Who
am I? You can call my Mary. Mary Magdalene. No doubt you’ve heard my name
before. And just to clear things up- no, I was never a prostitute. I think I’d
know. And I would appreciate if you’d put an end to those rumors if you hear
them. Like a lot of people have done, you may have mistaken me for the other Mary, a close friend of mine. She
was the one who broke the alabaster jar of perfume to anoint the Teacher with,
wiping his feet with her hair. She
had repented and turned away from her sinful lifestyle and found freedom in
Christ. Most people mistakenly think that was I, but no. My story is a
different one. I may not have been a prostitute, but one thing is for sure- I
was lost. At one point, I had lost everything. I was hopeless. With seven
demons inside of me, I was tormented. And I believed what they engrained in my
mind. I was in darkness. To others, not only was I just a woman, but I was an
outcast. People wouldn’t come near me. To them, I was just crazy. Worth nothing at all. And I believed it. No
one saw me. Until He did. The Teacher saw me. As he came through
Galilee one day, he saw me and he saved me. He lifted me from the pit I
was in and gave me a future. When no one else saw value, he saw worth. When
everyone else walked by, he stopped and saw something worth saving. This was the compassion that marked his
teachings.
Now
he didn’t just leave me there once I was free. He didn’t just leave me to
figure things out on my own after I was free. He taught me- he taught all of us. And he didn’t just teach us
and leave us, he walked with us.
Every step of the way… he walked along side of us with patience and compassion.
This is how he discipled us. He kept his eyes on us as he kept his eyes
forward. He kept up moving. And this is how he taught us to pass it on and
disciple others. That was what made an impact. And once I saw this, this wasn’t
just something I could keep to myself. Because he lived it, because he was so
different from the Pharisees that just preached and didn’t do anything, I
needed to do whatever I could to help. I got the other women together- Joanna,
Susanna, Chuza, and a few others- and we funded his ministry out of our own
pockets. And it was worth every penny we got together. He allowed us, as women,
to be involved in his ministry. He didn’t just push us aside. While others
might have done just that, he recognized that all people, men and women, young
and old, had a purpose, had something
they could do for the Kingdom.
He never abandoned us as he taught us. He
taught us to the very end. And by his example,
he taught us to be steadfast. And just as he hadn’t given up on all of us, I
didn’t give up on him in his last days. All the disciples ran away and hid when
he was arrest and in his death as he was crucified. But I stayed, until that
very last moment. And wonder of wonders, when he came to life again at the
tomb, he appeared to me first. Me, a lowly woman. He chose to show Himself to
me first.
The
bottom line is this: he could have left me after he saved me. But he didn’t. He
led me, taught me, walked with me. He saw me as who I could become, not who I
was. That’s what made him the leader he was.
No comments:
Post a Comment