Mark 16:9

This verse picks up at the most pivotal moment in human history — the morning of Jesus's resurrection. Mary Magdalene was a woman from the town of Magdala who had a dramatic past: the Gospels tell us Jesus had once freed her from seven demons, a phrase indicating severe spiritual and possibly mental torment. After Jesus was crucified, Mary was one of the women who came to the tomb early Sunday morning. What's striking is that Jesus chose to appear first to her — not to the twelve male disciples, not to any religious authority, not to anyone with social standing. In first-century Jewish and Roman culture, a woman's testimony was considered legally unreliable. God seemed entirely unconcerned with that.

Lord, you appeared first to someone who had every reason to feel forgotten. Thank you for choosing the broken and the overlooked. Wherever I feel disqualified by my past, remind me that you are not finished with me. Make me, like Mary, a faithful witness to what I have seen. Amen.

There's a quiet revolution buried in this verse that's easy to miss. The first human being to see the risen Jesus was someone society would have dismissed twice over — once for being a woman in a patriarchal world, and once for her history of demonic possession. Whatever that meant in the first century, it wasn't a résumé highlight. And yet: first. She saw him first. Maybe you carry something in your past that makes you feel disqualified — a diagnosis, a breakdown, a chapter you don't talk about at church. Mary's story suggests that the risen Jesus walks specifically toward the ones the world has written off. He didn't appear first to the powerful or the pure. He appeared first to someone who knew what it felt like to be set free. If that's your story too, you might be closer to the front of the line than you think.