The First Evangelist
The First Evangelist by Rev. L. John Gable
May 8, 2022
We are now three weeks out from the Easter day and we are not yet done with this story. I believe it was John Buchanan, former pastor of Chicago’s Fourth Presbyterian Church, who once said something to the effect, “I don’t know about you but it is going to take more than one Sunday, once a year, to put my head around what God did on that first Easter morning”, and I completely agree. So, today we are going to talk about Mary’s experience that morning and hear of her encounter with the resurrected Lord.
Each of the Gospel writers tell of this woman going to the tomb early on the first day of the week, early Sunday morning, what we have come to call the Easter Day. For reasons unknown to us John tells us that Mary of Magdala went alone while the other Gospel writers say there were others who joined her. Such inconsistencies in their stories actually lend credibility to their telling and truthfulness.
What is unmistakable though is that it was a woman, or women, who went to the tomb that morning, not the men, which surely begs the question, “Where were they? What were they doing? Why weren’t they there?” We can only presume that they were too afraid to go themselves for fear that the authorities or the crowds would do to them what they have done to Jesus, but not so Mary or the others. It was John Chrysostom, one of the early church fathers, who wrote that here is where womanhood “most shows its courage. When the disciples had fled, they were present.” Looking out over a gathered crowd while speaking at a missionary conference years ago, Corrie Ten Boom commented, “Now I know what the young men of America say when God calls, “Whom shall I send and who will go for me?” They answer, “Here I am, Lord. Send my sister.”
So Mary, and perhaps others as well, were at the tomb early on that first Easter morning, but why was she there? What did she hope to find? Presumably she was going to finish preparing His body for burial, or perhaps she simply wasn’t ready to let go of Him. Any of us who have ever experienced the death of a loved one can relate to that.
When she got there she must have been surprised to find the stone which had been put in place to seal the tomb already rolled aside, and even more surprised to find, when she looked in, that the body was missing. Who would want a dead body? So she assumed the only thing imaginable and ran to tell the disciples so, saying, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid Him.” With that Peter and John ran to see for themselves; that is the part of the story we looked closely at on Easter Sunday morning. After they looked in and saw the linen wrappings lying there and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head not lying with the linen wrappings but in a place by itself, those two went back home; but not so Mary. She stayed and that’s where our story picks up this morning. Let me toss in a little sidebar here: sometimes the most significant insights, learnings and encounters on Sunday morning happen, not during the sermon or the Sunday class, but in the conversations which take place afterward. It just might be worth your while to hang around a little while after what you think if as being the main event is over.
As Mary stood weeping outside the tomb she bent over to look again in to the empty tomb and there she saw two angels, sitting where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head and the other at the feet. They asked her why she was weeping, as if to suggest her crying and grief were unnecessary, and with that she turns and sees the now resurrected Jesus standing right beside her. Assuming Him to be the gardener, the cemetery caretaker, she asks where they have taken the body so that she could come and take it and care for it. It was then that Jesus called Mary by name and she recognized Him in her hearing. She must have made the impulsive move to reach out and hug Him, but He denied her the opportunity, saying “Do not hold on to Me…do not cling to Me.” And with that she ran back to the disciples a second time; this time to tell them the Good News “I have seen the Lord!” No longer is He dead, but alive. No longer is He missing, she had found Him or better yet He had found her! In that she becomes the first evangelist of the Gospel, the first teller of the Good News. And what makes this incredibly Good News even greater, and in some ways even more undeniably true, is the way in which this Good News was first told…by a woman!
Given that we have heard this story countless times before, perhaps we have become somewhat dulled to some aspects of it and this one in particular. Jesus was remarkably attractive to women, and I don’t mean to suggest that in a physical way at all, and that was yet another reason that others saw Him and His ministry as being suspect, even scandalous. In first century Palestine it was unacceptable for a man, particularly a Jewish man, to have any association with a woman, any woman, other than his own wife; yet Jesus welcomed women in to His company of followers. We read, “After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God. The Twelve were with Him, and also some women…Mary (called Magdalene)…; Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.” (Luke 8:1-3) These women were not tag-along servants and care-givers, but followers of the Rabbi Jesus, every bit as much as the men, and most likely were the ones funding His ministry. Shocking!
The longest conversation recorded in any of the Gospels was the one He had in John chapter 4 – with a woman at the well, a Samaritan woman, a Samaritan woman with a past – and Jesus welcomed her. In fact it was to that woman that Jesus first revealed Himself to be the Messiah.
