When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. – Mark 16:1
The message of the Christian gospel centers on the person of Jesus Christ, and the Christian belief that Jesus was executed on a cross but came back to life, thus proving His power over death and hell. However, many people categorize the Bible stories and the miracles they record as the stuff of legend and fairytale, along the lines of Zeus, Paul Bunyan, or the Stork that brings the babies. However, there is much historical evidence to prove the veracity of many Bible accounts. Take for example the role of some devoted women on that first Good Friday who had been followers of Jesus. In contrast to the other disciples who had all scrambled, Luke 23:55 reads: “The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it.” Recounting that first Easter Sunday, Luke 24:1-3 tells us: “very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.” Verse 9 continues: “When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven [disciples] and to all the others.” In other words, while the male disciples were all hiding like a bunch of scared rabbits, it was the women who had marched to the grave, found it empty, realized Jesus had been resurrected, and then went back to tell everyone else. This may seem offensive to the modern reader, but in the first century Middle Eastern culture, a woman’s testimony was essentially considered unreliable and worthless, especially when compared to that of a man. So, if the resurrection story were a hoax, the fabricators would have written that men were first to the empty grave. So, the fact that the Bible records a group of women as being the first on the scene and the first to spread the news is an indirect confirmation of its truthfulness. You can trust the Bible, and you can trust God. Put your trust in Him today!
S.G.D.