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Viewpoint from Rev Matthew Price 19/07/2019
 Rev Matthew Price
Minister, St Mary Magdalene Church in Gorleston
as published in the Great Yarmouth Mercury
Next Monday (22nd July), churches across the country will remember Mary Magdalene, after whom St Mary Magdalene Church and, indeed, the Magdalen estate are named
Whilst there are many traditions surrounding Mary Magdalene, the Bible actually tells us relatively little about her. But what we are told is that she was one of Jesus’ followers - or disciples - and all four of the gospel writers place her as a witness to both Jesus’ death and resurrection. And it seems to me that as a witness to Jesus’ resurrection she could not play a more important role in the story of the Christian faith
 In the early 1980s, American journalist and lawyer, Lee Strobel, set out to investigate and disprove the Christian faith. Writing at the time he said “even as an atheist, I understood one thing about Christianity: it rises or falls on the resurrection of Jesus” . And so he knew that the eyewitness accounts of the resurrection - including that of Mary Magdalene - would be critical
 What Strobel found was that the accounts stacked up. He discovered that whilst we only have one or two sources for much of what we know from ancient history, there are nine sources – inside and outside the New Testament – confirming the testimony of the disciples that they encountered the resurrected Jesus. He concluded that none of the alternative explanations made sense and, finally, he reached his verdict: “the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus was clear and convincing”
Inspired by Mary Magdalene, perhaps now would be a good time to check out the claims of Jesus’ resurrection for yourselves? Strobel’s book, A Case for Christ, which tells the story of his investigation - or the film by the same name - would be a great place to start!
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