Mary,

How can it be that your town of Magdala has been recently rediscovered!

I try to imagine what life was like for you growing up here. Little is said of your life before encountering Jesus, but so much is said of your commitment and love to our Savior afterwards. I pause to grasp what your body endured being controlled by seven demons. How long did you live this way? Did the people in Magdala reject you or have compassion on you? (Luke 8:1-3)

I strolled through your streets. I see the remains of the synagogue and the ornate stand where the scrolls would have been unrolled and read befor the people. They know call this the Magdala stone. The menorah (the seven lamp ancient Hebrew lamp stand) is clearly visible in the synagogue. I see structures of homes and the marketplace. I see Magdala sits along the Sea of Galilee (Tiberius Sea) just like Capernaum. It makes sense that Jesus walked through your town and found you.

This might be funny to you, but I thought Magdalene was your last name! Now I understand you were Mary the Magdalene, Mary from Magdala. I could say I’m Shauna San Franciscan. Or Natalie Vinings, Blake Rogersville, Kim Charlotte, John Pasadena.

To think you left a seaside town to follow Jesus like the fishermen makes you relatable. You saw something in Him, felt something with Him, and it was enough for you to follow Him to His death and encounter Him after the resurrection. You with your scars and past show me that He desires me as a person, not what I possess or lack. Jesus knew you simply and deeply as Mary. He knows me and my friends by our names too. I’m prone to complicate who I am and what I can bring our Savior to win His approval or get in good graces. Yet, you’ve shown me something, Mary, as I see the stoned remains of your town. It’s not in the past or the upbringing or the town we’re from that determines our destiny. It’s Who we choose to follow that alters our course in life. This might have been your town, but your life lives on through Scripture because of your radical commitment to follow your Lord and serve Him with all you had and all you were.

And for that, I write to tell you thank you, Mary.

An admirer from afar,

Shauna

(Facts shared come from the Scriptures and from the tour with Insight for Living Ministries. Imagination from my own heart.)