One On One: 100 Days With Jesus--Ministry YearsSample

Disciples, too: The One who breaks down walls   

One of the mysteries of Jesus’ ministry is where the money came from. Who paid for travel, food, and lodging for 12 men for three years? No one took an offering or asked for support. Jesus got no honorarium for His speaking engagements. 

Who funded Jesus’ cause? Surprisingly, many women did. Luke tells us a few of their names—Joanna from Herod’s high society and Susanna. Mary, James’ mother, and Mary Magdalene, and “many others.” Not only did Jesus welcome their support, He welcomed them to walk with Him. In the day, this was just shy of scandalous and certainly a huge paradigm shift. Most rabbis shooed women away. Pharisees were downright scared of them. At best, most men dismissed women—from conversation, from contribution, from their club. 

Instead, Jesus broke down the walls that kept women out.

He applauded Mary of Bethany who sat at His feet and listened to Him teach. “She chose the better…” He talked doctrine with Martha and with the Samaritan woman at the well. He noticed the quiet, faithful things women did—even a widow giving pennies to the Temple offering. He praised Jewish and Gentile women alike for their spiritual stamina. He welcomed Mary Magdalene to His ministry team—choosing her to be the first one He meets after His resurrection. 

This kind of attention on women was unheard of in first century Israel and for that matter, for many centuries since. 

While the typical disciple around Jesus was “called,” these women just came. Brave women, all of them, stepped forward to serve. To learn. To follow. It was the women, perhaps more so than the men, who got who Jesus really was. Call it intuition or personal experience, they just knew He was the Christ. Jesus had rescued all of them in some measure: some from demonic terror, others from physical illness, all from spiritual darkness. 

So, with great tenacity, a handful of courageous, devoted women walked in company with Jesus. They never bragged at how valuable their service was. Likely, they had their share of funny and touching behind-the-scenes stories to tell about Jesus. They loved Him because He first loved them. And they showed up in the places and times when it mattered most—at the cross and at His burial. 

They must have meant a great deal to Jesus who blatantly broke culture's rules to help them and welcome them so openly and so notoriously. They were women of faith, His true disciples, whom He called out of the shadows and into lives of influence and impact. He must have meant the world to them.

Tomorrow: One on one with Jesus and the rich kid