Our second reading from God's Holy Word is taken from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 15 beginning in verse 37 and extending into chapter 16 and verse 11. Please stand for the reading of God's Holy Gospel. And Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed his last. Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. So when the centurion who stood opposite him saw that he cried out like this and breathed his last, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God. There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the less and of Joseph, and Salome. who also followed him and ministered to him when he was in Galilee, and many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem. Now when evening had come, because it was the preparation day, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent council member, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, coming and taking courage, he went in to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate marveled that he was already dead, and summoning the centurion, he asked him if he had been dead for some time. So when he found out from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph. Then he brought fine linen, took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and he laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock, and rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph observed where he was laid. Now, when the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices that they might come and anoint him. Very early in the morning on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen, and they said among themselves, Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us? But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, for it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe, sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. But he said to them, Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter. that he is going before you into Galilee. There you will see him, as he said to you." So they went out quickly and fled from the tomb, for they trembled and were amazed. They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Now, when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him as they mourned and wept. And when they heard that he was alive and he had been seen by Herb, they did not believe. The Gospel of Our Lord. I was a student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. During the time that that institution was changing over from a liberal institution to a Christian one. And as you can imagine, that was a time of turmoil. That was a time of conflict. And it was certainly a time of polemics. Polemics are when you get up and preach and you preach at the other side because they deserve it. And there was an awful lot of that. Sermons tended to be very fiery. And there tended to be, in some ways, more heat than light. The old liberal establishments, the unbelievers, were not going out into the night easy. They didn't want to surrender the institution, and they were putting up a fight. And the Christians who were redeeming and reforming the school, they were on the attack. And so, things got hot at times. In a 48-hour period, I heard two sermons on Esther chapter 1 from two very different perspectives. That year in the Southern Baptist Convention, the theme was, For Such a Time as This. And that was a line that comes out of the book of Esther. Esther is queen consort to the king of Persia. She is a faithful believer, the invisible church is threatened with total annihilation, and her caregiver, the one who raised her, tells her that for such a time as this, Providence has brought you to this place so that you can do good. And since that was the theme, you can imagine there was a lot of preaching on Esther. And like I said, I heard two sermons on the same chapter within 48 hours, and they could not have been any more different. Esther chapter 1 is a historical account of the king of Persia's attempt to get everyone to stop thinking about the fact that basically they had gotten their behind handed to them by the Greeks. They had gone to destroy Athens, and they had succeeded, but what it had cost them had been tremendous. And so, to kind of take the mind of the kingdom off of that, the king of Persia throws this empire-wide party, effectively. And it is a drinking party. It is basically, we are going to celebrate and drink and just basically have a good time, and it goes on forever and ever and ever. And during this party, there in his capital, at one point, was everybody truly, truly inebriated. He decides that his head queen consort ought to come in and dance for everybody in a very sensual way and just basically prostitute his wife, and she chooses not to come. And when she refuses to come, it's kind of an uproar because the king of Persia is supposed to be the king of kings and lord of lords, which is a title he takes. And so there is this huge to-do about what to do about this. And the elders say, look, if your wife disrespects you in front of everybody, the kingdom's going to fall apart and nobody's wife is going to listen to them, so put this woman away, get rid of her as a lesson. And that's what he does. Well, the two sermons I heard were these. The first one was from a liberal perspective that said, this passage is about Vashti the She is the hero of the story. What we are to learn from this is wives, disrespect your husbands. That's your right and your duty. Do what you think to be best. That's what God wants you to do. The Spirit of God is always for your liberation, and you should thank for yourself, sisters, in power to womanize. 