In the Greco-Roman world baby girls were often left to die because they were born of the wrong sex. If left to live, as a society necessity, they were afforded little or no education, public or private; were legally classified as a child no matter how old or intelligent they might be; and always considered as property belonging to some man, classified as property not personhood. And perhaps most significant to the telling of this story, in the ancient world a woman’s testimony was generally disregarded in a court of law. An early critic of Christianity Celsus dismissed Mary’s witness as “the hallucination of a hysterical woman!” I could go on, but the point is made. Jesus was radical in His understanding and acceptance of women, and that point is underscored in the telling of the Easter story. Who was the first person to meet the resurrected Lord? Mary. Who was the first evangelist of the Gospel? Mary. Why not one of the 12 or one of the three who were closest to Him, Peter, James or John? No, it was Mary. I am not suggesting it was because she was a woman, although again I think that fact lends great credence to the story; but simply because she was, in the fullest extent imaginable, fulfilling the role of a disciple. She was being a follower of Jesus.
It was Mary who went to the tomb early that morning, either alone or with others. It was Mary who was willing to take the risk and do the work of going to finish preparing His body for burial. It was Mary who hung around after the others had gone back home; perhaps only to linger a little while longer. It was Mary who first saw the face of the risen Lord and was the first to hear His voice saying her name. It was Mary who was the first to be able to tell this incredibly, almost too good to be true, Good News which would eventually change the world. And why was it Mary who was honored in this way? Again, it was not because she was a woman but because she was a disciple. She showed up, she held on, she did the work and hung around, and in so doing she was blessed to be the first to see Him and the first to tell of His resurrection making her the first evangelist of the Good News!
As radical and remarkable and subversive as that must have sounded in the first century I’m not sure all that much has changed. Think with me for a moment. Which of us can say with those eleven on the first Easter day that we too heard the Gospel for the very first time in a very similar way: from a mother, a grandmother, a Sunday School teacher, a VBS leader, from someone who spoke about Jesus in a way that was loving and meaningful, life-giving and life-changing; I certainly can. They stand out in our memory, not because of their gender, but because they were living out the life of one of His followers.
Even in the early church, while Mary stands out, she does not stand alone. In the book of Acts and the early writings we hear the names of multiple leaders in the early church who were women: Junia, Dorcas, Phoebe, Lydia, Chloe, Priscilla and so many others. In his letter to Titus the Apostle Paul gives instruction to both the older and younger women, including them in his instructions as to how to live the life of discipleship. Nearly half of the households he mentions that form the infrastructure of the early church are headed by women. An archeological dig in North Africa uncovered a church that was seized during the Roman persecution in AD 303. They found there sixteen male tunics – meaning that at least sixteen men were part of that church – but they also found eighty-two women’s tunics, thirty-eight veils and forty-seven pairs of female slippers.
Despite the fact that women have for too long and in too many circumstances faced opposition which men have not when trying to share the Gospel, it is highly likely that women were a clear majority in the early church and are still today. Why? Because they/you have persisted and persuaded, and have continued to play the part of the disciple, and for that we should all give thanks.
In 1942, Singapore fell to the Japanese. Ethel Robert Mulvaney, a Canadian working for the Red Cross, was one of 4,000 civilians who were imprisoned in the Changi camp. As their first Easter approached, Mrs. Mulvaney asked the prison commander if they might be able to sing in the courtyard on Easter morning. “Why?” he asked. “Because Christ rose from the dead on Easter morning,” she replied. He barked his reply, “Request denied. Return to the compound!”
After this drama of request and refusal was repeated twelve times one year to their astonishment came the order, “Women prisoners may sing for five minutes in courtyard number one, Changi jail, at dawn on Easter morning.”
In the presence of one guard they sang for five precious minutes during which they praised God for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. This was the only hope to which they could cling as a living hope in the midst of their seemingly hopeless imprisonment.
After the five minutes they silently marched back to their cells. As Mrs. Mulvaney entered the passageway the guard stepped up to her, reached under his brown shirt and drew out a tiny orchid, placing it in her hand. Speaking so softly she had to bend close to hear him say, “Christ is risen!” Then with a smart military about face, he was gone down the passageway.
Mrs. Mulvaney, her eyes brimming with tears, knew that she and the others need never again feel forsaken in Changi prison. Christ had not only risen, but through their faithful witness He had also been recognized.
Mary came to be called the “Apostola Apostolum”, the Apostle to the Apostles. On this day, let us also remember and give thanks for her faithful witness and for the faithful witness of the one who was the first evangelist to us, praying that we might be the same for another.
Rev. L. John Gable
Tabernacle Presbyterian Church
Indianapolis, IN