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Jesus and Women: Mary Magdalene

Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). John 20:16

One of the things that set Jesus’s ministry apart was the way He interacted with women. Each encounter teaches us something about Jesus and our relationship to Him. It is important to notice in each case, Jesus treated these women with dignity and respect that was unheard at that time and in that culture. That in itself is instructive as we interact with people now.

This week we’ll finish up with Mary Magdalene.

Mary is the subject of a lot of legend, a lot of speculation and conjecture, and a lot misinformation. The truth is, the Bible says very little about her. Luke introduces her in 8:2, simply saying she was from a Galilean town, Magdala, and that Jesus had driven seven demons from her. We know she was devoted to Christ and was present at His crucifixion. At daybreak on Resurrection morning, she came with the other women to properly anoint the body of Jesus.

However, they found the tomb empty, and the angelic messengers explained that Jesus had raised from the dead. Peter and John confirmed that the tomb was empty and everybody went back into town. Everyone except Mary Magdalene.

She hung around the tomb alone, privately grieving. In spite of the fact that the angels had explained Jesus was risen, it was too much to believe. We live on the other side of the resurrection. It is a familiar reality. However, Jews in Mary’s day had only a vague understanding of a general resurrection. We see that in Martha’s conversation with Jesus after Lazarus’s death. Mary mourned not only Jesus’s death, but now there was nothing left of Him. No place. No marker. No memorial.

I can identify with Mary. I have followed Jesus for a long time. But I admit, sometimes His words are difficult to grasp, even with the evidence right in front of me.

But for Mary, it was more than evidence in front of her. It was Christ himself! He asks her two questions to help her understand what was happening. Why are you weeping? Jesus, whom she loved, was gone. She could not perform the act of devotion, caring for His body, for Him. She had been robbed of that opportunity and she was utterly devastated. Jesus was gently prodding to think about her situation. Why was the body gone?

Then He asked, Whom are you seeking? Jesus was not like anyone else she had ever known. She had heard His words. She had experienced His liberating power in her own life. Essentially He wanted her to consider who Jesus is. Ordinary men are buried in tombs, Mary, Jesus is no ordinary man.

Do we weep and mourn when our plans, even our ministry plans, are disrupted? Do we cling to our loss rather than considering who it is that we worship and serve? I know I have.

Jesus doesn’t belabor the lessons, though. He speaks Mary’s name. (This moment chokes me up every time I read it.) That’s when she recognizes Him. After all, Jesus said His sheep would hear His voice. He IS alive! Her natural reaction is to embrace Him, but Jesus holds her off. Instead He entrusts her with an amazing mission. You see, Mary Magdalene is the first person to see the risen Christ. Not Peter. Not John. Not even Jesus’s mother. Mary of Magdala. What an honor! What a privilege!

Mary vindicated Jesus’s trust in her by immediately carrying the news to the other disciples.

Jesus has called us by name and honored us by commissioning us to carry this amazing transforming message to others. Because He lives, we will live also (John 14:19) Let us, like Mary, be faithful to carry that message!

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Jesus and Women: Mary, Again

By Paula Wiseman

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” John 19:26

In the very first post in this series, we looked at a conversation between Jesus and His mother at a wedding in Cana. That exchange signalled a change in their relationship as Jesus began His public ministry. This exchange marks Jesus’s last words to His mother. It is just two short sentences, but we can still learn some key lessons from it.

Mary displays courage and devotion to her son, her savior in not abandoning Him in this terrible moment. No matter how awful, no matter how painful, she cannot, she will not leave Him. Once again, Mary sets an example for us.

It is remarkable that in the midst of enduring the outpouring of God’s wrath, an agony we cannot imagine, that Jesus is moved to act with compassion toward His mother. He sees her and He realizes His obligation to her as the oldest son. No doubt she is widowed at this point and by every societal custom, and tradition, He was responsible for her.

Announcing this to her from the cross is an amazing affirmation that He sees her, that He has not forgotten her, even now. That is incredible encouragement, that we are seen, that our needs are known and that Jesus in compassion, acts to meet those needs.

Then Jesus speaks to John, entrusting Mary to his care, not to Jesus’s brother James, the next oldest son or even to John’s older brother, James. Perhaps it was because John would not have responsibility for his own mother, being the younger son. Perhaps Jesus trusted John because John’s faith and devotion most closely matched Mary’s. James and the rest of Jesus’s brothers were not yet believers. The bond of love through Christ was even more significant than blood relationships. John immediately shouldered that responsibility.

As members of the body of Christ, let’s make sure we selflessly love and care for each other, and that we readily accept that holy responsibility.