24 hours later, it's a different preacher, and I learned that that's not what the passage is about at all. Rather, it's about the elders who were talking to the king of Persia, who said that if women disobey their husbands, society is going to fall apart. So put this woman away, that's what you ought to do. Everyone go and do likewise, because a bunch of drunken men who want to look at a naked woman are obviously the kind of people you'd want to follow. The truth is, that's not what Esther chapter 1 is about at all, in either case. What Esther chapter 1 is about is a historical event where nobody is a follower of the true God, where things are happening. and where God is setting up the deliverance of His people. In all things, God is working for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose. But the reason why I put this forward is because in passages that focus on women in Scripture, there is a huge amount of polemics today, because the battle between liberals, Christians, and conservatives have, as one of their primary battlefields, the issue of gender. And so when you preach on a passage that obviously touches on gender, more likely than not, the preacher is likely going to be very tempted to take the passage up and shape and mold it in his own image to make it say what he wants to say to get in his licks, because this is a battlefield. There is no bigger battlefield right now than gender, and so on passages having to do with women, people kind of lie. Several years ago, Carmen was at a women's retreat for the PCUSA women's group, whatever it was called, and the speaker for the group was preaching on that famous passage about Mary and Martha, where Christ is in their house and Martha is running around attending to the various needs of hospitality, and Mary is acting a disciple. You know the passage, and I think you know the focus of the event. Mary is commended. Christ says she has chosen the better part. She is listening to the Word. That will not be taken from her. totally turned the events on its ear. The sermon was, Mary really was lazy, because all she was doing was listening to doctrine, and doctrine doesn't do anything. Rather, what you really should do, women, is you should be like Martha, because Martha was really getting things done. What really matters in the world is that you do stuff And Martha is the great hero because you could not have had this event without Martha's activity. Which is an amazing sermon except the text is 100% against it. But it really didn't matter to her because that's what she wanted the text to say. And that's what she preached. Liberals call it the hermeneutics of suspicion. And if you don't know what that phrase means, you really need to, because it's very important to them. It means that whenever you read something, whenever anyone has written something for you, they are trying to manipulate you. Otherwise, why would they write anything down? You read it, they want to manipulate you, and so you, if you are a wise cookie, you read knowing that you should be suspicious, and you should ask the question, what does this person want to manipulate me into, and you make sure that you stay free. For the writings that human beings write, you know, there's a little truth to that. In fact, I would encourage you to accumulate a hermeneutic of suspicion any time you read a liberal's writing, because quite frankly, that is what they're doing. But, a conservative, too. But it's not true about God. The Scripture, which is God's writing, says, let God be true, though every man a liar. And the Apostle Paul, speaking for God, speaking by his Holy Spirit, in the book of 2 Timothy, says this, which really kind of sums up our Our connection to God, in a way, it is 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 12. Paul is talking about being in chains and things are going well for him, but he says, For this reason I also suffer these things, nevertheless I am not ashamed. For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed to him until that day." So Paul is saying, God has made himself known to me, and I have come to realize through what God has done, that God really is true. All men may lie to you, this is true, but not God. Every book, every newspaper, every article you read online, treat it with all the suspicion you want, but God is above that. God is perfectly trustworthy, God is perfectly true. Do not read the Bible with a hermeneutic of suspicion, because you are dealing with the one you ought to know is truth itself, and you can trust him completely, if no one else. The reason for this setup is because in the text we have before us today, the women who travel with Jesus show up quite prominently. They show up again and again and again, and they show up by name. Last Sabbath, we looked at the crucifixion. This Sabbath, we're going to look at the women because Peter and Mark keep putting them in front of us. Did you notice how many times he mentioned them by name and what they were doing? So as this account comes to its conclusion, he wants us to look at them and what they're doing. But it's about women, and women tend to be the focus of this kind of twisted preaching. Let me take and shape this to make my points. Because we're in a cultural war, so let me make the text say what I want it to say. And this kind of goes back before that, to be honest, because in times past, when the women at the cross were preached on, it's kind of been a, what do