Do you know who Mary Magdalene was? A follower of Jesus? A prostitute? First person to see Jesus when he rose from the dead? If you said any of the above, you’d be correct. I’m sure there are more ways to describe her, but these are the three that we will be focusing on. Mary was considered a sinful woman. During that time, women were stoned if they were caught in adultery.
Jesus does not focus on the sin, he focuses on the sinner. The bible tells us that Mary was a follower of Jesus. After Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, the first person He appeared to was Mary Magdalene. In John 20:10, the other disciples had gone back home, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. She was still mourning the loss of her Jesus, the one who had rescued her from a sinful life. When Mary looked in the tomb, there were two angels, where Jesus’ body had been. They asked her, ‘woman, why are you crying?’ She was crying because ‘they have taken my Lord away’… ‘And I don’t know where they have put him’. When she turns around, she is asked the question again. This time, it’s Jesus who is asking. While she does not recognize him, and thinking he’s the gardener, she speaks to Him. And then Jesus says, ‘Mary’. He simply calls her name, and as soon as He does that, she recognizes that it’s Jesus. He asks her to go tell his family and friends that He’s alive.
There were so many faithful disciples to Jesus, but yet He chose to appear first to her. I think God in His infinite wisdom, knows that He would ask things of us, and because we think of our past, we believe we are unworthy. He uses examples over and over in the bible of who He chooses to use, and reminds us that He doesn’t call the qualified, but qualifies those He calls.
Lord, my prayer today is that when you call me to do something, help me to be like Isaiah, who will say ‘send me, Lord, send me.’ Help me to have a willing heart, and even though I may not know the first step, that I may go willingly, because you will prepare me for wherever you are calling me to go.