Even in such a short encounter, we are amazed at the care and compassion Jesus shows and how His followers, including His mother show their commitment and obedience to Him. May we be encouraged to follow those examples.

Jesus and Women: The Canaanite Woman

By Paula Wiseman

Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly. Matthew 15:28

So far we have looked at an exchange between Jesus and His mother at the wedding celebration in Cana of Galilee, His conversation with the woman from Sychar who had come to draw water from the well and a woman who reached out to Him in a crowd. This week we’ll consider His exchange with a Canaanite woman.

At the end of Matthew 14, Jesus is in Gennesaret, on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. After a confrontation with the Pharisees in the beginning of chapter 15, Jesus and his guys slip over to the area around Tyre and Sidon for a break. (Incidentally, if you check the map, both of these cities are Mediterranean port cities, that is, beach towns. I can totally understand why Jesus would head here for a quick respite.)

A woman from that area approaches Him in desperation and calls Him by His messianic title. The woman is not Jewish. Matthew calls her a woman of Canaan. This would have triggered many cultural memories in the minds of his Jewish readers. She was one of the wicked people who forfeited the Promised Land, whom God judged. Jezebel was from Tyre, after all. Ezekiel tells us the king of Tyre exulted in the destruction of God’s people. Mark calls her a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician, tipping off His Gentile readers that she was one of them.

The Canaanite woman begs for mercy, and for healing for her demon-possessed daughter. Jesus’s reputation had spread beyond the borders of Israel. Whatever the woman may have known about Jesus, she at least knew He was her only hope. The Sidonian gods brought no help or relief.

Jesus did not respond. Sometimes silence teaches as much as words. In this case the silence reveals the hearts of the woman and of the disciples.

Do we typically see God’s silence as an opportunity for us to examine our hearts before Him?

Finally the disciples respond, “Send her away. She is annoying us. She is interrupting us on our day off.” Jesus says He was sent to the lost sheep of Israel. This ties the encounter to the most recent debate with the Pharisees and it forces the disciples to consider who is worthy of salvation and, by extension, His intervention. Is it a matter of genuine faith or of national heritage?

Do we ever determine some are worthy of salvation, while others are not?

The disciples would one day carry the gospel throughout the world. Right now, they can’t see past their deeply rooted prejudices. The Canaanite woman, watching this exchange, senses that in spite of the words spoken, she still has hope. She throws herself down at Jesus’s feet and begs for His help.

Jesus responds to her plea with a parable, but I believe He says it more for the disciples’ benefit. It is not right to take the children’s ( that is, the Jews’) bread and give it to the dogs (that it, the Gentiles). Jesus doesn’t use the common pejorative Jews used for Gentiles, but the point is unmistakable. “We can’t take precious ministry energy, reserved for our people and spend on people like this, right guys?”

Is the kingdom of God only for those in a certain race, or class, or station? Or is it open for everyone who seeks it?

The woman, understands the question. Her answer is, in essence – the kingdom of God is for those who draw near to receive it. “Bingo!” Jesus replies. Well, something close to that. He praises her great faith, and with that her persistence and humility.

Do we ever stand in the way of those who are seeking the kingdom? Are our prejudices and preconceptions off-putting rather than welcoming?

Jesus heals the woman’s daughter and then spends several days in the Gentile region healing and teaching, including a miraculous feeding of 4000 Gentiles mirroring the feeding of the 5000. It all began with this Canaanite mother helped Him demonstrate to His disciples what true faith looks like.

Jesus and Women: The Woman with the Issue

By Paula Wiseman

And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” Mark 5:34

One of the things that set Jesus’s ministry apart was the way He interacted with women. However, each encounter was chosen because it teaches us something about Jesus and our relationship to Him. It is important to notice in each case, Jesus treated these women with dignity and respect that was unheard at that time and in that culture. That in itself is instructive as we interact with people now.

So far we have looked at an exchange between Jesus and His mother at the wedding celebration in Cana of Galilee. Last week, we looked at His conversation with the woman from Sychar who had come to draw water from the well. This week, we’ll break down what happens when a woman reaches out to Him in a crowd.

By this point in Jesus’s ministry, He was pretty famous. His reputation as a healer meant that huge crowds quickly assembled whenever He was in the area. In Mark 5, this is the situation. We don’t know exactly what town He is in, but we know from previous chapters He is in the general area of Capernaum. He has just arrived back in that area after spending a few days in Gentile country casting out demons. Jesus is met by a desperate father, Jairus. He was a synagogue ruler, a local pastor, if you will, whose twelve-year-old daughter was dying. Her condition was beyond medical intervention. Jesus was his only hope.

