FBC Daily Devotional – March 29, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Monday to you on this Monday of what we call Passion Week, leading up to Maundy Thursday, Thursday evening, and then

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Friday, Good Friday, the day of our Lord's crucifixion. And then all of this, of course, leading up to next

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Lord's Day, Resurrection Sunday. So this is a blessed week, and I hope it'll be a blessing to you as you reflect through the week on our

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Savior's death, and his burial, and his resurrection. It's only fitting that we should be in Matthew's Gospel and at the end of it, and our reading today actually brings us to the the death of Jesus and to his burial.

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What I want to emphasize, and I want to zero in on Matthew 27 verse 56.

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It talks about three of these women who Matthew tells us were his followers, his disciples, and verse 55 says that many women followed

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Jesus from Galilee, and they were ministering to him, and they were there at the cross looking from afar, looking at a distance.

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And then Matthew identifies three of these women, Mary Magdalene, and then

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Mary, the mother of James and Joseph, and then the mother of Zebedee's children, the mother of Zebedee's...

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the mother of Zebedee's children would have been Salome, Mark tells us, and her children were

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James and John. So what I want us to think about for a moment was the impact of this event on these three women.

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Now, we don't know a great deal about any of them, but we do have some indications in the

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Scriptures that gives us some insight about them. Mary Magdalene, of course, was an unmarried woman, but she was a woman out of whom

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Jesus saved, and out of whom he cast demons, and he saved her from that demonism.

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All right, now think about this. Here's this woman whom Jesus saved from demonism, who is now watching as her

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Savior dies before her very eyes. The third woman is the mother of Zebedee's children.

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Again, we don't know a lot about her. The Gospel Writers tells us that her name was

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Salome, but what's significant about her is the other place where she shows up in Scripture.

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Back in chapter 20, Matthew tells us that the mother of Zebedee's children came to Jesus and made a certain request of him, and the request was that he give to her sons the authority to sit on the right hand and left hand of his throne when he comes into his kingdom.

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So, I'm not going to say anything about her request at this point, other than to note that she recognized his authority.

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She recognizes that Jesus is to be the King, and yet here she is, standing at the cross, watching as this one whom she was confident and had the conviction in her heart that he was to be the

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King of Israel, and would sit on his throne. And yet there he is, hanging on this cross, and his life is now ebbed away.

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His life is gone. He has died. The second woman, the one who we're told is the mother of James and Joseph, we don't know much about her, and the only thing we know about her sons is that James is one of the disciples who would be called

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James the Less, and probably because to distinguish him from James, it's

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James the son of Zebedee, you know, James and John, who was one of the first disciples called by Jesus.

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So, that's about all we know of this woman, a woman who is relatively obscure, and yet her love and devotion is so great that here she is at the cross, watching as Jesus' life ebbs away, and he finally gives up the spirit.

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Now, what's also significant about these three women is that two of the three don't just go home after this event is over.

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You continue reading, and in verse 61, we're told that Mary Magdalene was there at the sepulcher where Jesus was buried, where Joseph of Arimathea took the body of Jesus and buried him in his tomb, and verse 61 tells us that Mary Magdalene was there, and the other

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Mary, that would have been Mary, the mother of James and Joseph, and they were there, and it just says they were sitting opposite the tomb.

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They just came, followed the beer, followed Joseph as he takes

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Jesus to his tomb, and just observe, just sit and watch, and wait.

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They do, of course, finally go home, and they have to go home for the Sabbath, and they come back, though.

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These same two women, verse 1 of chapter 28, tells us these same two women come back to the the tomb on Sunday morning.

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It says that after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other

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Mary came to see the tomb. I think, if nothing else, this speaks of the intense devotion and appreciation that these women had for the

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Lord Jesus, and I think it's remarkable that of all of his disciples, and he had these twelve that he handpicked to be with him and to serve him, one of them ended up being a traitor, all of them fled and left, a traitor was there, of course, and Jesus entrusted the care of his mother to John.

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But, beyond that, they're not the ones who follow the corpse to the grave, that hold vigil there at the grave.

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They're not the ones that come to the grave the first thing on Easter Sunday morning. No, it's these women.

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Now, I found an interesting comment about these three women in John MacArthur's commentary on Matthew, and he points out that these three women,

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Mary Magdalene was unmarried, and then the second

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Mary, all we're told of her, we don't know who her husband is, we're not told in Matthew's Gospel who her husband is, but we're told her sons, so she's a mother of two sons, and then the third woman is the mother of Zebedee's children, so she's, what's emphasized there, is that she's the wife of Zebedee and her two sons, and she's a mother as well.

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And MacArthur's point is that what seems to be evident, let me just point this out, he says the what seems to be evident here is that God has a marvelous and blessed role for women who are, who he has gifted with singleness, for women who are faithful mothers, and for women who are faithful wives.

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There is a divine dignity that our Lord gives to womanhood, and what a strong testimony when you think of Matthew's Gospel, about how at the beginning of his

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Gospel, and he's giving the genealogy of Jesus, he highlights some women of distinction in Jesus's genealogy, and I'm speaking there of Rahab and Tamar and Bathsheba, leading down to Mary, the virgin mother.

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And then at the end of the book, in Matthew's last chapter 2, Matthew 27 and 8, he also reemphasizes the role of these women, and so our

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God has a and wants to emphasize the dignity of womanhood, and that stands in stark contrast to the religions of the first century, where women were counted as nothing but second -class citizens in chattel and so forth.

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You know, truly godly men, godly people will respect woman and womanhood, whether single, married, mothers, they'll be respected.

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So, I take a great blessing from these women who express their love and devotion and faithfulness to our

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Lord, even in his death. Let's give thanks for their testimony.

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We do thank you, our Father, for the testimony of these women as brought out in Matthew's Gospel, and I pray that we would also have a great deal of appreciation and respect for godly women who show love and appreciation and faithfulness and loyalty to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Bless these thoughts to our hearts today, we pray, and we ask it in Jesus' name.

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Amen. All right. Well, you have a good rest of your Monday, and I hope this