Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles
July 22, 2019
JESUS MAFA. Easter - Christ appears to Mary, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.
Today is the feast of St. Mary Magdalene.
Because she was the first witness to, and proclaim the resurrection, she has been called the "Apostle to the Apostles."
She is also associated, by many, with "The Woman Who Loved Much," and washed Jesus' feet with her tears because she had been forgiven mich.
Methodist Theology, Kenneth Wilson describes her as, "in effect", one of the "first missionaries"
Women came first to the tomb.
They found it empty.
"He is not here. He has risen, as he said," was the greeting they received with initial perplexity and eventual joy. in Matthew 28:6.
They were commissioned to announce the news of resurrection to the Apostles in Matthew 28:1–10 and Luke 24:–11.
The Gospel of John, as well as Mark 16:9 zero in on Mary Magdalene's part in this great drama.
She meets Jesus, supposing him to be the gardener.
Pope John Paul II said, "This event, in a sense, crowns all that has been said previously about Christ entrusting divine truths to women as well as men."
She was among the women who supported Jesus financially.
Coming from Magdala Nunayya, she may have frequented the Roman-period synagogue unearthed in 2009.
It dated as far back as 50 BC and 100 were
Discovered in the ruins was a stone carved with a seven-branched menorah.
Magdala (Aramaic: מגדלא meaning "tower," was an ancient city, built on the shore of the Sea of Galilee near Tiberius.
It was a fishing village.
It might be surmised that Jesus, passing through, met her. She was said to have been delivered from seven demons. That might mean, because seven is the number of completion, that she was completed overwhelmed by the oppression of demonic forces that dehumanized and degraded her.
Jesus set her free.
She is mentioned enough times in the gospels, all four of them, that one would gather that her name and reputation were well known in the early church.
After the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, she must have been one of those leaders and preachers of the gospel, that helped to shape the early church and the Jesus movement.
Mary Magdalene's life is an example to us of how the compassion of Jesus, the power of God the resurrection, and the call to proclaim the good news can transform our lives and the lives of others through us.