Let's open to the Gospel of Luke chapter 8. I want to read the first three verses. Luke writes, After this, Jesus travelled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him. And also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases, Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had come out. Joanna, the wife of Tusa, the manager of Herod's household, Susanna and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means. Notice that Luke begins with the words, after this, which immediately raises the question, after what? Well, if you were here last night, you would know the answer to that one. Because it follows on from the message that Brian brought to us about an unnamed woman. We're looking at another woman tonight who's so totally different. And yet both of these women were brought to faith by Jesus Christ. The story that Sarah gave in her testimony tonight about this unknown woman, unnamed, immoral woman. And Simon the Pharisee hit us between the ears. And I think one of the things that affected me last night was when Brian a number of times used the word deflect. We deflect the message and we can do it so easily. And I was reminded that when I was in theological college many years ago, We'd come home from our churches of a Sunday night. We'd have a cuppa together. And the usual topic of conversation with students was, well, how did you go? And we'd talk about our churches. And I remember one guy who said, I prepared this great sermon. It was a butler. I was really going to get stuck into some people here. They'd been giving me a rough time. And I really had it all primed up. And they didn't come. And I thought of that last night, and I thought of something else. Wouldn't it be great if a few other people, and I named them in my mind, could hear Brian tonight? And then guess what happened? Wouldn't it be great if I heard Brian tonight? From when we're little, we learn how to switch off. We become selective in which parent we listen to. We play one parent against another. Well, at least I did. I'm sure you did. And kids have been learning that ever since. Mum, such and such. What does Dad say? Dad, what does your mother say? They keep on getting together about this. The art of deflection. And it's important tonight that we hear After this, says Luke, after this encounter in Simon's house, Jesus and his friends journeyed from place to place. What was happening in the story? What were they doing? He says that Jesus was travelling and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is the rule of God over his creation. Both celestial and human powers have rebelled against God. So the kingdom contained elements of rebellion. And Jesus' travelling companions had experienced that rebellion in their own lives. And Luke records this by then saying, the twelve were with him. And then he added, there were also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. Luke's supposed to have been a doctor, so he was probably clued up on mentioning things like that. And then he adds, including in those women, Mary, from whom seven demons had come out. These women were helping to support Jesus and the fellows out of their own means, a significant aspect of the ministry of Jesus. Rabbis refused to teach women, They generally assigned them a very inferior place. Jesus freely admitted women into fellowship and accepted their ministry. Leon Morris has made the interesting comment that the Gospels contain no record of women ever taking action against Jesus. All his enemies were men. The Kingdom of God was the central theme of Jesus' preaching as it had been with John the Baptist. Jesus proclaimed the announcement of judgment, the call to repentance. He declared the kingdom as a reality at hand, that it was one in the future, but significantly as being present, manifested in his own person and ministry. He wasn't going around giving devotional stories. He was proclaiming the king and the kingdom. the good news, as God's rule of grace in Messiah for the salvation of men and women. And the present demonstration of the kingdom was seen in the casting out of demons. Jesus says elsewhere in Luke's gospel, if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you. And some of us were talking about this emphasis today, and I was particularly concerned about my emphasis tonight. And there are two mistakes that we can make. One is to ignore the kingdom of darkness, to say that it doesn't exist, to forget it, to push it to one side. And of course, the other opposite is equally wrong, and that is to overemphasise it, to look for demons under every seat in church. Salvation is announced in the kingdom. Forgiveness of sins is proclaimed. And it is all based on Jesus as the Christ, as Messiah, the Son of God. And the life of the kingdom that Jesus demonstrated means forgiveness. But that forgiveness was pointing to the cross. Where there is forgiveness in the cross from God to us, it means that there is forgiveness between us and other human beings. There has to be. The kingdom had come in what Jesus was saying, and Mary, amongst the other women, knew this in her own deliverance because her life had been radically changed. Mary was an illustration of what Paul later wrote in Ephesians chapter 2, that we were dead in trespasses and sins, and God made us alive in Christ. That it is by grace that we have been saved through faith, not of ourselves. There was nothing that Mary could do to deliver herself from seven demons. There is nothing that you and I can do to extricate ourselves from our sin because it has a grip on us. There is nothing that anyone can do to come to Jesus because it doesn't work that way. It is he who comes to us in all his holiness and purity and love and forgiveness and strips us bare and