Mary at the Tomb: A Holy Wake-Up Call

The resurrection story is far more radical than we often realize. While churches debate women in ministry, Jesus himself chose Mary Magdalene—a woman freed from seven demons—to be the first witness and announcer of his resurrection. 

In this powerful Holy Week episode, we journey to the empty tomb through Mary's eyes. What must it have felt like to lose your dearest friend to a brutal execution, only to discover his tomb empty days later? Mary initially didn't recognize Jesus, mistaking him for the gardener. It was only when he spoke her name that revelation dawned. This intimate, personal moment transformed history as Jesus commissioned Mary to announce his resurrection to the waiting disciples. 

The language Scripture uses for Mary's assignment is significant—the same Greek word later describes Peter's proclamation of salvation to Cornelius. Yet tragically, the disciples initially dismissed her testimony. Had they completely rejected her message, they would have missed receiving the Great Commission in Galilee. 

This sequence reveals a profound truth: God often works through unexpected vessels, challenging human restrictions on who can share divine truth. We confront the handful of Pauline texts often weaponized against women in ministry, showing how they address specific cultural situations rather than contradicting Jesus's clear command for all believers to go and make disciples. When reading Scripture holistically, we discover a Savior who consistently empowered women in counter-cultural ways. 

The question remains: are we missing God's voice by silencing those he has chosen to speak? Join us as we reclaim the radical inclusivity of Jesus's ministry and break free from human-made restrictions.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome back to Preach it Girl podcast, where
we're not just sitting aroundwaiting for Jesus to return and
Skinny Pop to make us skinny.
No, ma'am, we are staking ourclaim on the territory the enemy
stole and giving him a terrible, awful, very bad day.
All right, it's Holy Week,y'all, and we are going with

(00:25):
Mary to the tomb in Matthew 28.
Now, mary is the one that hadseven demons cast out of her.
I don't know, I might have hadseven demons in me when Jesus
found me.
All tore up from the floor, up,right, right.

(00:50):
Mary is the one who neverdeserts Jesus, not on the cross,
not ever.
She saw it all and she neverleft him, wasn't she something
Jesus said?
Who loves the most?
The one who is forgiven alittle or the one who was
forgiven a lot?
He was her friend and he lovedher.
Okay, I'm going to read thispassage Matthew 28.
After the Sabbath, toward thedawn of the first day of the
week, mary Magdalene and theother Mary went to see the tomb

(01:12):
and behold, there was a greatearthquake, for an angel of the
Lord descended from heaven andcame and rolled back the stone
and sat on it.
He was kind of making a showlike I'm just going to sit here.
His appearance was likelightning and his clothing white
as snow, and the fear of himleft the guards trembling.
Trembling and fell like deadmen.

(01:32):
But the angel said to the womendo not be afraid, for I know
that you seek Jesus who wascrucified.
He is not here, for he is risen.
As he said, come see the placewhere he lay.

(02:13):
He is not here.
In another passage it says Maryclung to him.
I don't know if it's Luke.
It says Jesus talked to him andthey didn't recognize him.
She recognized him when he saidher name.
It's just too incredible tocomprehend.
I want you to close your eyesand imagine your best friend,
your husband, your wife, a childhas died a terrible, awful

(02:36):
death.
Maybe cancer?
Maybe your child dies at thehand of a drunk driver,
something so unfair, someone youcould never imagine your life
without.
And then my mom has said that acouple of times about my dad.
When he passed, she justcouldn't imagine they were
married since they were 18.
But just as you've acknowledged, this awful thing really
happened.

(02:56):
They're truly gone.
Something unheard of happens.
Of course you don't believe it.
You saw it happen, the goriestof deaths, and Mary didn't
believe it.
I mean at first, in the othertelling it says that she asked
the angel, like where did theytake Jesus?
Because I want to know wherehis body is so that they could
anoint him, because they hadbrought spices and oils and

(03:17):
stuff.
I can see where.
You just wouldn't believe it.
But then you hear your namecalled by the one you love.
Imagine hearing that personthat you love so much that
you've lost, hearing them sayyour name.
That's the moment Mary knew itwas Jesus talking to her,
because she was just so like howcould this be?
She just assumed it was thegardener.