Of course Jesus consents to go with Jairus, and it is on the walk over that this woman with the issue reaches out to touch Jesus.

Now it is important to understand that this woman was not a distraction. She was not a delay. She didn’t mess things up so that Jairus’s daughter died. Her story is an important reminder to us. She had suffered for twelve years, the girl’s entire lifetime. While Jairus and his wife delighted in their daughter, in watching her grow, in sharing her life, this woman was drained of her finances and her hope for any kind of cure.

One of the ugliest parts of the curse sin brought on the world is that innocent people suffer. Jesus Christ came to overturn that curse, and every miraculous healing is a testimony to that.

When we reach out to Jesus in our moments of desperate need, we are not distracting Him or delaying Him or preventing Him from attending to something more pressing. We need the power of the Gospel working in our lives, and He is gracious to supply our needs.

Now, let’s think for a moment why this woman wouldn’t want Jesus to know she touched Him. Why didn’t she just ask for healing like Jairus had done for his daughter? The accounts say it was a bleeding thing. The older versions say “an issue”. Newer translations say a discharge, or a hemorrhage or something similar. The point is, the woman almost certainly had a gynecological condition. Apart from the physical pain and suffering that caused, she would have been ceremonially unclean the entire time. She had not been able to attend a worship service in twelve years. Anyone who touched her would have been rendered ceremonially unclean. That isolation, that guilt, that burden would have been so, so heavy.

But I like the old word “issue” because of the more current meaning and the play on words. We all have an issue or two we need to bring to Jesus for healing.

But here she is, in a huge crowd. Everyone is jostling one another. I picture it like a crowd leaving a huge stadium or concert. Everyone who touched her will be considered unclean. She knows this and knows the risk she is taking. But it will be okay because as soon as she touches Jesus, she will be healed, and no one will be unclean. She just has to get close enough. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” Mark 5:28 It won’t slow Him down. He won’t even know.

Except He knew.

When Jesus turns and asks who touched Him, He wasn’t looking for information. He knew. He was offering the woman the opportunity to publicly testify, to declare her faith. Jesus wanted other people to see what kind of faith she had. He was living out what He would soon explain to His disciples. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, Matthew 10:32.

I love the detail Mark includes. She fell down before Jesus “and told Him the whole truth.”

When we have the opportunity, let’s be faithful to tell the truth about what Jesus has done for us.

And then there’s the response. Jesus calls her Daughter. He wouldn’t have had to call her anything. He had her attention. She knew He was talking to her. But He makes a point of calling her daughter. It was a term of endearment, of familiarity, of relationship, and thus, of status. He wanted those around to understand that He had the same concern and compassion for her that Jairus had for his precious daughter. She was not an outcast. She was reconciled to God. Her issue was resolved. And He told her to go in peace.

Jesus has that same gentle compassion for us. He chooses to call us His. Go in peace with that assurance.

(P.S. If you’re not familiar with the what happens next, He raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead. So it was all good.)

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Jesus and Women: The Woman from Sychar

By Paula Wiseman

John’s gospel devotes a sizable portion of its narrative showing Jesus breaking with the religious and cultural conventions of His day. Of course, this isn’t just Jesus being contrary. No, in each case, something of eternal significance is at stake. In chapter 4, we find Jesus’s conversation with the woman from Sychar.

The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) John 4:9

Now, you are probably very familiar with the animosity that existed between the Jews and the Samaritans. This dates back to the Assyrian captivity. The Assyrians took the Jews captive, leaving only the poorest in the land, and then repopulated the region with other dregs of humanity from other conquered nations. The association and intermarriages resulted in a mixed race population with a religion that was just as mixed.

When the Jews returned from Babylon, the Samaritans were rebuffed in their offer to help with the rebuilding and then set out to interfere with the project, even slandering Nehemiah to try to bring it to a halt. You can check Nehemiah for more details. The bad blood intensified about a hundred years before Jesus when high priest/king John Hyrcanus overran Samaria and destroyed the temple on Mount Gerizim. This even figures into the conversation Jesus has with the woman.

So against that backdrop, about noon, Jesus sends the disciples off to get lunch and He takes a seat by the town well of Sychar. It isn’t long before a woman comes to draw water from the well. Water-drawing time was usually in the morning and evening and served as a social event. The fact that the woman was coming when she expected the well to be deserted is significant.

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” John 4:7

Jesus asks her for a drink. He initiates the conversation. This is huge. Men did not talk to women in public. Especially rabbis. In fact, rabbis didn’t even talk to their wives in public. This was part of that whole “hedge around the Law” thing. To keep from committing any kind of sexual sin, or giving anyone reason to suspect anything, opposite sexes didn’t even talk. Generally religious teachers wouldn’t stoop to talking with common people, so He broke that convention as well. Plus Jews did not, did not, talk to Samaritans.

