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May 04, 2025

Lessons From a Godly Woman

Passage: Mark 16:1-11

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: Mark

Keywords: culture, belief, women, witness, transformation, dignity, mary magdalene

Summary:

In a day when our culture is so deeply confused about women in general and Christian women in particular, Jesus' treatment of women is both counter-cultural and tremendously affirming. This passage sees the heart of Jesus through the eyes of one of His strongest disciples and witnesses--Mary Magdalene.

Detail:

Lessons from the Heart of a Godly Woman

Luke 16:1-11

May 4, 2025

Fellowship Question:  Tell someone about an important or influential woman in your life (other than your mother) and how she helped you. 

Intro:  I find it odd how many people today view Christianity as religion that subjugates, demeans or oppresses women.  I can appreciate how some men who don’t actually know the Word of God or practice the truth of Scripture have perverted their roles as protectors and providers in attempts to control, manipulate and abuse women.  Certainly such men do not know the heart of Jesus Christ or the Gospel or the Word of God.

Jesus was, arguably, THE greatest champion for the dignity and honor of women of any world-figure from any time in history, particularly the ancient world.  He was utterly counter-cultural in his respect, compassion, love and concern for women of every possible class, race and station in life. 

  • He healed both girls and women.
  • He conversed with women respectfully and taught them as he did men…regardless of their race or station.
  • He wept with them in their grief (Mary & Martha), listened to them in their loneliness (woman at the well), defended them in their moments of failure and shame (woman caught in adultery), and honored the poorest of them in their unrecognized generosity (widow giving all she had). He included them in his circle of traveling disciples. He cared for them even in his dying moments from the cross (Mary).  And he chose them to be his first and foremost witnesses to the most important events of his life, from his birth to his first miracle to his death and resurrection. 

I would contend that there has never been a world-wide spiritual leader who gave more honor and respect to women than Jesus in the history of mankind. 

SIDE NOTE: Which might explain why women seem to respond to the Gospel of Christ in higher numbers than do men.  That’s not true for every country nor for exclusively Christianity, but it is true for more Christians than Muslims and Jews.  Ladies, perhaps without doing a deep-dive analysis of the Gospel, women who encounter Jesus in the Gospel intuitively know that he is different. 

            Today’s passage is one of those Gospel accounts that shines a very bright light on God’s heart for women. In doing so, it shines a bright light on how God longs to help anyone troubled, afflicted, grieving or struggling.

APP:  Men, if you find yourself somehow reacting negatively to that statement, let me invite you to ask God to search your heart afresh today and reshape and restore your responses to the “fairer sex”.  And women, if you’re having a hard time believing that God’s plans and desires and hopes for you are just as big as for any man out there, you may need to do the same—ask God to search your heart and reshape your response to Him as he truly is. 

ILL:  preaching on the name of God (El Shaddai) years ago and commenting that it is one of the names that recognizes the nurturing nature of God reflected both in female anatomy and psychology, one man in the audience stood up, grabbed his wife, and marched out of the service.  My wife just happened to be in the hallway when he stormed out muttering about what a nincompoop the pastor was to suggest that God had some female characteristics.  Too bad he didn’t stick around long enough to hear that, actually, it is women that reflect better some divine characteristics that appear in human nature…just as men better reflect other (more masculine?) divine characteristics that appear more in human nature. 

In other words, it should not be the least surprising that men and women, both created equally in the image of God, both manifest various attributes of God differently and dominantly.  That God should choose to describe himself in human terms (what theologians call “anthropomorphically”--"involving the attribution of human qualities to divine beings") so that we can better grasp what He is like should not surprise nor offend us in the least.  To think that God would ignore those qualities of His nature better manifested in women than men is to deny that both men and women are equally created in His image.  One is not “better” or “superior” to the other, but both are definitely different.

Mankind has not questioned that men and women are inherently different in various ways until very recently in human history.  The denial of that fundamental and basic reality has led us to the uncharted waters of utter and unscientific denial of reality when it comes to men and women.  It has led to the absurdity of having female judges in the highest judicial positions in this land unable or unwilling to define what a woman is.  I’m not going to litigate that issue today except to say that such a belief or contention is diametrically opposed to the truth of God when it comes to sex, gender, biology, anatomy, psychology, and spirituality—in short, humanity. 