reveals to his holy gaze, to his holiness and to ourselves what we're really like. He undoes us. We can't play any more games. Paul wrote that after Mary, but Mary also knew the truth. Not only by grace are you saved through faith, but the fact that God has prepared in advance the works for us to do. She had a ministry. A ministry of ministering to Jesus and the other guys that were there, along with her friends, out of their own resources. How they did it, we're not told, but they did it. And that's the point. People run around like chooks without heads. What's my ministry? I need prayer to find my ministry. Well, God knows what your ministry is. Do it. Jesus had no material possessions. He never made use of divine power to provide for himself. And together with the other women who'd been cured of evil spirits and diseases, they travelled with Jesus and the disciples from town to town, helping to support them, to sustain them, to maintain their ministry. Mary was not a hanger-on. She was not a spectator. She was not wringing her hand saying, oh but you don't know the problems that I've been with, I had all these demons you know. Where are they now? Oh they've gone. Who got rid of them? That man did. How? Oh he just did. That must have been Hank. A significant picture of this ministry is in Matthew chapter 4. Verses 23 and 24. We so-called evangelicals, or whatever other label, and as Dean said this morning, he couldn't care what label we use, and I think he's right. I'm not sure what an evangelical is anyway. Sounds like a swear word to me. We steer away from these passages. We don't like to get into these areas. Matthew 24. 23 and 24. Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom. It's alright so far, isn't it? We know what he was doing. Then Matthew spoils it. Why on earth does he go on to say, and healing every disease and sickness among the people? Because that's what he did. A news about him spread all over Syria. You bet they did. He was on carrot affair every night. And people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain. Then he starts to describe them. The demon possessed, the epileptics and the paralytics. And he healed them. He healed them. He didn't give them pills. He didn't say, take this with confidence and then lie down for half an hour. He healed him, he did the impossible like he did with some of these other blokes in the New Testament. Now he comes to a guy by a pool. A fella has been lying down there for so many years. And he tells him to do what he can't do. He says, get up and walk. Now the bloke could have said, I've never done it. But the Gospel just said, he got up. I wonder if there was a physiotherapist there. Oh yes, yes, you were there Zara, that's right. Another one of her customers. He just did it. Remember the story of the guy that was let down through the roof. I wonder if they ever called for the builders to come and repair the thing. I think they were so amazed that these four fellows bring their mate And I make space for him and Jesus says, get up, get moving. What if he says that to us tonight? Because the comfort zone, being a Christian can be so nice and rosy. Because we're not like Simon that we met last night. And we're not like that dreadful woman. And Mary, no, no, I've never been demon possessed. Praise the Lord. Well, what are you doing? I'm enjoying my Christianity. I go to church. I'm a real Pharisee. Here is gospel proclamation. Demons degrade God's creation of humanity and Jesus gave them no leniency, because they feared him as they did the abyss. Now we may not have ever been controlled by demons in that sense, but the forces of evil are vicious, subtle, deceptive, and not to be underestimated. Evil cannot accomplish lasting results, but the scriptures very clearly teach that all human beings are in sinful depravity. Jeremiah reminds us, the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Beyond cure. Who can understand it? What does Mark say? He says some pretty bold things in the seventh chapter of his gospel, which I'll mention to you. Mark 7 from verse 20. He's talking about clean and unclean. And Jesus says to them, what comes out of a man, oh now today it's supposed to be all together isn't it, so it's man and woman, you can't escape. What comes out of a man or woman is what makes them unclean, for from within Out of men and women's hearts come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. And all these things come from inside and make us unclean. Does that ring any bells with us? I tell you it does with me. I was with my brother down here. on one occasion, one morning, and some of us meet together with Geoffrey a few years ago, but I always remember this. And the comment was made, I mean we're all ministers, you'd think that, you know, we're really up there. The comment was made, somebody gets concerned about the things that go through their head. I think it was Dean that says, I'm not worried so much about the things that go through my head, it's the things that stay there that concern me. Do they concern you? What about Romans? Paul doesn't give us a very nice passage in chapter 3, does he? He says that there's no one righteous, and he brings out all these quotations from the Old Testament. from verse 9. He says we're no better than anybody else, we've made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. Doesn't matter what your nationality is or your culture or where you live or what church you go to. There's no one righteous, there's no one who understands, there's no one who seeks God, and he goes right through this list. He says we're like a poison of vipers, our mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Ruin and misery mark our ways. We become worthless, there's no one who does good. And this 