Today is the feast day of the misunderstood #MaryMagdalene. While Jesus offered forgiveness and new life to all sorts of sinners (like me and whether you realize it or not, you), including prostitutes, Mary was not a one-time prostitute. Jesus freed her of demonic possession...
...She became a devoted disciple of Jesus and a preacher of the good news: the gospel of new and everlasting life with God for all who repent and believe in Jesus. Belief in Jesus—faith—is God’s gift, not our doing, to those in whom the Gospel Word takes root...
...”The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent,” Jesus, the One sent by God the Father, says. We are saved from sin, death, and the prisons of self by a faith in Jesus that God gives to us...
...God does this through His Word, Jesus, and through the means by which Jesus’ promises to come to us: the Bible, Holy Baptism, and Holy Communuon...
...In Mary Magdalene, Jesus and the Holy Spirit He sends, found one who was open to the gift of saving, life-giving faith. In her too, God found a person who, in the face of skepticism and unbelief, was moved to proclaim the message that Jesus had risen, fulfilling His...
...promise to tear open the way to reconciliation with God and new life for all who turn from sin and death and turn instead to Jesus...
...Tradition says that #MaryMagdalene preached the Gospel about Jesus in what is now France. She had experienced the truth of Jesus’ words, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)...
...In Jesus, she knew that she had experienced the loving presence of God Himself. And, through the Word, she helped others to know Him and experience Him as well...so that they too could believe...
...Presssed to disavow faith in Jesus or else, two of Jesus’ first followers, known well to Mary Magdalene, responded, “... we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 5:20)...
#MaryMagdalene agreed and by her faithful proclamation of the Gospel, many came to have eternal life with God...
“Salvation is found in no one else [but Jesus], for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) That’s what #MaryMagdalene endured in believing. I pray that God will help me to endure in trusting in Jesus like her...
...I pray too that you will trust (or believe) in Jesus too. That’s why on this feast day of #MaryMagdalene, I’m sharing the good news, the gospel Word, about Jesus right now.
Jesus says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life....
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him....
“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” (John 3:16-18)
