Let's turn in our Bibles to John chapter 20. We're stepping our way from our study in the book of Hebrews this morning to give a special focus this morning to our Lord's resurrection from the dead. In John chapter 19, Jesus was crucified. And this was the entire purpose for which God had become a man. He had to first live a perfect life to fulfill all righteousness and then to die a sacrificial death to pay the penalty for sin for all of those he came to save. He died that we might live. So he died on a Friday afternoon. And then because the next day was the Sabbath, the Jews did not want the bodies of Jesus and of the criminals that were crucified with him to remain on the cross. So Jesus' body was removed from the cross and a man named Joseph of Arimathea received permission to take Jesus' body and bury it. And Joseph, along with Nicodemus, took the body and they bound it in linen cloths and bound it with spices, according to their custom, and they put him in a tomb. And that's where John leaves us at the end of chapter 19. And then he picks up the narrative on Sunday morning, the first day of the week, the day after the Jewish Sabbath. And this was the day, the third day, inclusive, since Jesus died. It was the day that Jesus said he would rise from the dead. But his disciples don't seem to be expecting it. Either they didn't understand, or it was just too much for them to embrace. But they clearly are not anticipating that he's going to rise from the dead that day. And yet, this was the day. Something miraculous happened in the early morning hours. Matthew, in Matthew 28, tells us that there was a great earthquake and an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and he rolled back the stone that blocked the entrance to the tomb. And the angel's appearance was like lightning. And the guards who had been placed there were so afraid that they fainted dead away. Now, that was a spectacular scene. But John, in his gospel, he doesn't go there. John doesn't show us that. Instead, John shows us a single figure walking in the dark making her way to the tomb. Now, we know from elsewhere that she wasn't alone, but John focuses on just this one person. And John's going to show us a little further down in chapter 20 that this woman would become the first person to encounter the risen Christ. Now, she's not the kind of person who you would expect, of all the people Jesus could have revealed himself to first, after he rose from the dead, you would not expect it to be her. And yet, it cannot have been a coincidence. So let's read the text, the first 18 verses of John 20. And then I want to explore this woman, who had the privilege to be the first person to meet the resurrected Lord. All right, John 20, starting in verse one. Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him. So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb, and he saw the linen cloth lying there, and the facecloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloth, but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, went also in, and he saw and believed For as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. And as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him. Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away. Jesus said to her, Mary. Jesus turned and said to him in Aramaic, Rabbani, which means teacher. Jesus said to her, do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the father, but go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord and that he had said these things to her. So Mary, Mary Magdalene is the woman who saw Jesus and spoke to him outside the tomb before anyone else. Mary was a common name in Israel at the time. It's really Miriam. In Hebrew or in Aramaic, she would have been called Miriam. She was named after Moses' sister. In the Greek, it's written Maria. And then in English, Maria is translated to Mary. Now, there are six Marys in the New Testament, and four of them show up in the Gospels. The most prominent, of course, is Mary, the mother of Jesus. Another well-known Mary is Mary of Bethany. This Mary was the sister of Lazarus, who Jesus raised from the dead, and the sister of Martha, A somewhat lesser known Mary was Mary the mother of James the Younger. She was also the mother of Joseph and the wife of Clopas. In Matthew 28, she's called the other Mary. And she's the one, one of the ones at least, who goes to the tomb with Mary Magdalene. And then of course we have Mary Magdalene. Now, Magdalene was not her last name. She's from a small village in Galilee called Magdala. And she's called Mary Magdalene to distinguish her from all the other Marys in the gospel. The other two Marys who don't appear in the Gospels are Mary the mother of John Mark, we're briefly introduced to her in the Book of Acts, and then there was a member of the Church of Rome who was also named Mary, and she's mentioned in Paul's letter to the Romans. but we're going to focus on Mary Magdalene this morning. And I want to explore, first, who Mary was before she met Christ. That happened back early in Jesus' ministry. And then I want to look at who she was after she met Jesus. And in both cases, I want to dispel some of the misperceptions and myths about her. There's a lot of inaccurate information out there about Mary Magnoli. And that ranges from some simple misunderstandings to some things that are blatantly blasphemous. I don't want to get too bogged down in all of that. because I don't want to spend our time talking about things that aren't true, but I do think it's important to address the misinformation that's out there. And then, and again in both cases, both before and after she met Jesus, we'll look at the truth about her. The truth as it is revealed in God's word. So that's going to be our basic outline for this morning as we consider this woman who was surprisingly the first to encounter the Lord Jesus after his