So Mary Magdalene started off and found Peter and John. Now while she was doing that, it began to get a little brighter in the garden, and the women who remained made their way closer to the tomb. They looked in, and there they saw the angels who appeared to them and announced the resurrection. They said, “He's not here. Come, see where the Lord lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he's risen from the dead.” And having received that instruction, the remaining women hurried off to find the disciples.

Now the reason I have gone into the study of this man at length is to say that we mustn't dismiss him as something that has no bearing upon ourselves. Quite often, if you know your own heart, you know that you operate in a similar way. Now, of course, it is not in as great a matter as this, because you don't have Jesus Christ brought before you for trial. But you are confronted every day in one way or another with various moral issues, where you ought to stand as a Christian against what is obviously wrong. I would be very surprised if in all of those instances you have stood firm. I know I haven't. We back off. When the Gospel is challenged, we don't want to offend people, or we don’t want to do something that might put us in an uncomfortable position.

Pilate went back inside the palace. He summoned Jesus and asked, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Now, Jesus says to him, “Is that your own idea or did others talk to you about me?" Now that might sound evasive, but it's not, because what Jesus is really saying to Pilate is this: Are you asking that on your own, and therefore, as a Roman, so we have to define this matter of kingship in Roman terms? Or are you asking it on the basis of charges the Jews made, so that I'm supposed to answer it in Jewish terms? It's quite a different thing, because if he is accused of being a king by Roman terms, he could say, “No I'm not. I'm not here to challenge Caesar.” But if he's talking about it in Jewish terms, then yes he is—he's the Messiah.

In John 18 and 19, Jesus is on trial before Pilate, who is the governor in Jerusalem whom the occupying Romans had put in power. In the context of this trial we get an insightful description of this man Pilate. It is perhaps noteworthy to have him in this series of people whom Jesus encountered. For one thing, he's a Gentile, and more than that, he is a representative of Rome. Another thing that's striking about this encounter is the amount of space that's given over to him. You find it in the other Gospels, but John records more of the conversation between Pilate and Jesus. He's introduced in John 18:28, where the Sanhedrin, the assembly of Jewish leaders, takes Jesus to the Roman governor for the Roman part of the trial.

Now here's the third thing. I have talked about Mary's extravagance, as well as her love. The third thing is her understanding. She was great at all three of these. Again, you have to see this by a contrast. Jesus said in verse 7, “Leave her alone; it was meant that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial.” Mary knew what she was doing. Nard was used in funeral arrangements, and when she poured this out on Jesus it was a way of saying, “I know that you're going to die. I know that's what you came for.”