The Story
Of the four Gospels, John's is the one that lingers longest at the empty tomb. Matthew gets the women in and out in three verses; Mark in six; Luke in twelve. John takes thirty-one. And almost all of them belong to one person.
Her name was Mary, but they called her Magdalene — of Magdala, a fishing village on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee — to distinguish her from the other Marys in the story. Luke records, briefly and devastatingly, that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her. We do not know what those years were like for her before He found her. We know she had been one of the women who travelled with Him through Galilee, providing for the disciples out of their own means. We know she was at the cross on Friday — many of the male disciples were not — and that she watched Joseph and Nicodemus take His body down. We know she went home, kept the Sabbath, and rose before sunrise on Sunday to come back to the tomb with spices.
She came to anoint a dead man. That is the only thing in her mind. The other women are with her, but in John's telling she stands out from them; she runs ahead, or back, or alone. She finds the stone rolled away. She does not even look in. She runs to find Peter and John and tells them — accusingly, almost — "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." The men come. They look in. They go home.
She stays. The men go home; the woman stays at the grave. She is weeping. She stoops to look in, finally — and sees two angels in white, one at the head and one at the feet of the place where the body had been. They ask her why she is weeping. She tells them. She turns around — and there, behind her, in the grey of the garden, is a man she takes to be the gardener.
He asks her the same question. "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" She is too desperate to recognise the voice. She bargains with him as if he had stolen the body. "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away."
And then He says one word. "Mary."
That is all. One word, in Aramaic, the language they had spoken to each other for three years on dusty roads. And the dawn, which had been grey, is the first morning of the new creation, and she turns and she says, "Rabboni!" — my Teacher.
He sends her back to the disciples with a message. She runs through the streets of Jerusalem with the news no human being had ever carried. "I have seen the Lord." And the Church — though it does not yet know it — has begun, with a woman, in a garden, before sunrise.
Scripture
Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.
John 20:1 (ESV)
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb.
John 20:11 (ESV)
Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away."
John 20:15 (ESV)
Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned and said to him in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).
John 20:16 (ESV)
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord" — and that he had said these things to her.
John 20:18 (ESV)
Lyrics
*[Intro]
The third day was a Sunday.
The garden was still grey.
And a woman who had been seven demons
Walked toward a hollow grave.
[Verse 1]
She came when it was dark,
She came with her oils and tears,
She came to anoint a stranger's tomb
That had only held three years.
But the stone was rolled away
And the linen on the floor —
And the body of her only Lord
Was not there anymore.
[Pre-Chorus]
And she wept into her hands,
And she asked the empty cave —
"They have taken my Lord away from me,
And I do not know where they laid…"
[Chorus]
Tell me where you have taken Him,
Tell me, gardener, please —
Tell me where they have laid my Lord
And I will carry Him from these…
She did not know that joy was breathing,
She did not know the morning came,
She did not know the One she searched for
Was about to speak her name.
[Verse 2]
And she turned around to see
A figure in the haze,
And she thought He was the keeper of
The flowers and the graves.
But He looked at her and opened
The silence of the years,
And He spoke one single word
And it broke through all her tears.
[Pre-Chorus 2]
And the dawn stood very still,
And the dew held back its fall,
And the angels in the empty tomb
Were listening for the call…
[Bridge]
He said my name —
He said my name —
He said it like He used to,
Like the first time He set me free —
RABBONI! RABBONI! RABBONI!
HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN!
GO AND TELL MY BROTHERS (she said it through her tears)
HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN!
[Final Chorus]
She did not have to tell them
Where they had taken Him —
For He had taken Himself out,
And the morning was no sin.
She was the first apostle of the dawn,
She was the witness, she was the flame,
And the first ears to hear that Jesus lived
Were the ones who heard her name.
*[Outro]
And she ran. And she ran. And she ran.
And she said to the men in the upper room —
"I have seen the Lord."
"I have seen the Lord."
"I have seen the Lord…"
About the song
"He Said Her Name" is the EP's morning. The arrangement starts in the grey before dawn — a single piano, low strings, a mourning dove — and lifts at the moment of recognition into the full ensemble. The bridge is Mary's own voice, breathless: He said my name… he said it like He used to. We wanted the listener to remember that the first apostle of the resurrection was a woman, and that the first thing the risen Christ did with His new voice was speak someone's name.