resurrection. So we'll start with some misconceptions about who Mary was before she knew Jesus. The biggest misconception about Mary, before she came to Christ, is that she was a prostitute. I said in the introduction that it was surprising that God chose Mary Magdalene to be the first person that Jesus appeared to after he rose from the dead. Now, if she were a reformed prostitute, then that wouldn't be surprising at all, that Jesus appeared to her first. We all like to act like we're scandalized that Jesus associated with sinners, but we're not. It's so well established that it would hardly be unexpected if Jesus appeared to someone who had been a very visible and well-known sinner first. Even the Pharisees, some of Jesus' staunchest opponents, knew this. They didn't approve of it, of course, and they pointed it out every chance they got that he ate with tax collectors and with sinners. But they certainly knew it. Even today, those who know very little else about Jesus, and those who seem not to care to know anything about what He actually taught, about His call to repentance, about His call to holiness, even they know that He came to sinners. If Jesus had appeared to a former prostitute first, that would surprise exactly no one. This misconception that Mary was a prostitute comes from mistakenly associating Mary with a couple other women in the Gospels who may have been prostitutes. And the first comes from Luke chapter 7. Starting in verse 36, it says, one of the Pharisees asked him, Jesus, to eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. And behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner. And when it says that she was a sinner, it almost certainly means that she was a prostitute. That is a known sinner of the kind that society judges the most harshly. So this woman, who was a sinner and probably a prostitute, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment." So the story continues on, and the Pharisee objected to this. At least to himself, he criticized Jesus for not stopping it. Jesus knew what he was thinking, and Jesus told a parable to address it, and he taught about this. And then at the end of this account, Jesus told the woman that her faith had saved her and to go in peace. And then in the very next chapter, at the beginning of Luke chapter eight, we're introduced to Mary Magdalene as one of the women who traveled with Jesus and provided for him and his disciples. And it may be that this proximity in the gospel account is why this association arose. but there's really no justification for it at all. In fact, it's just the opposite. That Luke, the careful historian that he was, would give this involved account of this woman in chapter seven without ever naming her, and then give her name in chapter eight in a much more passing reference, just doesn't make sense. And Luke concludes chapter seven with Jesus telling the woman to go in peace, and then for Luke to have her traveling with Jesus at the beginning of chapter eight. Well, it's not impossible, but Luke is a careful writer, and it just doesn't feel like that's what he's relaying to us. Again, there's no reason to equate these two women, and there's plenty of reason not to. The other woman who's often conflated with Mary Magdalene is the adulterous woman in John chapter 8. This is the woman that the Pharisees brought before Jesus in order to test Him. This is the one where Jesus said, let him who is without sin cast the first stone. The only reason that I can see that anyone has ever associated this woman with Mary Magdalene is that they already had the mistaken notion that she was a prostitute. And then they find a woman here who may have been a prostitute. But there really is no connection. So that's the misconception about who Mary was before she came to Christ. So what's the truth? Now, we don't know a lot about Mary, but we do know a couple of things, although even there, we don't have a lot of detail. The little that we do know comes from the beginning of Luke chapter eight. In verse 1, Luke told us that the 12 were with Jesus as Jesus traveled. And in verse 2, Luke writes, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chusa, and Herod, or that is Herod's household manager, and Susanna, and many others who provided for them out of their means. So there's two things here that we can discern about Mary's past. I'm gonna take the simpler one first. It says that these women, and Mary Magdalene headed the list, it says that they provided for Jesus and his disciples out of their means. Now, we'll talk more about what that might have looked like when we come to Mary after she came to Christ, but what I wanna take from this here is that she had some means. That certainly doesn't mean she was rich, and based on everything else that we read about Jesus' life and the way that he lived, I think it's safe to say that she wasn't rich. but she had enough to make a meaningful contribution to the care of at least 13 men and many women. Joanna may have been able to provide more than Mary based on her husband's position, but Mary contributed as well. And what I take from that, and the reason that I think it's worth pointing out, is that at least financially, she likely would have been just fine. Not rich, but comfortable, whatever the source of her means may have been. She may have been some better off than some, but all in all, materially, there was nothing extraordinary about her, good or bad. The other thing that we see about Mary before she knew Christ in these verses is a lot more striking. And that is that she had been in bondage to seven demons. And it's pretty obvious, although it doesn't say so explicitly here, that Jesus had delivered her from them. And then she had come to follow Jesus. Now, when most of us read about someone with seven demons, I expect we probably envision something out of the movie The Exorcist. Now, I never saw