So, let’s take a look at the passage in our study of Mark’s Gospel that has provoked this rather timely look at how Jesus honors and respects women.  Turn to Mark 16.

This passage introduces us to 3 of the apparently 5 women who saw the resurrected Jesus that morning:  Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome.  All 4 Gospels (Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24 and John 20) talk about women being the first to see the resurrected Jesus.  Luke 24:10 adds Joanna, and the 5th women (an unnamed woman with Joanna and Salome who makes up Lukes “other women”). 

[Chart of Gospel references?]

This simple reality is utterly unexpected according to ancient culture.  Since a woman’s role and credibility in culture as well as court was not viewed as equal to that of a man, one would never expect Jesus or the Gospel writers to choose to convince present or future male followers nor centuries of historical critics of the resurrection by making women the first and most important witnesses. 

But that is precisely what Jesus did.  He honored these women, their devotion to him and grief over his death, by making them, the first and primary witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus.  In fact, Mary Magdalene has come to be called “The apostle to the Apostles.”  Since apostle literally means “sent-one”, and since Mary Magdalene was told by Jesus to go to the 11 and tell them about his resurrection, the church’s famous theologian Thomas Aquinas (13th c. A.D.) gave her this honorary title of “Apostle to the Apostles.”  She is the only one mentioned in all 4 Gospels and her name always comes first, indicating the importance of her position among the women. 

Knowing all this, let’s now read Mark’s account that focuses particularly on one of these women, Mary Magdalene.

Mark 16:1-14

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”

8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

9 When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. 10 She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. 11 When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.

12 Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. 13 These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.

14 Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

In order to account for the various different Gospel accounts of that morning, I’d like to quote briefly from an article by the scholars at Answers In Genesis as to how we might combine these four complementary accounts together into a singular, cohesive account (which was not, actually, the concern of historians in ancient history). [The following was largely taken on 5.3.25 from https://answersingenesis.org/jesus/resurrection/the-sequence-of-christs-post-resurrection-appearances/]

“We propose that Mary Magdalene separated from the other women after the initial visit to the tomb. It seems that she hastened off to find Peter and the “other disciple” (John). The other nine disciples were apparently not with Peter and John that morning and were informed of the empty tomb by the other women [at a little different time].” 

John 20:1–2 tells us that Mary Magdalene related to them the Lord’s body was missing.

Meanwhile, the other women, finding the stone rolled away, had entered the tomb and saw an angel sitting on the right. Suddenly they realized there were two angels, as Luke recorded. Matthew and Mark just mention one of them, perhaps focusing on the one who was speaking (Matthew 28:5–7; Mark 16:5–7; Luke 24:4–8). The angel tells the women to go tell the disciples and Peter that Jesus was risen and would see them in Galilee.  Matthew 28:8–10 states that the women took off running to find the disciples. 

So, upon Mary Magdalene’s report of the empty tomb, Peter and John rush there to view it—empty.  Evidently while the other women were en route to find the disciples in the city, Peter and John arrive at the tomb, viewed it empty, while Mary Magdalene shortly thereafter had her encounter with Jesus.

Peter and John depart perplexed while Mary Magdalene, who had returned also, apparently remained behind weeping.  She then has her encounter with the angels in the tomb, asking about the missing body.  That is followed immediately by her life-changing encounter with Jesus himself.

In John 20:17 Jesus sends her off to tell His brethren that He is alive, and verse 18 states that she obeyed. Mark 16:9–11 adds that Mary Magdalene was the first to whom the Lord appeared and that the disciples did not believe her story.

After appearing to Mary Magdalene, Jesus visited the women who were running to the city, reinforcing the message that they should go tell His brethren that they would see Him in Galilee. After He met them, they joyfully delivered the message. Luke 24:9–11 summarizes the fact that “the eleven and all the rest” ultimately heard about Christ’s Resurrection from all the women, including Mary Magdalene. Yet no one believed them, true to the rather patriarchal doubt of the day about a woman’s testimony.  But as we’ve just seen, there is nothing about these varying accounts of that resurrection morning that is a contradiction to the timeline. 

But for our purposes this morning, let’s just focus on one of these women—Mary Magdalene.  Who is she and what does her interaction with Jesus have to teach us? 

