A group of women honoured by God

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” Matthew 28:8-10

Mary Magdalene and the other women who figure so prominently on the morning of Jesus’ resurrection have been called “apostles to the apostles and evangelists to the evangelists”.

This, of course, is because they were the first people to discover that Jesus’ tomb was empty, the first to hear the message of the angels to that effect (“he is not here; he has risen”), the first actually to see the risen Christ (“suddenly Jesus met them”), the first to recognise who he was (“they clasped his feet and worshipped him”), and the first to pass on this wonderful good news to the eleven apostles.

The four Gospels differ from one another in the way they tell the story, and they mention different names, but Mary Magdalene is common to each. John, in fact, chooses to focus on Mary alone – the famous encounter with the “gardener” – but the essence of the story is the same. (We needn’t worry about seeming inconsistencies between the four accounts – if nothing else, they demonstrate that the resurrection story was anything but a cooked-up job!)

So we can understand that famous tag – the women did do the job of apostles (an “apostle” is literally someone sent by God) and of evangelists (an “evangelist” is literally someone who proclaims the gospel) that wonderful morning; and the people to whom they brought the good news were the “real” apostles and evangelists, the men who had, it seems, been busy keeping their heads down out of fear.

Some Christians make a lot out of this fact – we might call them Christian feminists: “If God sees fit to use women to proclaim the resurrection gospel on Easter Day, why shouldn’t they be used to preach the gospel under more normal circumstances?”

I have a lot of sympathy with that attitude, and have worked happily over many years with female ministers. But I think it’s a bit of a stretch to take a one-off event – however amazing and remarkable it was – and to use it to establish a practice in the church.

Yes, the women were indeed “apostles and evangelists”, but only in the same sense that every Christian, whether male or female, is called to be. Which presents each of us who claims to be a Christian with a challenge: do we see ourselves as modern day apostles and evangelists? And if not, why not? If we don’t tell people about Jesus crucified and risen, well, who will?

Still, having said that, it’s a striking fact that this is how God chose to cause the events of Easter Day to unfold. It didn’t have to be that way! – God is in control, after all. The women followers of Jesus are pretty much in the shadows right through the four Gospels and it could very well have stayed that way. But it didn’t; God decided otherwise; suddenly, out of nowhere, the women come right to the front of the stage.

Two thoughts, I hope, are worth noticing.

First, the prominence of the women is good evidence that the resurrection story really is true.

As I said earlier, if you were aiming to fabricate a convincing story, this is the last detail you would invent, given the secondary status of women in both Jewish and Roman culture at the time. It would be a classic case of shooting yourself in the foot. Women couldn’t testify as witnesses in a court of law – so where would be the sense of making them your primary witnesses!

This is how it is described as happening – because this is precisely how it did happen.

If anyone reading this is sceptical about the resurrection, I can only urge you to look again at the facts. This is not an event you can be indifferent about – “Oh, I’ll have another look at it one day” – for if indeed it is true it changes everything. Nothing could matter more.

Second, whatever our opinion might be regarding women in ministry, God’s decision to cast the women in this role in that garden on Easter Day is very striking; as I said, it didn’t have to be this way.

I find my mind drawn back to that other garden – Eden - where man and woman worked all too briefly in harmonious unity. How quickly it all went wrong! How tragically that ideal existence was ruined! The “fall” is described in Genesis 3 – and already, in the very next chapter, we read how “Lamech married two women…” (Genesis 4:19), and the corruption of male-female relationships is under way. King Solomon, with all his wives and concubines, looms on the distant horizon.

Am I being a bit fanciful, or could it be God’s intention, by casting Mary Magdalene and her companions in such a starring role on Easter Day, to deliver a rebuke to hundreds of years of abuse? Is it God’s way of saying to his male followers, “See how highly I value women! Take it seriously! I can expect you to do the same, can’t I…?”

Lord God, please help me to be an apostle and evangelist in my day-to-day life, to be a worthy follower of Mary and her friends. Help me to worship and proclaim the crucified and risen Jesus. Amen.