13th verse, their throats are open graves, their tongues practice deceit. Have you ever stood before an open grave and smelt death? That's sin. That's what the scriptures are getting at. We like the perfume. We like to cosmetise it so that it looks good and smells nice. But you and I stink in sin. And there is no Lux soap or any other brand that can do anything about it. We are not spectators of evil. We are darkness. We're not just in darkness, we are darkness. In Mark's Gospel, in 3 chapters, 8, 9 and 10, Jesus had stated, through his ministry of proclaiming the kingdom, that at the end of his journey was a cross. And the guys didn't understand that. They were focused on their own agendas. The women didn't understand it. But another of the women named Mary, Mary of Bethany, did pick up what he was talking about. And she celebrated his forthcoming death by anointing him with precious and expensive perfume, similar to the woman that we looked at last night. And Jesus made reference to that fact. But why were these women so attached to the good news of Jesus? Because of his ministry, because their lives had been revolutionised and changed by the gospel of the kingdom. Both Mark and Luke describe Mary Magdalene as one from whom seven devils had been cast. She was a healed person, not a rescued social derelict. There's no evidence of immorality. And we're not told about her deliverance. We're not told how it happened or when it happened. But Luke records an earlier account before Jesus had called any of his disciples in which an unnamed man is healed. And it's worth looking at it in Luke chapter 4 and verse 31 as an illustration of what this was about. From Luke 4 verse 31 Well, from verse 31, that Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath began to teach the people, and they were amazed at his teaching, because his message had authority. He knew what he was about. In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an evil spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, Ha! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. Be quiet, Jesus said sternly. Come out of him. And then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him. All the people were amazed and said to one another, What is this teaching? With authority and power, he gives orders to evil spirits and they come out and the news about him spreads throughout the surrounding area. It's just as well that's only stuck in the scriptures, isn't it, and doesn't have to worry us tonight. My facetious sense of humour suggests that the first person to register for summer school was the evil one. We say the Lord is here. You bet he's opposite numbers here too. He didn't ask permission to come. And you can bet he's at work. And it's wrong to overemphasise what he's about, as I said earlier. But it's equally wrong to ignore him. And it's quite possible as this message is going out, that our brains can be going off in all sorts of directions. because this touches right where we are. Mary supported Jesus by following him to the cross even though the disciples fled, and the scriptures tell us that she watched to see where he was buried. On the day of resurrection she was among the first who took spices to the tomb. She ran and told Peter and John that the tomb was empty and then she went back to the tomb. She was the first to meet the risen Jesus when he revealed his identity and her testimony rings out, I have seen the Lord. I don't think she said it quietly. I have seen the Lord. The story of these women was no less wonderful than the account of the disciples' calling, but such liberating ministry which they knew personally was so meaningful in a religious society where women were restricted. They had purpose as they followed Jesus, a purpose that was to be further enhanced and revolutionised through the cross and the coming of the Holy Spirit. But let's ask the question, who was Mary Magdalene? Let's look at her a bit more closely. There were a number of women named Mary, and the one named Mary Magdalene, or Mary of Magdala, a place meaning the tower, distinguished her from the others. We don't know what her seven demons were, and we must never try to work it out. If the scripture doesn't tell us, then that's enough. But Matthew and Mark, amongst the others, tell us that the women were at the cross, and they were watching Jesus from a distance. And in the accounts of Matthew and Mark, Mary Magdalene in particular is mentioned. And at least three or four women named Mary were there, so that's why she singled out, including Mary the mother of Jesus. And they stood at the cross watching. They stood until Jesus told John to take his mother away to his own home. And then he returned. But Mary Magdalene did not leave. She stood watching. All the disciples had fled except John. He was the only one who wrote an eyewitness account of the crucifixion, of how Mary and those other women remained standing there as she saw a man die, and as she died herself, because he took her into his death. and she was not a spectator. Physically she's standing there watching, but she was taken into that death and put to death as you and I were. He was a bloody spectacle and so were you and I. And he went to the very depths of abandonment for us so that we're not abandoned. He went into all that incredible experience of wrath in order that you and I might be delivered to new life. And then Mary Magdalene and the other women went to the burial site and they sat opposite the sepulcher. And as Mary had watched the events of death and burial, her world must have seemed ended. Because isn't death the end? They hadn't heard what Jesus had said, that he would rise again. That selective hearing came in because who rises from the dead? She loved Jesus. She