the movie, but sometime over the last 50 years, I encountered some of what I assume must be the most extreme scenes in that. And that's become the public conception of what demon possession looks like. Either that or we imagine something like the demoniac described in Luke's Gospel, who had a legion of demons who couldn't be controlled until Jesus cast out the demons. But most of the time, in the accounts of demonization in Scripture, the demons don't manifest in such dramatic ways. More often, you see them causing various afflictions. Blindness, deafness, muteness, seizures, and general infirmity. Not that every instance of those afflictions was evidence of a demon, but there are clearly times in scripture where there is a demon present, and that is what happens. But demons don't even always manifest in that way. in Luke chapter four. This is early in Jesus' ministry. He went to Capernaum. It's the first time that he's recorded going to Capernaum. And he went to the synagogue there, and he was teaching on the Sabbath. And in verse 33, it says, and in the synagogue, there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon. Now, the most natural way to read this, I think, is not that there was this man who everybody knew had a demon, who was manifesting in outward signs. In all likelihood, based on outward appearances, this was a seemingly respectable man who came to the synagogue every Sabbath, just like everyone else, who went through all the motions of worship, who listened to the teaching, and then went home without any incident whatsoever. But the man was in bondage to a spirit. He was certainly tormented by it, whether anyone knew it or not, whether he even knew that it was a demon. It would have tormented him with sin, with cravings, with depression, and in other spiritual and mental and emotional ways. Not that every sin or every depression is always the result of a demon. But where there is a demon, it is going to promote sin. And if you have a demon, there is going to be some form of depression and torment. And this demon was apparently content to allow the man to go through the motions of religion, even as the demon continued to afflict him, until that demon was confronted with the living incarnate Son of God. And then he cried out in a loud voice, What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked him, saying, be silent and come out of him. And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. I strongly suspect that Mary's pre-Christ experience with her demons was far closer to this than it was to the more extreme manifestations that we see elsewhere. She experienced some or all of depression, anxiety, bitterness, addiction, self-loathing, shame, fear, confusion. but she likely suffered silently with no grandiose external demonstrations. Mary was an ordinary woman, outwardly respectable, inwardly tormented, and she could find no escape. until she met the living Christ. That's who she was. But that's not who she remained. Jesus found her, and He delivered her. Too often, people who don't really understand Jesus, they argue for a Jesus who accepts you as you are, and then leaves you as you are. But Jesus didn't leave Mary as she was. And it wasn't just that he cast out these seven demons. Jesus transformed Mary as he transforms everyone who he saves through faith in him. So here is Mary after she met Jesus. First, let's address a few misconceptions. Now, I'm not gonna spend a lot of time here, but I will briefly point out a few. During the Middle Ages, a lot of extra-biblical mythology grew up around Mary Magdalene. Apocryphal books were written about her, and one even claiming to be a gospel by her. There were Gnostic teachings that presented her as having a secret wisdom that was the key to understanding the true meaning of Jesus' teaching, but that Peter and the other apostles pushed her aside in order to promote themselves and their inferior interpretations of Jesus. There was also a blasphemous myth that Jesus and Mary were secretly married and even had children. You may remember in 2003, Dan Brown published a novel called The Da Vinci Code. And in that novel, he revived some of this mythology into a story of conspiracy, presented these discredited myths in a way that appealed to the fancy of a broader audience. But if you want to know the real Mary, you need to look to the Bible, to the revealed Word of God. Now again, we're not told a lot, but she is mentioned in each of the four Gospels. And we are told everything that God chose for us to know. And so we turn our attention to the truth of who Mary was after she met Jesus. Mary was faithful. Steadfast. Committed. She didn't have the leadership ability of Peter. That big personality that people gravitated toward. She wasn't like the gregarious John. One of the sons of thunder, but with a heart to match. She wasn't Paul. always the smartest guy in the room. Now, I don't mean to be critical about any of them. They were who they were in their redeemed state. And they used their gifts along with their natural abilities to serve God. Sometimes they seemed bigger than life. But Mary was just faithful Mary. She wasn't like some of the prominent women either. Mary, the mother of Jesus. She was feisty. Read how she interacts with Jesus at the wedding in Canaan in John chapter 2. Or women that we read about in places like Luke 7. The woman who spilled expensive perfume likely representing her entire life saving over Jesus' feet and then wiped it up with her hair. That was a grand gesture if you ever saw one. and Jesus defended her for it. But that's not Mary. She's just faithful Mary, content to work behind the scenes. We saw earlier that she traveled with Jesus. And she, along with a few other women, provided for Jesus and his disciples. And they did so out of their own means. There were times that we see in the Gospels when Jesus was invited to stay and to eat