Jesus and Mary Magdalene: Breaking Ceilings

Katia Adams • February 14, 2020

Why We Should Pay Attention to The Way Jesus Treated Women

The more I get to know Jesus, the more I encounter a God who has no interest in making Himself what we expect. He simply will not play neatly within our preordained boundary lines. One area where this is clearly seen is Jesus’ interactions with women in the narrative of the gospels. Even 2,000 years later, I wonder how many of us would end up offended with Jesus if He walked into our churches today and radically included women in the manner that He did in first-century Palestine.

In my book, Equal, I share in far more detail some of the stories from the gospels, which reveal Jesus' heart to lift women up. This post is an exerpt from chapter 2 of Equal, titled Jesus and Women:

Breaking Ceilings: Mary Magdalene

Either Jesus just kept stumbling into moments where He challenged the understanding of a woman’s role in society, or He was intentionally choosing for that to be the case. My guess is that it is the latter.

Just think of all the ‘firsts’ that Jesus chose to designate to a woman. The first news of the incarnation (Luke 1:32–35). The revelation of God’s incredible act in the incarnation was brought to a teenage girl even though it would have been much more culturally appropriate to go to either her father or her fiancé. But the announcement was made to her and ‘not her father, the high priest, the ruler of the synagogue, a male prophet—and not even the man to whom she was betrothed ...’ (Gilbert Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles) Following that first, there’s the first Samaritan convert (John 4:7–42); the first Gentile convert (Matt. 15:21–28); the first resurrection teaching (John 11:23–27); all culminating in the first witness to the resurrection (Matt. 28:9; John 20:16). Some complementarians insist that biblical order signals a hierarchy of authority. In that case, I wonder what they make of all of these firsts.

At first light on the morning of Jesus’ greatest victory, before He had even ascended to His Father, He chose to reveal the reality of His resurrection to a woman. A woman. A woman whose testimony would not hold up in a court of law. A woman who would never be given the time of day. A woman whom His male disciples would not believe (and would be subsequently rebuked for—see Mark 16:14).

Why did He do it? Why would He jeopardise the reliability of the testimony of His resurrection by putting it in the hands of a woman? As Tom Wright notes, ‘Mary Magdalene and the others are the apostles to the apostles ... If an apostle is a witness to the resurrection, there were women who deserved that title before any of the men.’ Jesus reveals himself to Mary and, in so doing, breaks a ceiling that some in the church have been trying to put back together ever since.

It would seem that perhaps Jesus is not as convinced as some are of the lesser authority that women have. I have heard my husband say, ‘What was lost in a garden was restored in a garden.’ Here, in the inauguration of a new creation, in the setting of the garden of an empty tomb, Jesus restores the place of women as He entrusts a woman to be the first witness of the greatest act in all of history. A woman failed in what was entrusted to her (and her husband) in the first garden. But here, in a new garden and a new creation, a woman is entrusted again with what is most precious.

However we want to interpret it, in bringing primary revelation of the resurrection to Mary, Jesus appoints a woman in a place of undeniable authority and dignity as He sends her (the literal definition of being an apostle) to share the news with His disciples. And let us note here that this is no commission to women’s ministry—Mary’s testimony was not only to be shared with women; it was intended to be shared with the men as well (John 20:17).

But is it Significant?

In His everyday life, Jesus systematically broke down a staunchly patriarchal system and opened the doors for women to enter into male-only roles. Jesus’ treatment of women was so staggering that it created a different way of men and women worshipping. Where once there would have been clear gender separation in Jewish worship, we see in Acts 1 men and women praying and worshipping together as they wait for an encounter with the Holy Spirit. His careful, meticulous approach to changing the cultural understanding of women’s roles resulted in the early church taking a very different stance with regards to gender roles than what had gone before.

This post is an excerpt from Equal, by Katia Adams

Purchase the book on Amazon, or download your FREE Chapter now.

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