) are often called Jesus’ inner circle. They were the only ones with him during some of the biggest events in his life: the Transfiguration, the raising of Jairus’ daughter, and Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane right before his arrest.

Mary Magdalene is the only other follower of Jesus to receive a nickname recorded in scripture.

(Note: I love Jesus’ choice of nicknames for his closest friends: Tower, Rock, and Sons of Thunder. Jesus was so cool.)

Not only is it a big deal that Mary Magdalene had a nickname because it was rare, it was also a big deal because she was a woman. This first century that Jesus lived in was a totalitarian patriarchy, which is basically just a fancy way of saying that free men ruled everything.

The oppression of women was further exacerbated by the Romans who ruled this region of the world at the time. In the Roman Empire, free men were the only people considered legal citizens. Women were not people, they were possessions. And as possessions, they existed solely to benefit their patriarch.

But Jesus clearly believed that patriarchy was incongruent with the Kingdom of God, and we see him fighting against it throughout his life on earth.

For example:

1. When men were ready to stone the woman caught in adultery, Jesus knelt down beside her and rescued her.

2. When no one would go near the woman at the well because of her reputation, Jesus went to her and asked her for water.

Mary Magdalene, the woman with a nickname and the one whom Jesus included in his inner circle, gives us a beautiful example of Jesus pushing back on patriarchy.

But before we look at Mary Magdalene’s recorded life and interactions with Jesus, there are some big misconceptions about her which she deserves to have corrected.

First off, no matter what you’ve seen in Jesus Christ Superstar or The Da Vinci Code, Mary Magdalene was not a former prostitute and not the wife of Jesus. No legitimate religious or secular scholar thinks that she was.

These misconceptions actually began because of a sixth century sermon in which Pope Gregory the Great mistakenly conflated Mary Magdalene with the anonymous “sinful woman” who cries and kisses Jesus’ feet and pours out her perfume on him at Simon the Pharisee’s house. This led to Mary Magdalene being wrongly depicted as a prostitute— and occasionally Jesus’ lover— in art throughout the Middle Ages.

Pope Gregory did this because Mary Magdalene first appears in Luke chapter 8 and the “sinful woman” is in Luke chapter 7, but that is where connections between the two women end. Jesus actually travels between Luke 7 and 8; listen to verse 1 of chapter 8:

“After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God.”

Back in 1969, the Catholic Church corrected this mistake by publicly declaring Mary Magdalene distinct from the anonymous “sinful woman.” And, in 2016, Pope Francis announced a major feast day in her honor. When that happened, Lucetta Scarrafia, editor of the Vatican-published Women Church World monthly magazine, said this:

“By doing this, he [Pope Francis] established the absolute equality of Mary Magdalene to the apostles, something that has never been done before and is also a point of no return.”

Lucetta Scarrafia

All of that to say, Mary Magdalene is quite possibly the most notable and influential woman in the New Testament aside from Mary, the Mother of Jesus. When she stood up to fear and stepped out in faith, it literally changed the world.

Ready to hear her story?

We first meet Mary Magdalene during the early part of Jesus’ three years of ministry. From Luke 8:

After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.

Luke 8:1-3

Jesus meets Mary Magdalene in a pretty interesting situation: she is demon-possessed. Upon meeting her, Jesus casts out the demons and heals her. (Remember this because we are going to circle back to it.)

From this point on, Mary Magdalene becomes one of Jesus’ most devoted followers, financial supporters, and closest friends as she accompanies him throughout the rest of his ministry alongside the twelve disciples.

A couple of years into traveling and ministering with Jesus, she finds herself in an unbelievable place: watching her teacher and one of her closest friends die a criminal’s death on a cross.

Think for a moment about what must have been going through her mind. She has seen miracle after miracle from Jesus. For years she has watched him give sight to people who are blind, hearing to people who are deaf, food to thousands of people with just a few loaves of bread and some fish, and even relief to people possessed by demons, including her!

But over the last couple of days, she’s watched him be unjustly arrested, illegally tried and convicted, and now murdered. The Bible tells us that all this was enough to cause his disciples to run away.

All the disciples deserted him and fled.

Matthew 26:56

Even Peter, one of Jesus’ very closest followers, the “rock,” would deny knowing Jesus three different times in the coming days.

But not everyone abandoned him. Listen to how Mark describes this in his account of Jesus’ life:

With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”

Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, the younger and of Joseph, and Salome. In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs.

Mark 15:37-41

Then, as Jesus’ body is removed and prepared for burial, Mary Magdalene remains by his side.

Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea, and he himself was waiting for the kingdom of God. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body. Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid.

