Yeshua, The Beloved, Radical Jewish Reformer, Gnostic, Liberator of the Oppressed, A Window into the Divine, A Bridge From Heaven to Earth, Precious Redeemer, Beautiful Savior, Immanuel, God with Us, Jesus, Christ, Rose of Sharon, Lilly of the Valley, Bright and Morning Star, Lord, the Good Shepherd—descriptors of the Beloved of God, sent to earth to convince a stubborn planet of the love of God. All are names of the same God/Man. Which name do you know Him by?
There are so many names for one man—so many descriptors. They each reveal a certain aspect or characteristic of Christ. I love the Arabic name, Yeshua. “Rabboni”, Master, my beloved teacher, is the name Mary Magdalene called out to Jesus as the first witness to the resurrection.
Mary was the first one at the tomb on that Sunday morning after the crucifixion. She was the first one to really understand why Christ had been sent and why He had come. She was a disciple and had a heart of love for her Rabboni for it was by His miraculous interventions that she was freed from spiritual enslavement to her lower self to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn of the greater plan for her life.
It was a radical thing for women to be taught the scriptures. To walk with a great teacher as a woman was unheard of. Christ came to radically reform the way women were looked at and the way they were treated. Paul, a Gnostic apostle, followed the example of Christ and he declared in one of his epistles to the church, “there is now neither slave nor free, male nor female, Jew nor Greek.” We are all one in Christ.
Freedom to learn, acquire knowledge, and participate in leadership is the right of every human being. It is a shame that it has been denied to so many. But women have always had access to wisdom, for wisdom comes from God. You do not have to have the permission or approval of man to walk closely with God and to be filled with the Spirit. But now is the time for women to be not only filled with wisdom and have a close walk with God, it is time for women to participate in spiritual leadership in our world.
The reason the voice of women is so important is that they tend to emphasize the feminine principle of receptivity, reflectivity, and yielding to Spirit that is so important for our spiritual growth. The feminine principle is not limited to gender, but women have a lot of experience with this aspect because they have been limited to that role for so long. The masculine principle of acting is just as important, but we have tended to be out of balance on the action side and need the counter-balancing influence of receptivity to bring us back into balance.
When we look at the life of Mary Magdalene we see the results of yielding your life to the Beloved. Jesus, Rabboni, became the center of everything in her life. She became the voice announcing to the apostles the risen Savior. She in essence became the “apostle to the apostles”. Scripture has downplayed the role she had in the formation of the early Christian church, but it was a woman that first understood the importance of the mission of Christ.
She was receptive because she had lost everything. By yielding her life, she received everything in return. The same promise is made for us. Jesus reminded us that in order to find our lives we must first lose them. This is the first step, yielding ego to the Spirit in order to be filled with something greater.
In order for our lives or the world to change we have to be connected to something greater than ourselves. God’s Spirit is the transforming power that changes. One of the lessons to be learned from the life of Mary is that of devotion. When we become devoted to knowing God—gnosis—nothing will ever be the same. It will become infinitely better.
There are so many names for one man—so many descriptors. They each reveal a certain aspect or characteristic of Christ. I love the Arabic name, Yeshua. “Rabboni”, Master, my beloved teacher, is the name Mary Magdalene called out to Jesus as the first witness to the resurrection.
Mary was the first one at the tomb on that Sunday morning after the crucifixion. She was the first one to really understand why Christ had been sent and why He had come. She was a disciple and had a heart of love for her Rabboni for it was by His miraculous interventions that she was freed from spiritual enslavement to her lower self to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn of the greater plan for her life.
It was a radical thing for women to be taught the scriptures. To walk with a great teacher as a woman was unheard of. Christ came to radically reform the way women were looked at and the way they were treated. Paul, a Gnostic apostle, followed the example of Christ and he declared in one of his epistles to the church, “there is now neither slave nor free, male nor female, Jew nor Greek.” We are all one in Christ.
Freedom to learn, acquire knowledge, and participate in leadership is the right of every human being. It is a shame that it has been denied to so many. But women have always had access to wisdom, for wisdom comes from God. You do not have to have the permission or approval of man to walk closely with God and to be filled with the Spirit. But now is the time for women to be not only filled with wisdom and have a close walk with God, it is time for women to participate in spiritual leadership in our world.
The reason the voice of women is so important is that they tend to emphasize the feminine principle of receptivity, reflectivity, and yielding to Spirit that is so important for our spiritual growth. The feminine principle is not limited to gender, but women have a lot of experience with this aspect because they have been limited to that role for so long. The masculine principle of acting is just as important, but we have tended to be out of balance on the action side and need the counter-balancing influence of receptivity to bring us back into balance.
When we look at the life of Mary Magdalene we see the results of yielding your life to the Beloved. Jesus, Rabboni, became the center of everything in her life. She became the voice announcing to the apostles the risen Savior. She in essence became the “apostle to the apostles”. Scripture has downplayed the role she had in the formation of the early Christian church, but it was a woman that first understood the importance of the mission of Christ.
She was receptive because she had lost everything. By yielding her life, she received everything in return. The same promise is made for us. Jesus reminded us that in order to find our lives we must first lose them. This is the first step, yielding ego to the Spirit in order to be filled with something greater.
In order for our lives or the world to change we have to be connected to something greater than ourselves. God’s Spirit is the transforming power that changes. One of the lessons to be learned from the life of Mary is that of devotion. When we become devoted to knowing God—gnosis—nothing will ever be the same. It will become infinitely better.