I do for Mother's Day sermon? Well, let's deal with these women, because we have some mothers here, and they're women. And I'm going to preach a very maudlin, emotional message to you, because it's Mother's Day, and that's what you do. And in these latter days, if you're liberal, it's, let's preach on these women, they are literally the first apostles ordained in the latter age. That's the liberal take on these women. After all, an apostle is someone who is sent. These women get sent, so they're obviously apostles, right? As if being an apostle was only being sent. As if when I sent you to get me a drink, that made you my apostle. Deductively, looking at this passage as it is, and letting it speak for itself clearly What can we say in truth about these women? I count ten things that deductively we can bring out of this text that we can say with all confidence without twisting the text in any way. The first is we can say clearly and without apology that these are women who, quote, ministered to Jesus. If you look at verse 41 of chapter 15, Mark himself uses that term. He says, these women also followed him and ministered to him while he was in Galilee. We get the word deacon from the word minister. It means that they played the servant to Him. They acted as a servant to His needs. And as we look at the four Gospels, we see that happening. We see Martha getting her due. It's not as though Jesus said, Martha has chosen nothing of value. We see these women and others serving Christ as He is doing His ministry. They offer Him hospitality. They feed him. They provide him shelter. We see all of this happening, and we see women doing it. And even more than that, we see at least one point in the Gospels where it is pointed out very clearly that women are actually funding what Jesus is doing. It is an old saw that says you can't save the world if you can't pay the rent. That hardly applies to God the Son, but he did take to himself a fully mortal body. And he actually did have to keep a coin purse. These women were contributing to that coin purse. Which tells me two very significant things. One, the women had money so they could give it. And two, they had the freedom to use it or they couldn't give it. So the picture of women at the turn of the gospel era as being nothing but property just doesn't really stand up to that, because he who is actually pouring out the money is a very significant person. And Mark goes out of his way to tell us these women were ministering to Christ in his Galilean ministry, and part of that was funding. He was receiving money from that. Christ received their money, and he received their ministry, and so any sort of Christianity that says women cannot be active in doing good works, women cannot be active in his service, really doesn't stand up. They most certainly can't. Secondly, in that same verse, which I just re-read, Mark tells us that these women, and he mentions three, but then he mentions more, these women, quote, traveled with him while he was moving through Galilee. Now, we have been preaching through Mark for quite some time, and we know what that Galilean ministry was like. If we go back to the very beginning of Mark's Gospel in chapter 1, We read about Christ defining what he's doing as he travels about Galilee, and this is what we read, beginning in verse 35. Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, he went out and departed to a solitary place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and when they found him, they said Everyone is looking for you. But he said to them, and this is the definitional part, let us go into the next towns that I may preach there also, because for this purpose I have come forth. And he was preaching in their synagogues throughout all Galilee and casting out demons. So why was Jesus going from town to town in Galilee? He was doing his preach. Secondarily, he drove out heathens. And as he taught, as he preached, as he declared true heavenly doctrine, these women that we now see at the cross, Mark tells us they followed him from town to town while he did that. They were literally disciples. Because a disciple, biblically speaking, is more than just a student. They are a student. But they are a committed student who follows their teacher, who lives around their teacher, sees what he does as well as hears what he teaches. They are committed to their teacher. They are an active learner. And Mark tells us These women were just as much disciples as any man we have met in the text. As Jesus went from town to town, they went from town to town. As he taught, they heard. As they saw him cast out demons, they saw. They were active disciples. They were learners. It is true that the Holy Spirit in Scripture says that women are to learn in silence and all submission. But by saying that, it does say they are to learn. I have been in places where women have been encouraged to be ignorant. I say that with all the gentleness I can. I have been in places where women have been told, honey, God really doesn't want you to love him with your mind. Make nice things for your hope chest. Get ready to marry a man, but you don't need to really think. You don't really need to learn the doctrine of Christ. You don't need to be a theologian. You just do your stuff. Well, these women followed Christ from town to town as disciples. They learned, they took Mary's part, and Christ says of Mary, she has chosen the better thing, and it will be taken from her. As a man who is married to a godly woman, I am grateful that my wife thinks that she knows the Word, that