knew his power of defeating demons, of healing sicknesses, of liberating people from their guilt, and that she thought that it was a death without resurrection is clear from the account in John chapter 20 that we're going to look at in a minute. Her grief and sorrow between his death and burial and resurrection must have been overwhelming, and we're not told how she survived it. But her thoughts must have been chaotic. Her world had ended. Death does that. If you've been to death with Jesus, your old world has ended. It's gone, and you must let it go. Don't ever hold a post-mortem to look into it and see how it's going again, because it stinks We don't know how long Mary and the other women remained sitting opposite the sepulchre. We don't know their feelings as they watched that stone being rolled across. It would have been a stone on a slope which was fairly easy to put across by one man, but a very difficult job to remove. As she saw the official seal of Rome applied, as she saw the Roman guard stationed so that there would be no grave robbers, that everything was secure, every precaution was taken to prevent any disturbance at the tomb. But the Roman officials reckoned without the disturbance from the God of heaven. God is a disturbing God. A God of comfort, we often say. but a God who disturbs deeply. And he disturbs his people when they wander off in the wrong path. The hours pass. It's John who tells us the story of that first day of the week after the Sabbath that Mary Magdalene came early when it was dark to the sepulcher. This is in John chapter 20 and Mary is astonished. to find that the stone has been rolled back. And she ran to find Peter and John and she said to them, they've taken my Lord out of the tomb and we don't know where they've put him. And Peter and John run to the tomb at top speed. And then the scene shifts back to Mary, because she returns to the tomb for some reason. And she's alone, apparently, at the tomb, after the disciples have returned to their homes. And she's weeping. She's weeping for the loss of his body as the final indignity. The enormous emotional strain which the last few days had placed on her, including the anguish of having looked on at Calvary, gave way to tears. And it must have been an incredible sorrow, a flood of tears. And as she wept, she looked into the tomb and saw two angelic figures in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. What an incredibly, humanly incredible question they ask her. Woman, why are you weeping? Why are you crying? She says, they've taken away my Lord and I don't know where they've laid him. But from the perspective of heaven, nothing is more incongruous than tears at the empty tomb of Jesus. If there is one place in space and time when tears are least appropriate, it is at the empty tomb of Jesus on Easter morning. But Mary repeats her concern at the disappearance of her Lord Her devotion prevents her referring to a body. He is still her Lord. Matthew's account of the angel's words, I reckon, is spine-tingling. In Matthew 28, verses 5-7, Matthew writes that the angel said to the women, do not be afraid, I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. Well they knew that. But the angel says he has risen just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples he has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him. Again that word. Now I've told you. They hurried away. But before Mary has time to reflect on the significance of these heavenly visitors, she becomes aware of another presence behind her. A man is standing. It is Jesus, but she doesn't recognise him. Mary would hardly have expected to see Jesus alive at that moment, but her initial failure to identify him links with the records of the other resurrection appearances. The failure to recognise the risen Jesus is not surprising because he's not been resuscitated like Lazarus. He's passed through death. He's now part of a new order in the glory of the Father's presence. And again there is a question concerning her distress from this man as yet an unknown figure. Woman, why are you crying? Who is it that you're looking for? Mary's problem in common with the other disciples was that she's looking for a corpse instead of a victorious Lord. Though it is fair to ask, would you and I have acted any differently? Still under the assumption that he is the gardener, Mary asks if he is responsible for the disappearance of Jesus from the tomb. Now in a real sense he was fully responsible. for both being the gardener and responsible for the empty tomb. Genesis tells us that Adam was placed in a garden to till it, to work it. Genesis tells us that following the fall, Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden and weren't allowed back. The New Testament tells us that on the cross Jesus turned to the repentant thief and he said, today you will be with me in a garden. in paradise, and he is the gardener, the real gardener, who has defeated the sin and evil of the four. And that's what he's done in your life and mine. He has got rid of all of that sin and dealt with all of that wrath and judgement. And then there comes the moment of recognition, because Jesus says to her one word, Mary. One word transformed her life forever, and that word was her own name. Actually, he used the Aramaic name by which her family and friends called her, and which he always called her, Miriam. And hearing her own name and her own language, she realised that only one person could say that. And it reminds us of John chapter 10 where Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. And he knows his own by name. He knows who you and I are. He calls us by name. And this is a memorable confirmation of the personal nature of our Lord's dealings, and Mary responds in