This year, the Church of England’s theme for Easter has been living hope. And if you have followed the official social media pages, you might have seen all sorts of interviews with younger Christians explaining where they are finding hope in the world today. It’s quite a powerful concept, after all, without hope how could we stand against all the darkness in our world today?

So today, I’d like to focus on where we mind find some living hope today.

The Gospel reading from John is a very special one. John gives us a lot of very significant information about the role of Mary Magdalene.

We see Mary as the first person to see the great stone has been moved away from the tomb. She reports this to the other disciples and she; Simon Peter and the beloved disciple go to have a look. Yet, whilst the men depart, Mary stays. She weeps, she encounters two angels and then she encounters the risen Christ.John tells us that of all people, it is Mary to whom the risen Christ speaks first.It is an incredible moment. All the more so when we think about the position of women in Biblical times. The position that Mary would’ve been in and which shaped how she was understood by those around her.

Life for women in Biblical times was not easy.

If you were a woman living at this time, you would have very limited contact with men outside of your family. Your honour would be defined by how you behaved towards the most senior male relative you had – your father, husband, brother an uncle or a cousin.

You would not be regarded as a full adult until married, a union that you would have very little say in arranging. Indeed, reaching a certain age without being married would’ve been a source of shame – a situation that may well have haunted Mary. Nor would you have been a full member of your husband’s family until you bore a son. You could not be a witness – anything you claimed could well be dismissed until it was backed up by man.

I’d like to say that our society has completely changed, but we all know that progress is slow. Women today still face tremendous and horrific pressures.There is a disturbing rise in misogynistic influencers like Andrew Tate. We teach our young women more about protecting themselves than we ever teach our young men about not being predators. We still question whether women can be in positions of power or regard successful women as anomalies. We still judge single mothers for some perceived moral failure, rather than praise their strength and resilience, raising children alone.

So, in a sermon where I started by talking about hope why on earth am I launching into some of the grimmest parts of our world?

Quite simply, because this interaction between Jesus and Mary gives us hope. This section of the Gospel is utterly prophetic in its uplifting of women. Despite all the barriers that may prevent anyone from believing a word Mary says – it is to Mary that Jesus first appears. It is Mary who first tells the other disciples the amazing news that Jesus is risen. It is Mary who has, rightly, been described as the apostle to the apostles.

John is articulating something about the Kingdom of God that is to come and he follows on from Jesus’s own recognition of women. Jesus repeatedly shows compassion and love to women, and in doing so he repeatedly elevates them and upends the expectations of society. The woman constantly bleeding, who nobody would’ve touched and who he heals rather than condemns. The woman accused of adultery, who would’ve been stoned to death but whom Jesus saves and doesn’t judge. The woman at the well, judged by others for her relationships but treated with dignity and sent as a messenger by Jesus.

The positions of honour that he gives to the women, who not only surround him, but likely financed his mission and ministry, women like Mary Magdalene.It is this radical action that caused the sociologist Linda Lindsey to write that “Belief in the spiritual equality of genders and Jesus’s inclusion of women in prominent roles, led the early New Testament Church to recognise women’s contributions”.

By the end of our Gospel reading, Mary is no longer in a position of shame as a woman not yet married – but is chosen by Christ as the first person to spread the Good News of Christian hope. Mary is chosen by a God who is upending human prejudice and working to replace our inequality with equality and shame with honour.

That is hope. Hope that somehow, in the image of the risen Christ, we too can reach towards God’s Kingdom.

Amen.

Rev. Iain Grant, Assistant Curate