Have you ever pulled on a thread and before you know it the whole thing is unravelling. 

Or did you just simply cut the thread expecting everything to stay the same? As I’ve been reading through the stories of Jesus’ encounters with different women in the 4 Gospels it feels like I’ve pulled on a thread that I had never fully noticed. It just keeps unravelling but so beautifully it takes my breath away.

His heart, His love, how He sees women, how He releases them, gives them a new identity and sends them out fully empowered, just made my heart melt with love.

This is not the story I have been told before and I have to ask, why not? 

You see as a young woman in a particular part of the church they painted one picture,   ‘Women can’t’, women shouldn’t, yet as I read this gospel all I can say is women already did!

It never really ‘felt’ right to me, it didn’t line up with the God I knew, but of course, we can’t decide what God thinks based on our feelings, on an idea we have about what God is like, it needs to be rooted deeply in Scripture which is alive and active, remembering we only see through a glass darkly. So be gracious and humble, Godly men and women do not always reach the same conclusion as they sit in God’s word, 

The Bible is written in a different time, different culture and different language with a bias that we’re often not even aware of. Reading about Jesus in a Greco-Roman world, how can we possibly discern fully the nuances and meanings of the original text? 

Filter everything through the lens of love, compassion, understanding, grace, mercy and forgiveness

1 Corinthians 13:12

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

And so as I pulled this thread a completely different story began to be told, one each of us needs to hear.

Let me walk you through the gospels and the thread of life that has unravelled me.

Matthew’s genealogy, so easy to skip over because it’s just a list of names and yet in the middle of it we find that Matthew has inserted five women, so unusual that we must take notice. 

Tamar the mother of Perez

Rahab mother of Boaz

Ruth the Moabite refugee and great-grandmother of David

Bathsheba mother of King Solomon

Mary the Mother of Jesus

If we attached labels to them today, which our culture loves to do, perhaps we could say

Tamar the seductress

Rahab the foreigner and prostitute

Ruth the Moabite refugee

Bathsheba the adultress or the victim of rape?

Mary the single Mum

I don’t think God sees what we see.

Matthew was shouting from the rooftops. There are women in the story.

Mary and Elizabeth

There they are at the beginning of the New Testament, a young oppressed poor teenager and an older excluded women who had given up hope of ever being a mother. Yet, it is their voices that speak into the beginning of Jesus’ life, the man has no voice as God simply silences Zechariah. 

Instead, we see the wonderful surrender of Mary and hear the declaration of Elizabeth, who recognizes Jesus still in the womb. Are these two women the first people to be filled with the Holy Spirit in the New Testament?

Mary’s song, reaching back into the Scripture of old and pointing forward to a new future, the Kingdom of God is ushered in as foretold by the Prophets as declared by Mary as it begins to unfold.

THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY

I love all the Marys

Mary and Wine

Mary had watched her son grow. She continued to ponder the things of the beginning in her heart when the Angel Gabriel had spoken to her. She saw in Jesus something she couldn’t understand but discerned in a way that allowed her to see beyond the natural. 

So at the wedding when she saw the wine run dry she knew where to go. She had never seen a miracle but she knew, she knew that there was something in Jesus so beyond her comprehension that He was the place of abundance when there was a lack. 

What did Jesus see?  He saw his beloved mother and he loved her even more as she came to Him in her need. He called her Woman and we will see this again and again as He leans into the women He encounters and gives them value. He is directly addressing her and confirming who she is in her own right. This is not reproof, it is respect, love and a new identity.

Even though it wasn’t His time, He turned the water into wine, Mary was the first to see it in Him, the first to call it out of Him and the one to witness the first miracle.

Mary and Martha

The more I sit in this story the more I see. Why was Martha so distressed. She was someone who opened her home, she was used to feeding many, and she knew how to organise her kitchen, Martha had a servant’s heart. Yet she became distracted, not because Mary wasn’t helping but because Mary she sat at the feet of Jesus, the seat of learning, a disciple’s place which was normally reserved for men. 

Martha was afraid for Mary, for the whole family.

What did Jesus see? He saw a female disciple choosing to learn from her Rabbi and His heart sang, He didn’t see a woman stepping on the toes of men, usurping authority, positioning herself wrongly, He saw a daughter He wanted to teach and then send out as His disciple.

