Recommended Citation
Lawal, J. O. (2025, April 6). Why Mary Magdalene? From Pastor’s Desk, 12(49).
Beloved: grace, mercy and peace be yours abundantly from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the month of April 2025. My prayer is that God will make Himself known to you more adequately in the month, so that you can become more and more like the Lord Jesus in all ways. Amen.
One of the things that determine the extent to which God will make Himself known to us is our eagerness for Him. For example, the first person Jesus appeared to after His resurrection was Mary the Magdelene, not Peter, James, John or any of other apostles. Why? What made her so special that she was the first to see Jesus after His resurrection? At least, from what we see in the bible, this woman was not Jesus’s mother or sister. Also, she is not referred to as Jesus’ friend, as Lazarus and his sisters are referred to as His friends. On the contrary, she is described in the bible as the woman from whom Jesus drove out seven demons. (Cf. Luke 8:2; John 20:1-18)
So, Mary Magdalene was technically a witch before Jesus met her. Yes, she was a wicked woman before she met the Lord. Yet she was the first person that Jesus revealed Himself to after His resurrection. Why her?
Well, as we also see in the bible, it was because of her unusual eagerness for the Lord that He revealed Himself to her first. And how was that so? First, after her deliverance from her life of wickedness, she became one of the few people that supported Jesus most with their money and substance (Luke 8:1-3). Second, when Jesus was arrested and crucified, she was among the women that stood with Him to the very end, to the time He died and was laid in the tomb (Matt 27:55-61).
Third, this woman was among the women that went back to the tomb of Jesus on the day of His resurrection to take care of His dead body (Mark 16:1). Fourth, when they got to the tomb of Jesus and could not find His body there, it was only Mary Magdalene that would not leave the tomb. Others, including Peter and John, who had come to find out what had happened left. But she stayed there and continued to weep for the Lord because she thought some wicked people had come to steal His dead body. (Cf. John 20:1-18)
Now it was while she was weeping for the Lord in front of that tomb that He showed Himself to her. You can see, then, that it was because she was the most passionate about the Lord at that time that He revealed Himself to her first after His resurrection. That shows us that there is no favouritism with the Lord. If we are passionate about Him, He will make Himself known to us in ways He may not make Himself known to other people, irrespective of our age, sex, position, colour or history.
But then, let us not think that the Lord will automatically make Himself known to us because we bear bible names like Mary, Peter, James, John and so forth. If we are not passionate about Him as Mary Magdalene was, He will not reveal much about Himself to us. Let us be passionate about Him, then, if we want to know Him adequately. And we can show our passion for Him through our devotion to His word, prayer and Christian fellowship. My prayer is that our hearts will be daily strengthened to be seriously devoted to these things, so that we may get to know the Lord as we ought to know Him. Amen.
Have a lovely April 2025.
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