WHO is Mary Magdalene? 

  1. Known as Mary Magdalene, there has been a fair amount of debate about what “Magdalene” means.  Does it refer to where she is from?  Or is it some sort of nickname, as was often the case in those days?  If it is referring to some place/city, several options have been suggested on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee.  If it is a sort of nickname, the most common meaning of the word migdal is “the tower”.  In that case, it would by like calling her “Mary the tower”, perhaps alluding to her strength, height or role. 
  2. But what do we know about her as a person?
    1. C.E.—(Before Christ Encounter): Luke 8:2 tells us she had been possessed by “7 demons”.  We’re not completely sure whether that is a reference to an exact number of demons or, as was often the case, a reference to “7” being a number of completeness or fullness, indicating she was completely controlled by the demonic realm.  Either way, Mary had been a woman who was utterly savaged by the dominant power of evil. 
    2. Contrary to some popular belief, there is little to no indication that she had ever been a prostitute. While it is conceivable that someone utterly dominated by demons could also have been sexually used or abused, the focus on this allusion to demons was that this poor woman had been under the control of the most destructive and deadly evil spiritual influence
    3. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to envision what that life might have been like for Mary? Since the demonic realm loves to “steal, kill and destroy”, what about a normal, happy life must have been stolen from her?  What of a happy childhood, youth and adulthood must have been ‘killed’ over time?  And what parts of her mind, soul or spirit must have been destroyed?  Furthermore, what lies had she been living under that undoubtedly had produced unnecessary suffering, isolation and perhaps mental illness? 

ILL:  I remember meeting one day a woman living on the street who was evidently struggling with mental health issues.  She had been raised in a Christian home.  She had a great education and career.  She had even gotten married.  But because she had made some poor sexual choices and refused to call them what they were, she had instead convinced herself that every sexual encounter had been a rape.  The results of that singular lie led her to some very strange protective behaviors and to a rejection of even feeling safe in shelters that would have been safer and more protective than street life that left her continually threatened, fearful and traumatized.  Living by lies will always traumatize us even more than life normally does.  But the truth sets us free.

Little wonder that when Jesus set Mary Magdalene free from demonic control and destruction, nothing else in life mattered other than following, learning from and assisting and loving the one man who had treated her with the respect and dignity no other man had ever shown her.  She became a leader of the women who followed along with Jesus and supported his ministry.

APP: Women, this is precisely how Jesus feels about you, treats you, and loves you.  You may never have had a single man in your life who…

  • protected you like you should have been.
  • cherished you as all women should be cherished.
  • befriended you and loved you like only God can—unselfishly.

No matter how you have been treated in life, Jesus offers you a very different, deeper and truly transformational relationship.  Sometimes he does that through godly men whose lives he has also transformed and who now reflect His heart towards you.  We saw that in living color just a few weeks ago during our Missions Conference.

ILL:  (Pastor Peter with his adopted daughter, Hope, from Uganda who was in this very building the week-before Easter.)  Hope had been kidnapped, crippled, abused, used, mutilated, tortured and deformed by witch doctors.  But when the love of God in Pastor Paul showed up, she whom everyone else in that society said was not worth saving, was rescued, protected, loved, cherished, given the best medical care available and adopted for the rest of her life on earth by a loving family.  Most of you saw her lying in that wheelchair bed, unable to eat, to speak, to sit up or to do anything everyone of us here today can do. But she had become the object of the love of God and godly people around her.  The love of God transforming both men and women is the only thing that explains that kind of new life. 

            That kind of delivering and transforming love produced both the pain Mary Magdalen felt at the death of Jesus and the extasy she experienced at his resurrection. 

APP:  This is the sweet sorrow of being in any relationship of genuine, sacrificial love:  when death demands an intermission, the pain is, in some ways, deeper due to the goodness that has been interrupted.  I think that Mary’s pain at Jesus’ death was probably deeper than that of most of Jesus’ disciples, just as her joy at his resurrection was more intense as well.