she knows the doctrine of Christ, that her mind is shaped and molded by His teaching, that He is the focus of her thoughts. I would not want a woman who isn't a disciple. I would not want a woman who stares at me vacuously and says, you say for me. What kind of helpmate is that? These women were disciples. And they followed him even to Jerusalem. This trip to Jerusalem doesn't end at the cross, but that is one of its major high points. The trip to Jerusalem, though it is more clear in Luke than it is Mark, the trip to Jerusalem really begins for us after Mark chapter 8 verse 27 to 30. There we read, Now Jesus and his disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi, and on the road he asked his disciples, saying to them, Who do men say that I am? So they answered, John the Baptist, but some say Elijah, and others, one of the prophets. He said to them, But who do you say that I am? Peter answered and said to him, You are the Christ. Then he strictly warned them that they should tell no one about him." In the Gospel accounts, that's where the story arcs, that's where it changes. In the Gospel of Mark, it's been about, who is this? People have been asking, who is he? This is a new teaching. These are new acts. This man calls the storm. Who is he? From this point, it now becomes, what does it mean that he is the Christ? And it also becomes, historically, he begins his final trip to Jerusalem. Now, it's a long and winding trip, but that's where he's going. And in the Gospel of Luke, it even says he sets his face like flint, that he's going to go there, that's the definition. And in this trip, what he emphasizes in his teaching after they have come to know who he is, is summed up in verse 31. And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes. and be killed, and after three days, rise again." We hear that again and again and again from that point in Mark. Those who traveled with him heard that again and again and again. And Mark tells us these women have made that journey so they have heard Jesus say again and again and again, I am going to go to the cross. Their lives for months, because it was a long journey to Jerusalem, have been dominated by the teaching of Christ, I am going to be crucified by the religious leaders, I am going to die, it is to be a ransom, and I am going to rise again. They have heard about it, and now They have been given the distinction that they see what they have been taught about. They are at the cross, and we shall hear about that in just a few minutes. Fourthly, they are defined people. They are defined by a certain group of faiths. They are defined by their name, for instance, so that we learn that one of them's name is Salome. They are defined by their places, so that we learn that one woman named Mary is from a town called Magdalene, and she is known for being there. They are defined by their children, because one Mary is known as, oh, that's the mother of James and Joseph. And they are defined by their reputation. When people ask about Mary Magdalene, and they needed a little bit more clarification, people were told, oh, you know, she's the one that Jesus drove seven demons out of. And Mark mentions that in the text. He mentions it around verse 11 of chapter 16. In other words, these are human beings like you and me. These are the kind of things that define everybody. Who are you? Well, you're your name, your reputation, you are your circumstances in life, you are the mother of your children. That's who these people are as well. One simply needs to look at verse 40 of chapter 15 or verse 9 of chapter 16 and realize that they are being described as people who are just like people, no matter and no less. Fifth, they were brave enough to be at the cross, at least from afar. In verse 40, Mark does make that cut out. Now, at the cross, there was this group of women, but they were standing a great deal away. Who can really blame them? The Romans were in a mood to kill people, and really, honestly, that's somebody you want to stay away from. But we have to give credit to these women that they were there at least, because the Scripture tells us plainly that the courage of everybody else broke, except for John and his mother. They actually went to the very foot of the cross, they were present, but everybody else ran like rabbits, except these women. who kind of stood at a distance like rabbits, but they were present. They had the wherewithal to be at the very cross. They saw what Christ was talking about. They had heard for months about the cross. They had not wanted to hear it, says Mark. Like the other disciples, it disturbed them. They didn't know what it meant. They really didn't want to hear the message of the cross. But they had the wherewithal to be present on the day of the cross and to really realize what the cross was about. It was really about a piece of wood. It was really about males. It was really about murder. It was really about oppression. It was really about human sin. It was really terrible. And these female disciples were brave enough to look it in the eye from several hills away. But they should be given credit for that. Sixthly, these are caring and nurturing people, and that can be seen in the last verse of chapter 15, verse 47, and in the first verse of chapter 16, verse 1. After the deed is done and Christ is bodily dead, we read that two of the women, and Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph, observed where he was laid. So they cared about where the body was placed, and in verse 1 of 16, now when