Holy Moments are those divine occasions when God intersects human history. This Easter, join us at Burke Community Church as we celebrate one of the most incredible Holy Moments in all of human history, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Aren’t there some questions about the Bible you’d like answered? Here are a few worth posing to God one day. • Do you think that Eve ever ate a piece of fruit again?
• After the Noahic flood, I wonder if Noah loved boats?
• I wonder what happened to Moses’s staff?
• Since the Ten Commandments were carved in stone, where did they wind up? Are they still around somewhere?
• Did Samson ever have to lift the Old Testament version of weights? Follow-up question: Was he ripped or just bulk muscle, like a massive pro football player lineman?
• Since Solomon was the wisest man ever to walk the planet, did anyone ever pose a scenario that left him speechless?
• Did Job ever regret asking God for an audience to argue his case about how he thought his treatment was unfair?
• Was King David a good singer, I mean, did he sing on key?
• Do you think Peter ever tried walking on water again?
I could go on, but I’m sure my questions have prompted biblical questions in your own mind.
Here is another I pondered during this Passion Week. Which woman is talked about the most in the New Testament? Do you know? The answer is quite surprising. It’s Mary from the fishing village of Magdala, located on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Of course, we know her as Mary Magdalene. Granted, that was not her last name, but it at least gives us an idea of where she was from. Magdala was located six miles southwest of the seaside fishing village of Capernaum, the base of Christ’s operations in the Galilee region.
Here is another question that thinking minds want answered. Who was the first person to see the resurrected Christ? No. It wasn’t Peter, the leader of the disciples. No. It wasn’t John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, who stayed near him at His crucifixion, along with his mother, Mary. Those are logical choices, but they are wrong. It was Mary Magdalene.
Here is an important follow-up question. Why did Jesus appear to Mary first, of all people that could have been on His master list? I think the answers to this question are not only interesting but, for our purposes on this Easter Sunday, challenge us spiritually, whether we are saints or sinners. I think there are three logical and theological reasons why Jesus revealed Himself in His resurrected body to Mary from the nowheresville village of Magdala.
She Was A Perpetual Disciple
I know. This statement generates a question: Were not the Twelve perpetual disciples, or devoted students and followers of Jesus? Well, Judas certainly wasn’t, as time bore forth. But weren’t the other eleven sold out to the Lord? Yes, but they did have a moment when they deserted Him. When did this occur? It occurred when the Jewish authorities arrested Him on trumped-up charges and eventually turned Him over to the Romans for crucifixion for being an insurrectionist and blasphemer, eleven of them ran for cover (Matt. 26:56). Later, I’m sure John reassessed the sad, sordid situation and bravely stepped out of the shadows. You will remember it is John, the beloved disciple, who eventually stood strong and true with Christ’s mother, Mary (John 19:25-27).
With all of this in mind, consider Mary Magdalene.
Listen to how Luke describes her when she became a Christ-follower toward the beginning of His short, but eventful, 3 ½ year ministry.
1 Soon afterwards, He began going around from one city and village to another, proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God. The twelve were with Him, 2 and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who were contributing to their support out of their private means. (Luke 8)
We don’t know the exact circumstances of Mary’s salvation, but when she became an ardent follower of Jesus, she stayed the course no matter what. When the religious leaders repeatedly mocked Jesus. She remained faithful, even though her association with Him placed her in a potentially dangerous situation. When the seventy disciples deserted Jesus because they didn’t like the depth of His teaching and the cost of real commitment, she remained faithful. When Jesus made the arduous and final journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, Matthew tells us that she and other key women joined Him and the disciples.
55 Many women were there looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee while ministering to Him. 56 Among them was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. (Matt. 27)
And she didn’t just follow the group as a loyal disciple; according to Luke, she had financial means and used them to support Christ’s spiritual and redemptive work. What a woman. No matter what our Lord faced in His life, her loyal love and commitment to him never faltered, not one time.
So, why did Jesus eventually appear to her first? I think the answer is as clear as it is simple. He knew He could count on her to do the work of a disciple. He knew she, who had a proven track record of being there for Him at critical times, wouldn’t let Him down now that He was resurrected from the dead. After His miraculous and glorious resurrection in time and space, Jesus wanted to make sure the message of all messages got out to all the right people. Who better to entrust the message to than, you guessed it, Mary. We would have probably selected Peter, James, or John, true leaders among the disciples; however, that is not what Jesus did. He chose Mary from Magdala because He knew this faithful witness would carry out His last personal command to go and tell the disciples of His spectacular defeat of sin and death. Think of it. Mary literally became the first evangelist. Now, it is your turn.
Question: Would Jesus have selected you? Would your track record of following hard after Him cause Him to come to you with a message of all messages? The point can’t be missed today: Just as Jesus chose Mary to share the proof of the resurrection with others, He now chooses you. Will you be faithful to verbally share what happened in that memorial garden 2,000 years ago? He is risen. There is no greater message for our world today, and this message changes everything. Why? Because this truth demonstrates that Jesus is the only way to the Father (John 14:1-6), Jesus is the one way for sinners to become saints. Jesus is the only way spiritually dead people can become spiritually alive (Acts 4:10-12). Jesus is now equipped to raise our physical bodies and fit them for the glory of heaven.
