Women Leading Faith Forward Series

Title: Women Leading Faith Forward

Intro: When I feel unseen in my own spiritual journey, when my voice seems dismissed or my perspective marginalized, I remember the woman in the garden who was seen, named, and sent.

Scriptures:

Acts 10:34,

Acts 10:38-42,

Colossians 3:1-4,

John 20:1-18.

Reflection

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

In the soft haze of dawn, as the world held its breath between darkness and light, a woman walked alone toward a tomb. Her heart was heavy with grief, her eyes swollen from weeping, her mind clouded with the fog that follows profound loss. This woman—Mary Magdalene—carried spices to anoint a body, expecting to find death. Instead, she encountered the greatest mystery of faith: an empty tomb and a risen Lord.

"Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" (John 20:15)

The question rings across millennia. It was to her—not to Peter, not to John, not to any man—that Christ first revealed himself in resurrection glory. It was her name—"Mary"—that was the first word spoken by the risen Lord. And it was her voice—a woman's voice—that first proclaimed the Easter message: "I have seen the Lord" (John 20:18).

This profound truth often passes us by without the weight it deserves. In a patriarchal world, in a patriarchal time, God chose a woman as the primary witness to the central event of Christian faith. Mary Magdalene stands as the apostle to the apostles, the first evangelist of resurrection reality. This was not incidental but intentional—a divine statement written into the very narrative of salvation.

Mary was not alone in her faithful vigil. The Gospels record various women who followed Jesus throughout his ministry, who stayed at the cross when male disciples fled, who watched where his body was laid, and who returned to properly care for him even in death. These women—Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, Salome, and others unnamed—form a constellation of faithful witness around the resurrection event.

Their presence disturbs the expected narrative. In ancient Jewish law, women were not considered reliable witnesses in legal proceedings. Their testimony carried little weight in public discourse. Yet the Gospel writers unflinchingly record that women were the first witnesses to the resurrection—a detail that would have undermined rather than strengthened their case in the ancient world. They included this detail not despite its cultural liability but because of its unassailable truth. The women were there. The women saw. The women testified.

What does this tell us about the God who orchestrates salvation history? Perhaps it reveals a divine preference for inverting human hierarchies, for elevating the marginalized, for speaking through those society has silenced. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone—and the witnesses that society rejected became the first heralds of resurrection.

There is something profoundly instructive about the women's faithful presence at the tomb. When others abandoned hope, they remained. When others scattered in fear, they gathered in love. When others prioritized safety, they chose service.

Their vigil teaches us about the spiritual practice of faithful waiting—of being present when all seems lost, of tending to what appears dead, of honoring what others have abandoned. They did not know resurrection was coming. They came to anoint a corpse, to perform the final acts of care. Yet in this humble act of presence, they positioned themselves to witness glory.

How often do we abandon our vigils too soon? How frequently do we walk away from situations that seem hopeless, from relationships that appear beyond repair, from dreams that look definitively dead? The women at the tomb remind us that sometimes the most profound spiritual act is simply to stay—to maintain our post when hope seems foolish, to keep showing up when results seem impossible.

Their faithful presence became the womb from which resurrection witness was born.

Mary Magdalene's encounter follows a pattern that becomes the template for Christian discipleship: she sees the risen Lord, and she is immediately sent to tell others. Her commissioning is direct: "Go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God'" (John 20:17).

This "see and send" pattern reveals the essentially outward-moving, testimonial nature of Christian faith. Authentic encounters with the divine do not terminate in private spiritual experience but propel us outward as witnesses. Mary's experience was not given for her private consolation alone, but to transform her into a messenger.

Here we find another inversion of expected power structures. The male disciples, who had walked with Jesus throughout his ministry, now receive the resurrection news from a woman. They must humble themselves to hear and believe her testimony. The traditional teaching hierarchy is temporarily but significantly reversed—the men must learn from the woman about the resurrection's reality.

For centuries, Mary Magdalene's witness has been obscured by misinterpretation. She was conflated with the anonymous sinful woman who anointed Jesus' feet, with Mary of Bethany, and with various other women in the Gospel narratives. From these mistaken conflations arose the persistent image of Mary Magdalene as a reformed prostitute—a characterization with no biblical basis.