the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene married the mother of James, and Salome brought spices that they might come and anoint him. This is a nurturing, caring act. This is something that feminists would not do. This is something that would be the equivalent in the first century of going and making coffee and bringing a sandwich. It's women acting like women traditionally have acted, and our modern-day feminists would be above it. It is caring for the dead. It is care and nurture that goes beyond life into the grave. It is dirty work that only a caring and compassionate person would do. And these women are nurturing, caring, and compassionate. It's part of what being a helpmate has always been about. Being feminine is to be of service, to be compassionate, to nurture. There's something really truly creepy about a woman who is not nurturing, because that's not what they're supposed to be. Women are supposed to be nurturing. Women are supposed to be caring. And when women become like men, you just get an inferior man. When women are acting like God called women to be, you get a high-quality woman. And when men act like women, well, you get an inferior woman. But we see disciples who are nurturing, disciples who are caring. Their care goes even beyond life to the grave, and they are to be commended for that, although our seventh point throws just a little bit of a shadow on that, is that the cross had dashed their hopes. We see them acting as though death is going to have the last word. And as I read for you, Jesus began to teach them from the moment they confessed who he was, that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed. And after three days, rise again. I emphasize that these women have heard that message for months. Jesus clearly said, I'm going to rise, and they're not actually acting like that. They are acting like death will have its final word, and it's hard to blame them, because quite frankly, death is about the most absolute thing I've ever encountered. As a minister, I've stood beside many corpses, and it feels very, very vital. The dead don't get up, the dead lay there, the dead decay, and so we can see where they are acting this way, but Christ has told them this is not going to be the end, that the journey to Jerusalem is not going to end with the crucifixion, it's going to end with my rising again, and they are asking, what can we do for the dead? They're very similar, in a lot of ways, to the two disciples on their way to Emmaus. In Luke 24, verse 17 through 21, Jesus comes alongside of some people who are going to an outlying village called Emmaus, and they don't recognize him because he doesn't want them to. And he starts talking to them about what's happened, and we take up the story at 17. And he said to them, what kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sat? Then the one whose name was Cleophas answered and said to him, Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have you not known the things which have happened there in these days? And he said to them, What things? So they said to him, the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and crucified him, but we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel. He's dead, he's crucified, the leaders got rid of him. We thought he was going to redeem Israel, but obviously he is not, because the cross dashes our hopes. Jesus gently rebukes that, O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. Jesus said he was going to raise from the dead, and Jesus never came short of anything else he said. We take with great hope the words of the Holy Spirit in Romans 8, 28, where it says, and we know in all things God works for the good of those who love the Lord, who are called according to His purpose. We use it in such a way, usually, that when something bad, dark, evil, terrible has happened It means that God is not done with us yet, because God can even work through such terrible things. But the actual context of that promise is that in dark and evil things, it's not that God works in spite of them, it's literally that God is working through them. Like I said last Sabbath, the crucifixion of Christ is both the glorious redemption of the elect, and is also the greatest crime of humanity. Certainly these women saw the greatest crime of humanity, and they thought, surely God can't work through that. Surely God can't actually redeem Israel by such a bloody, unjust, humiliating murder Well, guess what? Not only is it God working in spite of the cross, it's literally God working through the cross. It's the darkest, most evil moment in all of human history, and it's our redemption. It is not just that God backs up and punts when dark things happen for the elect. God is working for the elect. Grace is taking place. And as commendable as these women are, they are not quite there. They are asking who will roll the stone away, because dead is dead. And that's just not the case. God ministers. He ministers in the light, He ministers in the happy, He ministers in the blessing, and He ministers in the dark and the tumult of night, which for the elect is also a blessing. He is at work. Our eighth point is that these women really were the first people in the latter days to hear the gospel in its clarity. A young man dressed in white, who is obviously a representative of heaven, really speaks the gospel for the first time since the resurrection. And in verse 6 he says to these women disciples, do not be alarmed, you see Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified, he is risen, he is not here. See the place