(03:39):
Now Jesus tells her to go tellthe disciples I'm coming to
Galilee.
Y'all wait there, I'm comingand I'm alive, just as he told
him he would be.
But I mean, you know who couldbelieve it?
Jesus tells Mary to announcehis resurrection to the
disciples and give them amessage.
That word report announce.
That is the same word thatdescribed what Peter would do

(04:04):
announce a message of salvationto Cornelius and his household
when he went to tell them aboutJesus.
It was that same word.
So look, the disciples.
What do you think that they didwhen Mary came back and said
Jesus is alive and he's told youto do this.
What do you think they did?
Well, it wasn't as bad as whatthe Baptist leaders did to Beth

(04:25):
Moore when she stood to speak tothem.
I don't know if y'all heard ofthis, but there was a Baptist
convention and Beth Moore, avery prominent female preacher,
was there to speak and theyturned their chairs around and
refused to acknowledge her.
And you know what those Baptistministers and elders?
They missed the word of theLord from Jesus to them, given

(04:47):
to Beth, and it's a dang shame,but the Lord gives you free will
.
So they missed out and shehandled it graciously.
She's a lot more gracious thanI am.
The disciples did not believeher.
They thought she just lost hermind, I guess.
But Peter ran to the tomb andlooked inside because he was
hoping.
You know it did arouse hope inthem and they did what Jesus

(05:10):
told them to do.
So guess what happened next?
God forbid we miss the greatcommission.
So right after Jesus is risenfrom the grave, he meets with
them.
The 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus
had directed them through, mary.
Jesus said to them allauthority in heaven and on earth
, let's just sit here.
If they hadn't listened to Mary, they wouldn't have gotten the

(05:51):
great commission.
That is the mission statementfor all us Christians and it is
for everyone.
And goodness, let's see thatword, teaching.
Actually we can look it up realquick.
So teaching, the word isdidasco, a form of a primary
verb, to teach.
It means to teach.
I love how Jesus just makes itso simple.

(06:14):
I said teach now.
Go and teach.
Who are we teaching?
Make disciples of all nations.
That means everybody.
This Great Commission was givento everybody who follows Jesus,
who has received Jesus in theirheart and has received his
salvation.
And he tells us, every one ofus, male, female, slave, free,
poor, rich, sick, well, to goand teach what Jesus had told

(06:40):
them, what Jesus commands hiswords.
He said for us to go and do it.
He did not say not to do it tosome people.
How do we know that?
How do we know it wasn't justfor the disciples?
That just doesn't make sense.
The Holy Spirit was given andhis gifts are given to everyone,
because the prophet Joel tellsus that those Holy Spirit gifts

(07:00):
are for everybody, that the HolySpirit would be poured out on
men and women.
Everyone would be filled withthe Holy Spirit when the Messiah
came and they receive him.
There's a lot of gifts that theHoly Spirit gives and there
were no qualifiers as to whogets what.
It went on everybody and theLord decides who gets what.
There's no qualifiers on theGreat Commission.

(07:22):
His words were come to me.
I have something good for you.
I'm going to love you so muchthat you're not going to want to
live a life that only servesyourself anymore.
It's going to feel empty.
We get a new life, so hetransforms us that we don't even
want to do the stuff that weused to do.

(07:42):
And then there's times that weget tricked.
That devil, he's a liar and atempter and he's a deceiver.
So sometimes he does get inthere and try and make you think
that you want to do that stuffagain.
And then you realize I don'twant any of that and I don't
want to get trapped.
And God says he'll always giveyou a way out if you just trust
him.
Come on now, trust Jesus, he'sthe one with the way out.

(08:06):
I'm on to that new song.
I'm not going to sing it foryou because y'all don't want
that, okay.
So if Jesus tells you to dosomething, don't let anyone tell
you not to do it.
You know there's just as manywomen who think that women
aren't supposed to preach.
I want you to know you can, andnot only can you, but you are
told to by Jesus.

(08:26):
So you better get out theredoing it.
Maybe your gift isn't teaching,but you still have the great
commission where you are to tellpeople about Jesus and to share
your testimony.
What did he do for you?
It's that simple.
He changed my life and hechanged who I was from the
inside out.
Nothing else can do that,nobody else can do that.
So those few scriptures thatPaul writes in the Bible that

(08:51):
are about women teaching andleading or speaking in the
church, they've been taken outof context.
Because when we look at whatJesus said, how he commanded us
and how he told us to do what hedid, paul didn't contradict
Jesus.
Paul wrote specificrestrictions about women in the
church that were specific issuesthat had to do with tradition

(09:14):
and culture in that singularinstance.
And church, not the wholechurch, not everybody, not all.
My goodness, you'd have to bedaft to conclude that, with all
the evidence and words of Jesus,if you look at the Bible as a
whole, you can't come to thatconclusion, because you would be
contradicting Jesus.
Wake up, grow up.

(09:35):
God is trying to get some workdone up in here and some folks
are tearing down the very thingJesus is trying to build.
So stop putting that dum-dumsauce on biscuits and calling it
gravy.
Okay, I love y'all so much Ican't wait for you to return and
listen again to the next.
Preach it, girl.