I love the passion narratives of the Gospel accounts. And here's one reason why: they're shot through with delightful and powerful irony. One I'm currently enjoying from Mark 16 is how the resurrection of Jesus was first revealed to women. Now you say: So what? What's so ironic about that? Well, in the first century, a woman's testimony would not be accepted in Jewish courts, and Greco-Roman society placed women in a lowly place.[1] But God's kingdom is an upside-down kingdom. God loves to invert our order. And so the risen Jesus appears first to women. And it is upon their testimony, at least in part, that we depend for access to history about Jesus. I love it.
This is also, incidentally, a powerful apologetic point. That women are among the eyewitnesses, when their testimony was not valued in first century civil society, powerfully attests to the veracity of the recorded history. Why else would Mark have recorded the women as the first eyewitnesses unless it was true?
Now consider an example from the Gospel according to Mark where he presents the revelation of the resurrection of Christ (Mk.16:1ff). Notice how prominently Mary Magdalene figures in the story. She is mentioned four times (Mk.15:40, 47; 16:1, 9). Why the repetition? Well, simply stated, Mary’s prominence points out her importance. Stated more fully, Mary, a social and moral outsider (a scandalously sinful woman who had been demon-possessed), becomes an insider with a privileged place at the dénouement of the narrative. And why? Surely to say something about the kind of kingdom King Jesus brings. Since, as noted, a woman’s testimony would not have been accepted in Jewish courts, and Greco-Roman society placed women in a lowly place, Mark does something strange, something unexpected, something ironic.
Well, what does he do? He turns the status quo on its head. Would not all expect the king, if he really did rise from the dead, to show himself to the male religious and political elites of the day? But he does not do that, for he came not for the righteous, but for sinners (Mk. 2:17); he came to plunder the strong man’s house (Mk. 3:27); he came for the leper, the lame, the loser (Mk. 1:40; 2:3, 14); he came for the social outsider. He came for Mary. And the epithet given to her—“who had had seven demons” (Mk.16:9)—shows that she is not the woman she was. Following Christ's cross-work and resurrection, she is a redeemed, renewed woman in Christ’s kingdom—new creation! And she even has a prominent and pivotal place in that kingdom.
Oh bless God for the blessed irony of the Gospel!
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