where they laid him. That is of the essence of the good news. It's not the full good news, but in some ways it's the clearest good news that has ever been spoken at this moment. The gospel has been in the world since Genesis 3. where God spoke the gospel and said, the seed of the woman will step on the serpent's head, but it's been growing clearer as time has been going on, and really on this side of the cross, these women are given the blessing of being the first hearers of the gospel. It is undeniable. And they are commissioned to do the first evangelism in the latter days. In chapter 16, verse 7, the angel says, But go, tell his disciples. To evangelize, to disciple, for they are the same thing in Scripture, is not to teach and have authority. The scripture clearly teaches that it is not a woman's role to have the job of an elder, to teach and to have authority over men. But in Romans, evangelism is described as a witness who has seen the most evil city on earth destroyed by the power of God. which means that you're now free and able to live, it means that you are a witness to God's great victory, and you're telling everybody, in God's power, you can live free. That's not being a professor or a pastor, that is just sharing the very good news. It is preaching, biblically speaking. The way we throw words around today You would say I am preaching But in the new testament scripture That's not what I'm doing in the new testament scripture. I am teaching You are disciples of Jesus Christ. I am training you in biblical doctrine. I am giving you the scripture. But I know that you are disciples. I truly believe that you're saved, the best I can know. And I am instructing the faithful. Biblically, the term preaching means to declare the gospel to one and all. So if you're preaching, You're doing what we call evangelism. You are sharing the good news of Jesus, that he has overcome death, that he has conquered the devil, that he is the ransom for sins, and that those who believe in him will be saved. So, quote, can a woman preach? The answer is no, the way we use the term, because a woman is not to be an elder and stand behind a pulpit. But if the word preach is used in its biblical context, then absolutely, I want absolutely all of you to preach. as loud and as long as you have any opportunity, because every disciple of Jesus Christ is called to make disciples. In the 40 days after Christ's resurrection, between his ascension, he gives what is called the Great Commission several times in several ways, but the one that is most famous is at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, and it reads this way. And he said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Wait a minute, let me get a marker. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. So, the Great Commission is that disciples are to make disciples who will make disciples. And biblically, evangelism is not meeting a stranger and reading them the four spiritual laws and then saying goodbye. Biblically, evangelism is discipling people, bringing them into your life, bringing their mess into your life, caring for them, sharing with them, bringing them to faith as they walk with you, and then you teach them to do all things Christ taught you, which includes going and making disciples. These women are told, go out, declare, Christ is risen, death is dead, and that's evangelism. And they are sent to the visible church, but as you heard at the end of our lesson, the visible church doesn't believe quite yet. They are sent to declare the great news. And then lastly, our tenth point, is that of all people that Jesus decides to show himself to clearly, the first one is not only one of our women, but truly one of our most degraded of women. Mary Magdalene is mentioned three times in our text, and the last time she's mentioned, she's mentioned as a woman who at one point was possessed by seven demons. Which I guess would make you popular at certain kinds of parties, but generally speaking, you are the bottom of the bottom. We're told that Mary Magdalene is the woman who was a prostitute, and who washed Christ's feet with her hair. This woman would be considered in all society as the model, and yet Christ gives the honor of being the first person to see him to this woman, to Mary Magdalene. It is a living example of what Christ's apostle will describe later when he talks about the nature of the church that the Holy Spirit tends to build. We would like to see God build a church out of wealthy, educated people able to do great things. And the Holy Spirit writes to the church at Corinth through the Apostle Paul and describes them like this, For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty, and the base things of the world, the things which are despised, God has chosen, and the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. It's probably not a woman thing, it is probably a disciple thing. When Jesus decides who will get to see him first, it is the base, the despised, the lowly, the of no account before, because that's who Christ will begin to build his church out of. That will be normative, actually. When the gospel is faithfully being received by the church, and when the gospel is going out of the church faithfully, it's usually reaching the poor, the despised, the broken. It's not reaching the clean, the easy, the smart, and the respectable. They come in second, and they come in like camels coming through an eye of a needle. It really tends to be God reaches the broken. And Jesus emphasizes this in appearing first to Mary Magdalene.