Mark 16:9-10 NASB
[Now after He had risen early on the first day of the week, He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons. [10] She went and reported to those who had been with Him, while they were mourning and weeping.
It has fascinated me for years that the risen Christ revealed himself first to Mary Magdalene, and it has caused me to pursue why. The answers that I have come up with so far have been a great encouragement and challenge to my own heart relationship with the Lord.
Ultimately, I believe that Jesus honors the most those who honor him most and that he found in Mary Magdalene, a heart that honored him with lovesickness. 1 John 4:18 says, “We love because He first loved us;” therefore, any love that we have towards the Lord Jesus is a response to his love for us. The story of the gospel is a story of lovesickness and it starts with God’s lovesickness towards us. The lovesick Christ hung on the Cross as the greatest demonstration of God’s love ever exhibited toward humanity. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” When speaking of the Cross, Catherine of Siena referred to it as “God’s divine madness,” and in 2 Corinthians 5:13 – 14 Paul said that the love of Christ so controlled him that it appeared to others as if he had somehow gone crazy. His crazy, extravagantly reckless obedient lifestyle and devotion to Jesus was simply his lovesick response back to Jesus.
I believe that Mary Magdalene had been struck with the divine madness of God demonstrated in Christ, and in response to the lovesick Christ, she responded with lovesickness for him. In John 12 she anointed the feet of Jesus with the expensive spikenard oil and then wiped his feet with her hair, and in Mark 14 she broke the alabaster vial and poured all that was left on the head of Jesus. As a result of her actions some of the disciples were frustrated because the expensive perfume had been wasted when they could’ve sold it and given the money to the poor; but a wasted life was the life Mary was compelled to live. To waste something is to do it to excess beyond what is expected, and that is how Mary lived for Jesus in response to the fact that he had wasted his life on her. Her heart was wrecked by the love of God the first time she met Jesus, and she spent the rest of her life wasting her heart on Him. I believe this is how she honored her Lord and why he honored her on that resurrection morning.