Mary The Mother Of James And Joses. Series

Mary the mother of James and Joses.

Mark 15:40–41, Luke 8:1-3

Many of us are aware of the Resurrection of Jesus , but we don’t always realise how we got the record of this event: and it is this: the first witnesses of the resurrection were women. Now with our 21st century ears when we hear that, and it doesn’t seem particularly noteworthy. But in the 1st century this would have really stood out. For women were not considered to be reliable witnesses. Jewish rabbis at the time said that the testimony of a woman, especially in a court of law, was not to be considered valid. While this was not Jesus’ stance toward women, it was the thinking of the time.

So what can we learn from the fact that in every one of the four Gospels, it is the women who are the primary witnesses of the Resurrection.

First of all, this helps to authenticate the resurrection of Jesus, that this is a real, historical event and not some legend. After all, if you are going to make up and invent a story, the last thing you would do would be to make your witnesses people (women) with the least credibility and give them a prominent role in your tale. The idea of bodily resurrection was something the first century world already scoffed at, and this feature of the narrative just made it an even easier target for rejection.

And yet the early church didn’t adjust their story to make it more palatable to the world. They didn’t take out the part about the women and give prominence to the evidence of the men, to whom Jesus appeared later. No they stood by the women. They didn’t change how the story happened because this wasn’t a concocted story in the first place. This is how it actually occurred, and no amount of rejection or persecution could make them deny this life-changing truth.

And there is another thing we can learn from the women being the first witnesses of the resurrection. Their central role in this points to the fact that Jesus’ resurrection is the undoing of the fall of mankind. You recall how in Genesis, it was Eve who was tempted by the devil in the Garden - Gen. 3:1-6 ; 1 Tim 2:14. and after she succumbed and ate, she passed some along to her husband who was with her and he also ate. Though both Adam and Eve were equally guilty, it was from the woman to the man that sin and death came. That was the path by which the curse traveled and the grave gained its power over us. “Dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” - Gen 3:19

So now on Resurrection morning, our Lord Jesus reverses and destroys this curse. Just as the fall came through Eve to Adam, so now word of the raising up (restoration) of mankind comes from the women who followed Jesus to Peter, and to John and to all the disciples and through them to the rest of mankind. . Here in this Garden where Jesus had been buried, the announcement that the tomb is empty is carried by the women to these men who would be ordained by Christ to be the first preachers and apostles of the Resurrection Gospel The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a gift from God and fulfillment of His promise. It is the very foundation of Christianity.

By the resurrection Jesus is shown as the new Adam , the one through whom humanity has a new birth and a new beginning. And we need this new life desperately. For our old life from the first Adam is riddled with sin and death even from our birth . It’s the hollowness that we still have even after we’ve taken in our fill of all this passing world has to offer. There’s ultimately no avoiding the truth of our mortality.

All the Gospel accounts preserved in the New Testament have the women who followed Jesus from Galilee as the first witnesses to the evidence of the resurrection. In effect, the women were the first evangelists. The culture of the day was male centered which could have led to the testimony of the women being edited out of the account of the first evidence of the resurrection .

Luke 8:1-3 names some of the women who are recorded in the resurrection account. Without the resurrection Jesus can be viewed as just another good man who died for His cause - or a Roman crucifixion of a false messiah.

The resurrection empowers the whole of the Gospel. The lives of those who saw Jesus after the resurrection were changed. The hopelessness they experienced after the crucifixion was turned into joy as a result of encountering the risen Jesus.