ecstatic joy, Rabboni, my own dear teacher. And falling before Jesus, Mary clasps his feet, for Jesus says, don't hold on to me, I've not yet ascended to my Father. And Jesus is saying in this, the time of my final return to the Father, after which you won't see me again, has not yet come. Jesus is revealing to Mary that the old days had finished. He is not to be known by means of touch as previously. The resurrection and the ascension imply a new relationship with Him, to be shared with all the disciples in every age, that of faith union through the Holy Spirit by the Ascending Lord. It is by faith. Blessed are those who believe and yet have not seen. Mary is commissioned to take the joyful resurrection news to the other disciples. The initiative has been wrenched from the hands of Cleophas and Pilate, and the evil one is defeated. There is so much that we could say about this, but Mary acts on the Lord's command, and she goes and tells the good news to the disciples, and she says, I have seen the Lord. Now only men could give testimony in a Jewish court of law. The testimony of women in those days was considered unreliable and invalid. But every gospel account of Easter begins with the witness of the women. This would hardly have been invented by the early church. It is not a feminist thrust. Please don't think that. It is what the scripture says. The supreme lesson out of all Mary Magdalene's marvellous history is the text. He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he cast seven devils. It was not to Peter, nor to James, nor to John that he gave that honour. It wasn't even to his own mother. It was to Mary Magdalene. She had not known the depth of sin like some others. But she had known the possession of demons. And verse 18 of that 20th chapter of John's is so refreshing. Mary of Magdala went to the disciples with the news, I have seen the Lord. And she told them that he had said these things to her. Did they believe her? No. John and the guys go fishing. What else is there to do? Do you believe him? Don't answer too quickly. He calls you by name. But there is an enemy. John Donne's book on forgiveness. It was my daughter-in-law, one of my daughters-in-law, who emailed me and said, Dad, you've got to read this book. She got me on to it first. John tells the story that during a teaching mission in Darwin back in 1972, he was recording the speaker's message about the reality of Satan and his powers. During the session, almost everyone in the congregation went to sleep. He says, I myself was struggling to keep awake and I had to really concentrate on the tape recording levels that I was supposed to be monitoring. They used those old-fashioned reel-to-reel tapes in those days. He says, suddenly the speaker rebuked Satan in the name of Christ and commanded him to leave the building. And immediately everyone was alert and listening. Weeks later I was going through the master tapes and editing out any local references that other listeners would not understand. I came to that session on Satan. Just at that point, when the speaker was talking in very serious terms about the reality of Satan, the message was interrupted by a very funny 20 second segment of the Goon Show in which Peter Sellers was caricaturing Satan. I have no idea how that would have happened on an otherwise brand new tape. But if I had not decided to edit the tapes, that message would have gone around the world with the comedy segment countering the truth of what the preacher was saying. We're not mucking about here. But what have you heard tonight? You've got to answer that. Who have you heard tonight? You can't escape. No good trying to down it with a cup of coffee afterwards. No good in either saying, oh isn't that wonderful? For God's sake, don't say that. But if you say, I got slammed between the eyes tonight, not out of emotion, not out of feeling, but because Christ has come and has laid hold of your life, in a fresh way. Please don't say, oh I became a Christian 20, 30 years ago. What about tonight? How real is all of this tonight? According to Luke's Gospel, although she's not named personally, all the women were there in the upper room when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost. I reckon Mary was there. And it was when the Spirit came and revealed the truth of death and resurrection and ascension that the early church took off. But they took off in persecution, remember. It wasn't a rosy garden. They took off because they knew that they had been delivered. We're going to pray and then we've got one final song. including Christian man. The heart of a Christian man and woman is deceitfully wicked and desperately corrupt. Who can understand it? But he bore our sins in his body on the tree, he took our pain and our grief, and he bore our wrath as only he could. On the cross, after Christ had descended into that, you'll know in John's Gospel it says he bowed his head before the Father. He had completed the work. He cried out, it's finished. It's completed. We no longer then need to rationalise our sin as a Christian woman. You don't need to do that anymore. If you've been rationalising your behaviour, today is the day to stop doing it. You don't need to. It's mucking you up. The Psalmist says, Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and did not hide my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Have you done that? Have you actually done that? Have you done it? Just acknowledged the state that you got into. He forgave him, my health returned, and I lived and stood before God, for there is no condemnation to those who have crossed Jesus. In overthrowing wrath for a moment, God says to us, I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion or mercy on you, says the Lord your Redeemer.