<p>27:56 <em>Among whom were Mary Magdalene</em>- Mary Magdalene was perhaps named after the town of Magdala. But named Magdalene may mean the Lord gave her that Name just as He gave names to His other disciples. The name derives from the Hebrew&nbsp;<em>migdol</em>, &lsquo;tower&rsquo;.&nbsp; So the repeated description of her as the Magdalene could be implying: Mary the tower- Magdalene. Just as the shaky Simon was described as &lsquo;the rock&rsquo;, Simon-the-rock, so the shady Mary was surnamed &lsquo;Mary-the-tower&rsquo;. It was common for Jewish rabbis to give their followers names, and it seems the Lord did this too- but the names He gave reflected the potential which He saw in His men and women. And the name He gives us likewise is a reflection of the potential we can live up to. Mary Magdalene is the most frequently named person in the passion narratives. Clearly the Gospel writers, under inspiration, perceived her as the central figure amongst those who were witnesses of it all. In doing so they turned on its head the prevailing idea that the witness of a woman was worthless. They saw her as the main witness. The Gospel writers clearly see Mary Magdalene as of prime importance amongst the women who followed the Lord. Luke twice places her first in his lists of the ministering women (Lk. 8:2; 24:10). Matthew likewise focuses on how she was at Calvary, at the burial and at the empty tomb (Mt. 27:56, 61; 28:1,9). She clearly captured the attention of the gospel writers.</p><p><em>And Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee</em>- The Torah required &quot;two or three witnesses&quot; (Dt. 19:15); yet Roman law disallowed women as witnesses. Significantly, the Torah didn't. The fact it doesn't, and therefore accepted women as witnesses, was actually quite a radical thing. The records of the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus are carefully framed to show that there were always two or three witnesses present- and they are all <em>women</em>:</p><table border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0>    <tbody>        <tr>            <td>            <p>&nbsp;</p>            </td>            <td>            <p><strong>Cross</strong></p>            </td>            <td>            <p><strong>Burial</strong></p>            </td>            <td>            <p><strong>Resurrection</strong></p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td>            <p><strong>Matthew</strong></p>            </td>            <td>            <p>Mary Magdalene,   Mary mother of James and Joseph, Mother of the sons of Zebedee</p>            </td>            <td>            <p>Mary Magdalene,   &quot;the other Mary&quot;</p>            </td>            <td>            <p>Mary Magdalene,   &quot;the other Mary&quot;</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td>            <p><strong>Mark</strong></p>            </td>            <td>            <p>Mary Magdalene,   Mary mother of James and Joses, Salome</p>            </td>            <td>            <p>Mary Magdalene,   Mary mother of Joses</p>            </td>            <td>            <p>Mary Magdalene,   Mary mother of James, Salome</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td>            <p><strong>Luke</strong></p>            </td>            <td>            <p>&nbsp;</p>            </td>            <td>            <p>&nbsp;</p>            </td>            <td>            <p>Mary Magdalene,   Joanna, Mary mother of James</p>            </td>        </tr>    </tbody></table><p>The emphasis is surely deliberate- women, the ones who were <em>not</em> witnesses according to the world, were the very witnesses chosen by God to testify the key truths concerning His Son. And His same approach is seen today in His choices of and amongst us.</p><p>Jn. 19:25 speaks of &ldquo;His mother&rsquo;s sister&rdquo;. It is entirely possible that the sister of Jesus&rsquo; mother mentioned in the account of the crucifixion is to be identified with the woman named Salome mentioned in Mark 15:40 and also with the woman identified as &ldquo;the mother of the sons of Zebedee&rdquo; mentioned in Mt 27:56. If so, and if John the Apostle is to be identified as the beloved disciple, then the reason for the omission of the second woman&rsquo;s name becomes clear; she would have been John&rsquo;s own mother, and he consistently omitted direct reference to himself or his brother James or any other members of his family in the fourth Gospel. Therefore &quot;behold your mother&quot; meant he was to reject his mother and take Mary as his mother, to alleviate the extent of her loss. Finally Mary came to see Jesus as Jesus, as the Son of God, and not just as her son. This was her conversion- to see Him for who He was, uncluttered by her own perceptions of Him, by the baggage of everything else. And so it can be with us in re-conversion. We each must face the reality of who Jesus really is, quite apart from all the baggage of how we were brought up to think of Him: the Sunday School Jesus, the Jesus of the apostate church, the Jesus we have come to imagine from our own human perceptions&hellip;must give way when we are finally confronted with who He really is. This line of thought is born out by a consideration of Mk. 15:40,41: &ldquo;There were also women beholding from afar: among whom were both Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the little and of Joses, and Salome; who, when he was in Galilee, followed him and ministered unto him: and many other women which came up with him unto Jerusalem&rdquo;. Jesus had two brothers named James and Joses (Mt. 13:55). If the principle of interpreting Scripture by Scripture means anything, then we can fairly safely assume that the Mary referred to here is Mary the mother of Jesus. It was perhaps due to the influence and experience of the cross that His brother James called himself &ldquo;the little&rdquo;, just as Saul changed his name to Paul, &lsquo;the little one&rsquo;, from likewise reflecting on the height of the Lord&rsquo;s victory. So within the crowd of women, there were two women somehow separate from the rest- &ldquo;among whom were both Mary Magdalene, and Mary&rdquo;. Mary Magdalene was the bashful ex-hooker who was almost inevitably in love with Jesus. The other Mary was His mother. Understandably they forged a special bond with each other. Only Mary Magdalene had fully perceived the Lord&rsquo;s upcoming death, hence her anointing of His body beforehand. And only His Mother had a perception approaching that of the Magdalene. It&rsquo;s not surprising that the two of them were somehow separate from the other women. These women are described as following Him when He was in Galilee; and the mother of Jesus is specifically recorded as having done this, turning up at the Cana wedding uninvited, and then coming to the house where Jesus was preaching.&nbsp; The description of the women as &lsquo;coming up&rsquo; (the idiom implies &lsquo;to keep a feast&rsquo;) with Him unto Jerusalem takes the mind back to Mary bringing Jesus up to Jerusalem at age 12. But my point is, that Mary is called now &ldquo;the mother of James&hellip;and of Joses&rdquo;. The same woman appears in Mk. 16:1: &ldquo;Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James&hellip;had bought sweet spices that they might come and anoint him&rdquo;. Earlier in the Gospels, Mary is always &ldquo;the mother of Jesus&rdquo;. Now she is described as the mother of her other children. It seems to me that this is the equivalent of John recording how Mary was told by Jesus at the cross that she was no longer the mother of Jesus, He was no longer her son. The other writers reflect this by calling her at that time &ldquo;Mary the mother of James&rdquo; rather than the mother of Jesus. The way that Jesus appears first to Mary Magdalene rather than to His mother (Mk. 16:9) is surely God&rsquo;s confirmation of this break between Jesus and His earthly mother.&nbsp;</p>