(Luke 8:1-3)
We know this woman as one who ministered to Jesus and His disciples throughout their ministry, a woman who was there at the cross when Jesus died, and as a woman who came with spices to anoint His body and instead met the risen Lord. But where did this woman come from? How did she find out about Jesus?
Truth be told, she used to be a demoniac. A disgrace to society. A schizophrenic woman with more than a bad case of PMS. If the demoniac Jesus healed in Luke 8:26-39 was anything like her, she might have also lived in the tombs outside the city. She may have been laughed at as the town ghost, the central figure in mothers' bedtime stories as they cowed their children with threats of, "watch out or you will grow up to be like her!"
And sadly, it wasn't just one of Satan's minions assigned to plague her. She was tormented day and night by seven of these evil spirits. Seven personalities all at war with each other. Seven voices in her head driving her to the point of wanting to destroy herself, but they wouldn't allow their host to actually have that blessed relief. She found the voices forcing her to scream out curses on every passer-by and yell blasphemies to the empty skies. There was no end to this struggle. Could she even remember a time when she played in her family's house or sat around the Shabbat table reciting prayers?
We don't know why Mary Magdalene was so afflicted. We don't even have a record anywhere within the four gospels that details how and when she met Jesus. We don't know where He sent those seven spirits, except that He sent them to a place He has designed especially for them.
But I imagine that it was a day like any other. Jesus might have been walking out of the town on His way to somewhere else when she came out of the forest and stopped. The voices in her head were shouting at her, making her feet feel like lead, and causing her to convulse. Except that this time the demons were actually afraid; they were about to encounter something they could not win against. And yet she willed her legs to carry her towards the group of travelers and that Voice. The Voice sounded like a cool drink of water, a warm fire during the cold desert nights and a tug at something deep in her memory. And best of all, the more she concentrated on the Voice, the quieter the voices got inside her head.
But she looked like a mess. The things she had done to try to drown out the voices had left her bruised and scarred. The rocks that others hurled at her had broken some bones which had set incorrectly, leaving her somewhat deformed. Her hair was unkempt and knotted, what was left of her clothes were soiled and ripped and she had long since lost her sandals. She looked like a walking dead woman...
And then He saw her. He took pity on her. He knew that she was trapped; she was incapable of anything to help herself. And He could see past the spirits into the eyes of the woman begging to be released. We don't know what Jesus said or did to expel the demons, but I'm sure it was not a lovely process. We know that darkness cannot stand the light, and it may have only taken a look, or a touch, or a word for those seven things to explode from her in a scream of agony.
But what was she to do now? She must have been a demoniac for some years; would anyone remember her back home. Or be glad to see her? With her reputation she had little chance for a good marriage, if any marriage at all. She had nothing. But to be rid of the voices was everything.
We see her later coming behind Jesus and His motley crew of followers and disciples. We see her--along with several other women--caring for His needs out of their own means. And we see her and "the other Mary" as the first to whom the risen Lord appeared to.
We only see glimpses of this remarkable woman here and there, but we know that the day she met Jesus was a bad day to be a demon!
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