  • Grief/Sorrow: 3 times in John 20 (vss. 11, 13, 15), John tells us that Mary was “weeping”, lit. “sobbing, wailing aloud”. Her uncontrollable grief meets with the same question both from one of the angels at the tomb as well as Jesus himself:  “Why are you weeping?”   She is the only person in the crucifixion story specifically named as experiencing such grief. While Peter is said to have wept this way after his denial of Jesus, Mary’s weeping is not from personal guilt and failure but from broken heartedness at what she thought would be life-long separation from the One who had completely rescued her.   
  • Joy/Confidence: She is also the only one who apparently clings for dear life to Jesus’ in his resurrected form the first time she meets him again (John 20).  Jesus has to tell her not to try and hold onto him because he’ll be leaving again, both to Galilee and eventually heaven. But her spontaneous response to him is unlike any of the others recorded in the Gospels.  She doesn’t doubt like some.  She doesn’t hang back or demand proof.  She knows the voice of the One who calls her by name…and she immediately clings to Him.   

APP:  We would do well to remember this when we lose loved ones in death.  Our experience of grief may well be deep and probably more elongated than Mary’s.  We may have to wait until the resurrection to hug them and hold them like we long to.  But when that day comes, just as was the case with Mary, our sorrow will give way to a measure of joy that shall be equally intensified by the wait we have persevered through and resurrection we have longed for.   

            Secondly, being people who live post-the-resurrection of Jesus should significantly change our equation of grief.  I don’t think that it makes the pain of death necessarily any less intense or deep or long.  What it can do, however, is give us a living hope and expectation that can fix our affections on an even better future than the beautiful past to which we will never return.

            I have no doubt that for Mary and any of Jesus’ disciples who experienced his resurrection, the subsequent death of family, fellow believers and even each other, while still very painful, had lost its destructive power.  Jesus’ promises about eternal life, about our resurrection, about going to prepare a place for us, and about promising to return for us, utterly changed the grief equation.  And it has done that for millions of people who know Jesus. 

ILL:  I’ve done many, many funerals in my 40+ years of ministry.  And I can tell you:  there is a palpable difference between the hopelessness and grief of people who don’t know Jesus and have no living hope of eternal life with Him and those who do.   

ILL:  Our family was surprised yesterday by a surprise visit from a long-time family friend now living out of the country.  Sandy and I have been good, almost life-long friends with her parents.  Our 3 older boys grew up with their 3 same-aged girls.  They were in the same church and musicals for years.  And our families often hung out together on birthdays and after church.  17 years ago, while she was still in high school, her dad died of cancer rather suddenly.

            Yesterday I watched her laugh and talk with our children again as well as play with our grandchildren.  And as I did, I was reminded of how much her dad is missing not seeing what we’re seeing of her life…and how much she must be missing him.  So as we said our goodbyes again, I just told her much I too miss her dad. She acknowledged those same feelings that are so much deeper between a daughter and her Daddy.  But we both know this is truly only temporary until that great and glorious day our resurrected Lord returns to transform these lowly bodies into something glorious…like his. 

 

CLOSE: 

  • Have you really embraced the promise of the resurrection?
    • Do you have a deep, personal relationship with Jesus Christ like Mary Magdalene did that has utterly changed your life? If not, why not let Jesus do that kind of work in you today?  [Call to faith in Jesus.]
    • Have you allowed the resurrection of Jesus to really grip your life, your view of death, your confidence about eternity, even your sorrow over loved ones departed? How about asking God to transform that part of your heart so that reality actually becomes such a firm hope in your soul that the death of everyone you love can’t even rob you of it?
  • Men, have we adopted Jesus’ heart of sacrificial love and respect for women? Have we determined to be protective of and fight for the women God puts in our lives who may have been wounded, abused, hurt and damaged by the forces of darkness?  Have we asked God to make us more like Jesus in how we treat every woman in our lives? 
  • Women, are you willing to let go of the false ideas that have been fed you about God as your Father and Jesus’ as your Savior? Are you ready to embrace your divinely-given value and role as a woman in Christ?  Are you ready to speak up to others, particularly women who have warped ideas about how God made them and what He wants for them, and remind them of how loving, how restorative and how refreshingly transformational Christ has been to you? 

Jesus just asked Mary to go and tell those she knew that He was, in fact, risen from the dead.  He still asks that of each of us who have been transformed by His encounter with us and work in our lives.  Let’s pray that God gives us many opportunities to do just that this week and beyond. 

PRAY