Can Jesus count on you as He counted on Mary? A second reason why Jesus chose Mary Magdalene is showcased in this statement:
She Was A Picture Of Mercy
As I said, we don’t know the circumstances of Mary’s initial salvation, but we do know something about her prior life as a non-Christian because the gospels of Luke and Mark inform us:
1 Soon afterwards, He began going around from one city and village to another, proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God. The twelve were with Him, 2 and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who were contributing to their support out of their private means. (Luke 8)
9 Now after He had risen early on the first day of the week, He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons (Mark 16)
Two times we are told that seven demonic beings had possessed Mary. We don’t know how this happened. We don’t know when it happened. We know that she was in demonic bondage when Jesus crossed her life path, probably in Magdala. How did the gospel writers know there were seven demons? Christ probably spoke with the demons, as he did with the demon-possessed man who lived in the tombs in the country of the Gerasenes, on the southeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee (Luke 8:26-27). When Jesus asked the demon his name, he said it was Legion because he represented many demons that had taken up residence in this helpless individual. Pragmatically, this meant that at least 5,000 to 6,000 demons controlled this poor, enslaved man.
How could that many demons reside in one man? It is not difficult for transdimensional beings, who are not restricted by our laws of physics, to do things that, to us, seem impossible or illogical. So, if thousands of demons resided in one man, then seven in one woman was certainly doable from an angelic perspective.
What do we know about demonic possession from the New Testament? From analyzing Christ’s dealings with these angelic foes who defected from His army before the cosmos was created, we can readily describe what they did (and do) to a person they inhabit:
- Unusual physical strength. Chains, for instance, couldn’t bind the demoniac from Gerasenes.
- Alteration of the human voice. Legion spoke through the man.
- Blindness, muteness (Matt. 12:22, the mute/blind man), deafness, convulsions, self-destructive behavior (the boy who was frequently thrown into a raging fire, Mark 9:14-29), and anti-social isolation (Mark 5:5; Luke 8:29).
If any of this applied to Mary before she became a believer, she was in a world of hurt. She wouldn’t have had many friends, if any. She would have been a social outcast. She would have been prone to destructive behavior. She might have had some debilitating physical ailment(s). She certainly wouldn’t have had any lasting inner peace, just daily fear of the darkness that controlled her life.
Running into Jesus changed everything. I’m sure with a word, she experienced freedom for the first time in years. With a word, the Lord of glory broke the stranglehold these dark beings had on her life. With a word from Jesus, she went from being a slave of the Devil to being a servant of Christ. With a word from Jesus, fear was replaced with joy and hope. With a word from Jesus, she found new friends who cared about her. With a word from Jesus, she traded spiritual death for spiritual life.
No wonder, then, that Christ chose to appear to Mary first before anyone else. She represented the very reason why He came to earth. Since seven is the number of perfection in the Bible, we can safely conclude that she was the poster child for a person enslaved and dominated by sin. Hence, she became the perfect person for Christ to reveal Himself to after His resurrection because she was a living and breathing example of the power of His gospel. He takes spiritually dead and broken people, people with no purpose and meaning, people with no hope, people with truckloads of guilt. He gives them, at the moment of faith, forgiveness, freedom, and a life of knowing and walking intimately with Him. This is why Jesus appeared to her first. What does this mean to you? It means that the resurrected Lord possesses all the necessary power to save you from the clutches of sin and to give you not only eternal forgiveness and the hope of life in His presence one day (Rev. 1:5), but a real, vibrant, and intimate relationship with Him in the here and now (Rom. 8:10-11). Put differently, what Jesus gave to Mary, He now waits to give to you.
The third reason why Christ appeared to Mary Magdalen first is this:
She Was A Powerful Witness
How so? Well, if you lived in this Semitic culture and wanted to build a fictitious or mythical story about Christ’s resurrection, a woman would never be selected as your first witness. Why? Unfortunately, in Jewish and Roman cultures, women were looked down upon and didn’t enjoy the status and prominence that men did. Consider the following quotes from ancient Jewish writings.
Sooner let the words of the law be burned than delivered to women. (Talmud, Sotah 19a)
The world cannot exist without males and without females– happy is he whose children are males, and woe to him whose children are females. (Talmud, Kiddushin 82b)
But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex, nor let servants be admitted to give testimony on account of the ignobility of their soul; since it is probable that they may not speak truth, either out of hope of gain, or fear of punishment. (Josephus, Antiquities 4.8.15).
Any evidence which a woman {gives} is not valid (to offer), also they are not valid to offer. This is equivalent to saying that one who is rabbinical he accounted a robber is qualified to give the same evidence as a woman (Talmud, Ros Hashannah 1.8).
In other words, male Jewish thinkers from the time of Christ thought that a woman’s testimony was about as important as that of a criminal. This may explain why the disciples didn’t place much credence in what Mary had to say when she reported seeing the resurrected Christ.
9 and returned from the tomb and reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James; also the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles. 11 But these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them. (Luke 24).
The Greek word here for nonsense denotes that which is mere idle talk, nonsense, or just something LS