along with his disciples at someone's home. But that wasn't all the time. Much of the time, Mary and these other women bought the food and they prepared it, not in homes, but on the road, wherever they happened to be. And they paid for it themselves. They had their means. Whatever money they had, it was at their discretion. That is, they weren't compelled to spend their money on this, but they chose to use what they had in this way to serve their Lord. And it wouldn't have just been food. Someone had to do the laundry. Someone had to mend the clothes. And whatever other needs presented themselves. And Mary and these other women were there to meet those needs. In some ways. I think Mary Magdalene is a lot like Martha of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus and another Mary. I think she's a lot like Martha, but without the complaining. Martha also worked behind the scenes, doing whatever needed to be done. The difference, though, was that Martha became troubled and anxious. She was upset that she was being taken advantage of by her sister, who wasn't helping, and she complained to Jesus about it. But we never hear anything like that. about Mary Magdalene. She never kept score. She never worried about who else was working. Never sought recognition or reward. Never complained. Not that we're told about. She just served in any way that she could. Faithful Mary. And it wasn't just that kind of service that Mary was faithful in. at the cross. Mary was there with Jesus' mother. When they took Jesus' body down, Mary followed so that she would know where he was buried. And then, in Mark 16, we have Mark's account of what we read from John at the beginning of the message. When the Sabbath was passed, Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices so that they might go and anoint Him. There was no reason for them, or at least they didn't embrace any reasons, to think that they were ever going to get any attention from this, that they were ever going to get any thanks or any praise. Jesus was dead. His ministry was over as far as they knew, but Mary was going to be faithful to the end and beyond the end. So she and these other women bought spices, again, from their own means, and they went to the tomb to finish what Joseph and Nicodemus had started. They were going to anoint His body properly. And notice, as the text continues, that they didn't allow themselves to be discouraged by not knowing who was going to roll away the stone. It says, and very early on, the first day of the week when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb? They couldn't do it. They knew that. That was a job for someone else. But that concern was not going to stop them from being there prepared to do what they could do for the Lord. Faithful Mary. Always faithful. This is the one Jesus appeared to first. There were so many big personalities that surrounded Jesus' ministry. Mary wasn't a reformed prostitute. She wasn't a bigger-than-life fisherman. She didn't command the room every time she appeared. That's not to say Jesus hadn't done a tremendous work in her life. He'd cast out seven demons. He'd transformed her life. And now he had paid the penalty for her sin. She had been deeply troubled. There's no doubt about that. But it wasn't the visible kind of troubled that scandalized a community. And sometimes that's harder. Silently suffering, deep in bondage, while no one seems to notice. Well, Jesus noticed. Jesus saw her pain. He recognized her affliction. He understood her suffering. And he rescued her from it. That is the difference between the Jesus of the Bible, the true Jesus, and the Jesus they promote in advertisements they play during the Super Bowl. Yes, he gets you, he understands you, but that doesn't mean he accepts you as you are and leaves you as you are. He calls you to something different, just as he called Mary to something different. but it's never just a call. He calls you and then he transforms you. Mary had been outwardly ordinary, inwardly tormented, and Jesus redeemed her. And that is who he chose to appear to first after he rose from the dead. Why not Peter? Why not John? They were the leaders among the apostles and they were going to become the leaders in the early church. And they were standing in the tomb moments before Jesus appeared to Mary. It wasn't a question of who was available, of who was there. Why not some well-known sinner? A tax collector or a prostitute who'd had a very public and striking transformation. Why not Lazarus, who Jesus brought back to life after he'd been dead for four days? Lazarus, the object of what might have been Jesus' most astonishing miracle before his own resurrection. Why not Jesus' own mother? So many more prominent and obvious choices, but Jesus chose Mary. because God chooses what is foolish to shame the wise. He chooses what is weak to shame the strong. He chooses what is low and despised, even the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are. He takes them and he makes them faithful servants And He uses them in the most miraculous and mysterious ways for His own glory. That is the message I want to leave you with this morning. Most of us are more like Mary than we are like Peter or John or Paul. We're ordinary. We struggle, maybe severely. but quietly, and maybe we still do, but we are the beneficiaries of his sacrifice. He died to pay the penalty for our sins and to redeem us from whatever bondage we experience. Not that he didn't die for extraordinary people too, but when he rose from the dead, he appeared first to one of us. So whoever you are, in whatever your struggles, submit to His transforming work. Let Him redeem your life. Let Him transform you. Let Him make you faithful. And if you do, you may not be the first to see the resurrected Christ, but you surely will see Him and experience the joy and blessing of knowing Him for all eternity. Let's pray.