We know the rest of the story and we know that that this woman had some scandal, some baggage in her life. What is so beautiful about this simple act of humbly asking for a drink, is Jesus, by initiating the conversation, takes the scandal onto Himself.

Are we willing to humbly approach others, enter into their “scandal” to initiate significant eternal conversation with them?

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” John 4:10

Did you notice the topic Jesus immediately jumps to? Not raising kids or fixing dinner or laundry. Not adultery or immorality. Theology. Living water. It turns out she wasn’t as familiar with the Old Testament prophets as Jesus was so He moves to an object lesson. Through it all, He wants her to understand she is more than her past, her sins, her failures, and her reputation. He, the Messiah, the Holy One of Israel, has come to her personally.

Are we willing to engage others deeply, about things of eternal weight, rather than superficially?

“Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” John 4:29

The revelation of Christ brought the change in the woman’s life. She didn’t have to change first. Her change didn’t bring His revelation. He graciously revealed Himself to her. This woman from Sychar is the first person in the gospels to hear Jesus’s plain statement of who He is. The greatest evidence of the change in the woman’s life was that she had to share the news of the encounter.

We have no record of the disciples’ trip into town. Do you suppose any of them started up a conversation with a shopkeeper? “Oh hey. We’re picking up lunch for us and the Son of God. You should come out and meet Him.” After the resurrection, they totally would have.

Are we willing to make sure everyone we know understands that Christ is real because He changed our lives?

Jesus teaches us quite a bit through His conversation with the woman of Sychar. We would do well to respond like she did.

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Jesus and Women: Mary

By Paula Wiseman

And Jesus said to her (Mary), “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” John 2:4

One of the things that set Jesus’s ministry apart was the way He interacted with women. We touched on that briefly in an Easter post, but it’s worth a more in-depth look. In-depth, but not exhaustive. However, each encounter was chosen because it teaches us something about Jesus and our relationship to Him. It is important to notice in each case, Jesus treated these women with dignity and respect that was unheard of at that time and in that culture. That in itself is instructive as we interact with people now.

Today, we find the first encounter between the adult Jesus and His mother, Mary. John 2:1 tells us Mary was at a wedding in Cana, and that Jesus and His disciples were invited guests. Jewish weddings were joyous, festive, community celebrations lasting several days. At some point the groom’s family ran out of wine. We don’t know whose wedding it was, but the fact that Mary was privy to the situation with the wine suggests that she was close to the groom’s family.

Running out of wine, failing to provide and care for the invited guests was a serious breach of hospitality. Mary was, no doubt, very sensitive to the sting of gossip and public humiliation. In her compassion for the family, she goes to Jesus, because she believes He can do something about the situation.

There’s our first lesson. Mary acted as the intercessor went to Jesus first on behalf of the groom’s family. We should also be sensitive to the needs of others and ready to carry those needs to the one who can act.

Jesus’s response to His mother seems almost disrespectful, but let’s think through it. Would Jesus have spoken to His mother in a tone of anything but respect? Of course not. He’s not annoyed with her. She’s not bothering Him. But His response is very formal, rather than familiar. Why?

Jesus had officially entered His ministry. Remember when Mary and Joseph found twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple discussing theology with the religious leaders? He was puzzled by their worry and explained: “I must be about My Father’s business.” Then Luke 2:51 says He went home and “was subject to them.” Those days were over. Now Jesus answered solely to His heavenly Father. Jesus’s exchange with Mary here was a gentle, but unmistakeable, reminder that things between them had changed.

That’s our second lesson. Mary’s close family relationship with Jesus doesn’t grant her special access or favors. The upside, though, is this means we have the same right to approach Jesus for an answer to our petition as Mary does.

Then instead of pleading further with Jesus or outlining the merits of her requests, Mary turns to the servants in verse 5 and says, “Do whatever He tells you.” She walks away with the utmost trust that Jesus has heard and will act.

We too need that same confident faith that our prayers have been heard and that Jesus will intervene according to His will and His character.

Of course, we know that Jesus turned the water into wine in a very low-key miracle, His first recorded sign. Only a handful of people knew about it. In the larger picture, His glory was manifested and His disciples believed in Him. There is always a greater purpose behind the miracles.

This reminds us to give Jesus the praise and glory He is due when He acts in our lives.

From the time Mary understood she would give birth to the Messiah, her response was “Behold, the servant of the Lord.” She maintained that humble devotion to her Son and then reckoned with the reality that He was her Savior and Lord. She has much to teach us.