It was him. He called me by my name.

For some time, we have wanted to watch season one of "The Chosen".  So we're grateful to our sons Ethan and Matthew for helping us get started!

It began with Ethan, when we watched the first episode with him and Mindy a couple of weeks ago. Then last night Matthew, who is visiting from Colorado, invited us to watch more episodes with him.

The series begins with Mary of Magdala,, as a child, being comforted by her father. Then years later we see her as an adult in Capernaum, known by another name, in the horrors of her demonic oppression. A leading Pharisee who is visiting from Jerusalem tries unsuccessfully to help her. After this encounter she has another meeting with a stranger who calls to her, "Mary". Hearing her real name gets her attention, and without anything spectacular happening, she leaves the encounter not knowing who it is who has called her by her name, but knowing she is free from the demons who had been destroying her.

Sometime after this, the Pharisee learns that she has changed and seeks her out to try to verify that there has indeed been a miracle. It is awkward when this sophisticated religious leader finds her, an apparently insignificant village woman, and starts to ask her questions in his attempt to understand what has happened. For Mary, everything about her past is fuzzy, like a blur, and she doesn't remember the Pharisee. As the Pharisee keeps pressing for clarity, she finally looks at him and calmly says:

"It wasn't you. It was him. He called me by my name."

The Pharisee asks Mary for the man's name., Mary says she doesn't know his name, and she  doesn't know what happened. All she knows is she met "him" and now her life has changed.

The Pharisee was a leader, a practitioner of a very good religion, the commandments given by God to Moses more than a thousand years earlier. But this good religion was powerless when confronted with Mary's need for a life change.

We 21st century Christians may also be practicing a very good religion, better than the Pharisee's because it is based on God's "completed" Word and centered on the need for the sacrificial death of Jesus. Yet when there is no ongoing reality of a personal encounter with Jesus, we are as powerless to experience or be a means of a changed life as the Pharisee who tried to help Mary.

May I remember Mary's words: "It was him. He called me by my name."