Mary Magdalene

I cannot imagine how Mary Magdalene must have felt as she approached the tomb that Sunday morning but she wanted to simply be with Jesus even if He was dead. To be near Him, to be in His presence. 

Suddenly she sees the stone is rolled away and He isn’t there, heartbroken all over again she meets the gardener who calls her ‘Woman’ and asks her why she is crying, another instance when Jesus uses the address, ‘Woman’ , another time he speaks directly giving value and identity but it is only when he speaks her name that she recognises his voice and is undone.

He sees her. He calls her by name and he sends her fully empowered to be the first person to announce the resurrection, a woman whose voice and testimony meant nothing in those days and what she said could not even be submitted as evidence in court. Jesus released her into a fresh calling.

NOT JUST FOR JEWS

Samaritan Woman

She comes to the well alone, no one else wanted to associate with her. She had no standing in town, no voice, an outcast judged harshly and unfairly. No one would have listened to her voice, no one would even have paid attention 

We make assumptions that she was promiscuous but maybe her husbands had each died or perhaps divorced her because she couldn’t have children, we just don’t know. 

What do we do know is that Jesus saw her and he loved her and wanted her to realise she was seen. 

He revealed He was the Messiah, a conversation He had with his disciples later on when Peter recognised who He was. He talked about living water, about how to worship, He didn’t treat her like she was second class or that she had no capacity to understand. He taught her, he sent her and he filled her with his Spirit because how else can we explain that people who had seen her as worthless now listened to her voice.

The first evangelist was not a Jewish man. 

Canaanite woman

This woman was desperate for Jesus to heal her daughter, yet on first reading it seems He was reluctant because she was not one of the lost sheep of Israel.

Of course we know that Jesus’ Message of salvation is for everyone, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female. So here we have yet another example of a woman who has great faith and is seen by Jesus. He was not put off by her annoying persistence like the disciples were nor her feisty answer ‘even the dogs eat crumbs that fall from the master table’ 

And so this Canaanite woman sees her daughter healed by a loving Saviour who listened to her voice and saw her great faith.

TWO DISCARDED WOMEN.

The woman with the issue of blood,

Isn’t it interesting that in the Bible this is her identity? She is known by the label ‘issue of blood’

Isolated, rejected, not allowed in the synagogue, not allowed to be hugged, not allowed to be near anyone.  All her money has gone and she has no hope until she hears of Jesus. 

Desperate, she risks everything and crawls along the ground just managing to touch the hem of Jesus cloak.

Immediately, Jesus knows and He turns to see who it is.  Of course He already knows who it is, He sees her so why does He ask? I believe Jesus calls to her and gives her a voice so that everyone else can see her. Everyone else can realise she has a voice, her words matter, her identity is so much more than the issue of blood. 

He is declaring the value of a woman that everyone else has left for dead in the gutter, has forgotten about.

She is not ‘less than’ in Jesus eyes.

The woman caught in adultery.

Here we have a woman already judged by the Jewish leaders, a pawn in their hands, underhand motives, seeking to destroy her and Jesus.

As she lies in the dust, likely naked and exposed, waiting to die, Jesus shifts the atmosphere, those examining her life are now having to look deep within their own hearts, as they do, they walk away one by one, the older ones first because they knew. What did they know? Any of us can find ourselves down an avenue we never envisioned walking down.

Jesus, yet again, calls her ‘Woman’, declaring I see you, despite your life choices I value you, I transform you and send you out in freedom. No condemnation, instead renewal and a life changing love.

There are no labels with Jesus, He simply sees each person, man or woman, and gazes upon them with love ❤️ He sees the image of God within, not the outward appearance so quickly judged by us. 

The story cannot be told without women.

The Incarnation

The first miracle

The first evangelist 

The first female disciple

The first announcement of the Resurrection 

Of course it is man and woman together that glorify God so this is not saying women can and men can’t but Jesus didn’t need to shout from the rooftops that men can, they did already. Yet over and over again He chose to shout from the rooftops that women can too, in fact it is together that we bring God most glory, just like the picture in Genesis 1&2.

Everything Jesus did was intentional. Do you think using these women was just an accident? I don’t think so. I think He is making a statement, pulling that thread is only the beginning for me and where it might lead I do not know, but following Him is my heart’s desire so I will keep on pulling the thread and watch as He choreographs so beautifully.