<p>19:25 <em>These things the soldiers did. There was standing by the cross of Jesus his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene</em>-</p><p>The Torah required &quot;two or three witnesses&quot; (Dt. 19:15); yet Roman law disallowed women as witnesses. Significantly, the Torah didn't, although later Jewish law did. 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>                        </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>                        </td>            <td>                        </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>It is entirely possible that the sister of Jesus&rsquo; mother mentioned in the account of the crucifixion (&quot;His mother&rsquo;s sister&quot;) 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 <em>his</em> 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><p>The whole structure of the records of the crucifixion are to emphasize how the cross is essentially about human response to it; nothing else elicits from humanity a response like the cross does. Mark&rsquo;s account, for example, has 5 component parts. The third part, the centrepiece as it were, is the account of the actual death of the Lord; but it is surrounded by cameos of human response to it (consider Mk. 15:22-27; 28-32; the actual death of Jesus, 15:33-37; then 15:38-41; 15:42-47). John&rsquo;s record shows a similar pattern, based around 7 component parts: 19:16-18; 19-22; 23,24; then the centrepiece of 25-27; followed by 19:28-30; 31-37; 38-42. But for John the centrepiece is Jesus addressing His mother, and giving her over to John&rsquo;s charge. This for John was the quintessence of it all; that a man should leave His mother, that Mary loved Jesus to the end&hellip; and that he, John, was honoured to have been there and seen it all. John began his gospel by saying that the word was manifest and flesh and he saw it- and I take this as a reference to the Lord&rsquo;s death. Through this, a new family of men and women would be created (Jn. 1:12). See on Lk. 23:48.</p>