The number and identity of the women in the resurrection accounts can be difficult to untangle, which is one of the reasons why we provide a glossary in The Final Days of Jesus as a guide. One of the confusing things, for example, is that no less than four of the women share the name Mary: (1) Mary Magdalene; (2) Mary the mother of Jesus; (3) Mary the mother of James and Joses/Joseph; and (4) Mary the wife of Clopas (who may have been the brother of Joseph of Nazareth). In addition, there is Joanna (whose husband, Chuza, was the household manager for Herod Antipas) and Salome (probably the mother of the apostles James and John).
As you preach this Easter, do not bypass the testimony of the women as an incidental detail. In the first century, women were not even eligible to testify in a Jewish court of law. Josephus said that even the witness of multiple women was not acceptable “because of the levity and boldness of their sex.” Celsus, the second-century critic of Christianity, mocked the idea of Mary Magdalene as an alleged resurrection witness, referring to her as a “hysterical female ”¦ deluded by ”¦ sorcery.”
This background matters because it points to two crucial truths. First, it is a theological reminder that the kingdom of the Messiah turns the system of the world on its head. In this culture, Jesus radically affirmed the full dignity of women and the vital value of their witness. Second, it is a powerful apologetic reminder of the historical accuracy of the resurrection accounts. If these were “cleverly devised myths” (2 Pet. 1:16, ESV), women would never have been presented as the first eyewitnesses of the risen Christ.
The crowd which cried “Crucify him!” was almost certainly not the same one which welcomed him into Jerusalem. His enemies had arranged for a quiet assassination. Matthew 26:3-5:
“Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiphas, and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. But they said, ‘Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people.’â€
In the end, they did it during the festival days of Passover, but at night, when the populace was asleep. John mentions that when Judas left the Last Supper, “it was night.†(John 13:30) The arrest was made in the dead of night, and the “trial†was held quickly, followed by denunciation to the Roman authorities. The overwhelming power of the Roman army would stifle any popular objections, so that morning the populace discovered a fait accompli. The execution had not happened yet, but there was nothing anybody could do about it. It seems reasonable that the crowd before Pilate was handpicked by the religious authorities.