It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin. The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.

Luke 23:55-56

We believe from the evidence in the Bible that Jesus died around 3pm on Friday and was buried that evening, on Good Friday. At sundown, Sabbath began and everything stopped for twenty-four hours, now known as Holy Saturday. Mary Magdalene and some other women prepared the burial spices and perfumes for Jesus on Good Friday night, but rested during Sabbath on Holy Saturday.

Then, in the early morning hours of Easter Sunday, Mary Magdalene got up, grabbed the burial spices and perfumes, and made her way to Jesus’ tomb. Here she faced the climactic moment of her life, the moment when she was confronted by seemingly insurmountable fear and dealt with a difficult choice: either let fear control her OR trust in God and overcome her fear.

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

Matthew 28:1-4

She went to the tomb, prepared to perform the burial routine, where she witnessed one of the more chaotic events in the Bible.

Jesus is gone. In his place she found a man looking light lightning who rolled away the stone in front of the grave’s entrance. This is all so intense and bizarre that the guys supposed to be guarding the tomb fainted because they were so afraid.

I imagine Mary Magdalene and the other Mary standing there trembling as the angel turns to them and says, in Matthew 28:5, “Do not be afraid.”

There it is. One of the 200+ times that this command appears in the Bible.

“Do not be afraid for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’”

Matthew 28:5-7

Now there are all the obvious reasons to be afraid in this situation. We know it was so scary that the soldiers guarding the tomb, presumably guys who had fought in battles, literally passed out from fear.

But there was also a less obvious reason for Mary Magdalene to be afraid here. Did you hear the angel give her an assignment? What did he tell her to do?

“Go quickly and tell the disciples: He has risen from the dead.”

Do you remember what kind of culture Mary Magdalene lived in? A totalitarian patriarchy where women were treated like property; they weren’t even considered citizens by their government.

Claiming that someone died and then came back alive was pretty crazy for anyone, but Mary Magdalene couldn’t be a legal witness to anything. Now an angel is asking her to be the first witness of the most incredible event in the history of the world!

Mary Magdalene had every right to be afraid in this moment. This was a scary situation and maybe an even scarier assignment. So what does she do?

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

Matthew 28:8

They hurried away from the tomb, afraid but filled with joy, and ran to tell the disciples what they had seen. They were still afraid, but they weren’t going to let fear keep them from going on this great adventure with Jesus, so they ran to fulfill their assignment.

Here’s the question for us in this moment:

What does it look like to be afraid, yet full of joy, running after what God has called us to?

I would venture that most of us have been called into situations that feel overwhelming. Situations, like Mary Magdalene’s, where others have fainted and failed. It’s scary and it can be lonely, but here’s the thing: you aren’t alone. God is right there with you, telling you not to be afraid.

Our assignments are often scary. Like Mary Magdalene’s task, it seems like many of our callings can’t be fulfilled— do we really have to love everyone, including our enemies? And the truth is, we can’t do it on our own. But, thankfully, we aren’t on our own. God is with us, gently reminding us, “Do not be afraid.”

“Do not be afraid” doesn’t mean, “Wait until all the fear is gone,” or “Only take part in things that aren’t scary.” Like Donald Miller said, this command speaks two truths to us:

1. We are going to be afraid.

2. We shouldn’t let fear boss us around.

“Do not be afraid” means that we must not let our fear make our decisions for us. Don’t let fear trick you into living a small life. Don’t let fear boss you around.

At this point you’re probably asking, “But how?” How do I trust Jesus and not let fear overwhelm me? Let’s see how Mary Magdalene did it, because I think it can be the same for us.

Listen to how this passage ends. Mary Magdalene is running to fulfill her assignment from God and guess who shows up?

Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Matthew 28:9-10

Mary took off running and, as she was on her way, Jesus showed up to affirm her.

“You’re doing it, girl! Keep going! Don’t be afraid, you’ve got this!”

And Mary Magdalene believed Him. She trusted Him. Why?

Because she could look back on His faithfulness in her own life. She remembered the freedom he gave her when he cast the demons out. She knew Jesus would come through because he'd never let her down before.

The same is true for Mariann Budde. In her 2023 book called How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith, Rev. Budde shares about how Jesus was close to her during some of the most difficult moments in her life. After sharing about her painful teenage years as she navigated brokenness in her family of origin, she describes an encounter with God that inspired her to keep moving forward. She writes, “I heard what I have come to identify as the voice of God speaking directly to my heart.”

This is how we trust Jesus and stop letting fear control us: we remember his faithfulness. We trust that God is with us, speaking courage directly to our hearts, especially when we feel afraid.