Mary Magdalene - a faithful disciple
Learning From the Unknown Disciples: Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 16:38
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Mary Magdalene would have to be one of the most unfairly represented characters in the Bible.
This poor lady’s memory has been so corrupted by completely untrue accusations that in popular thought she is seen as a prostitute, a temptress and even as Jesus’ lover.
It is incredible how her character has been so maligned without a shread of real evidence.
And it all appears to have started with people confusing her with the unnamed woman in Luke 7:36-50.
The immoral woman who cleaned Jesus’ feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair in the home of Simon the Pharisee.
The woman who honoured Jesus by kissing his feet and annointing him with expensive perfume when Simon provided none of these customary courtesy to Jesus as a guest in his home.
Mary Magdalene has also often been confused with Mary of Bethany, despite the clear geographical distinction between them.
Mary of Bethany is the sister of Lazarus and Martha she was a woman of sound moral standing in the community yet she anointed Jesus feet prior to his death and wiped his feet with her hair in John 12:1–8.
This lead Pope Gregory the Great in AD 591 to make a not very great declaration.
The Lexham Bible dictionary sums this up for us and tells us that In AD 591, Pope Gregory the Great stated: “She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary [of Bethany], we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected [that is Mary Magdalene] according to Mark” (Clark-Soles, Engaging the Word, 42; Olson and Miesel, The Da Vinci Hoax, 82). The result is a “harlotization” of Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany (Clark-Soles, Engaging the Word, 42).
But it get’s worse because there are some other documents, what we know as gnostic, that is secret knowledge gospels, which the early church quickly declared to be heretical that go even further.
These works likely written in the 3rd centuary after Christ claim that Mary was loved by Jesus more than the Apostles and that Mary was in fact Jesus’ consort and the mother of his children.
These works lack any basis in historical reality and the earliest fragments we have are from the Nag Hammadi Library in Egypt.
The Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Phillip, like the Gospel of Thomas and others are works which claim an important Biblical character as their author and make some claim to a vision or secret revelation which wasn’t shared with others. MICHELLE J. MORRIS - Lexham Bible Dictionary
This is known as gnosticism, a secret knwledge, and while we possibly see glimpses of this heresy in some of the issues that the Apostles addressed in the New Testament letters these beliefs didn’t fully develop until much later.
At best these ideas represent what some person believed 300 plus years after Christ and bear no resemblence to New Testament Christianity.
Sadly in recent times the Di Vinci code books and movies have popularised these ideas as have a handful of radical theologians out to make a name for themselves and sell their own books.
Any half decent examination of the evidence will find that there is no truth to these ideas.
They are just another attempt to discredite the gospel and make money in the process.
So Who was the real Mary Magdalene?
Let’s take a journey of discovery and see who Mary Magdalene really was and what we can learn from this faithful disciple of Jesus.
Mary Magdalene, or better still Mary of the town Magdala on the western shores of the Sea of Galilee, is listed first in every listing of Jesus’ female disciples.(Matt. 27:55–56, 61; 28:1; Mark 15:40–41, 47; 16:1; Luke 8:2–3; 24:10).
This tells us that she was prominent amongst this group of women who follwed Jesus and helped provide for his followers from the beginning of his ministry in Galilee to his death and even into the life of the early church.
These women provided for Jesus and his group of followers “out of their own resources,” suggesting that these women were persons of some financial means who served as patrons for Jesus and his male disciples.
Women sometimes served as patrons, or supporters, of religious teachers or associations in the ancient Mediterranean.
Wealthy women in many ways had far more freedom that most other women however for these women to travel with the group would have been viewed as scandalous.
This group of women disciples are learning Jesus’ teaching as closely as his male disciples.
Co-education of men and women was simply unheard of, yet Jesus welcomes it and includes the women as part of the group of disciples.
This isn’t some crowd that has gathered where the women get to hear as well.
This is inclusion in the close circle of disciples and the teaching of both men and women together.
Mary was healed by Jesus of some unnamed infirmity; the healing involved an exorcism of seven demons (Luke 8:2).
Mary is presented in all four Gospels as a witness to Jesus’s death (Matt. 27:55–56, 61; Mark 15:40–41, 47; Luke 23:49, 55–56; John 19:25) and to the empty tomb (Matt. 28:1, 6; Mark 16:1–6; Luke 24:1–3, 10; John 20:1–2).
In the Synoptic Gospels, she receives a divine commission to tell the male disciples about the resurrection (Matt. 28:5–9; Mark 16:6–7; Luke 24:4–10).
According to Luke, her testimony (and that of the other women) was not at first believed, but was later vindicated (24:11, 22–48).
According to John 20:11–18 the risen Jesus appeared first to Mary and he talked with her about his coming ascension (20:17).
Mary Magdelene is the first evangelist, all four Gospels record this fact
Women play an central role in the life and ministry of Jesus and while each of the Gospel writers and the Apostle Paul are focussed on a different aspect of who Jesus is, it is Luke who seems to make the central role of women most clear.
It is Luke who so often links the role of women with the overall ministry and he is careful to set them in parallel.
And Mary is there all along, even when the men have all run away Mary is there.
Mary Magdelene the faithful disciple
There is so much we can learn from this lady.
The first witness to the resurrection.
The first to tell the other disciples.
The first to encounter the risen Christ.
Yet maligned by the church and society.
Perhaps the witness and ministry of women is too scary for some to acknowledge.