“The women” – we know some of their names – though not all of them – Mary Magdelene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James. The others, well, time has softened them to a blur. Their namelessness doesn’t negate the fact that they were there, counted with the named three. We know they were there because they had always been there.
They were there with Jesus as they journey began and walked with him – beside him, behind him – the entire way. They watched as he fed, healed, preached, and transformed hearts and minds in ways no one thought possible. They stood in the crowd as they threw cloaks on the ground as Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, triumphant in his arrival. Mocking Rome, they walked beside him shouting Hosanna with the crowd. They were with him in the upper room resisting the urge to serve him as he flipped society’s norms on its head… He washed THEIR feet, He broke the bread, He poured the wine. They will know you by your love, he said. Serve them as I serve you, love them as I loved you, he said.
“The women” stood near by in a garden, powerless, as Jesus was betrayed, restrained and then taken away. They heard when Peter denied knowing Jesus, not once but three times. They watched as Jesus carried his own cross up to Golgotha, weeping silently and yearning to help. Once on the summit, they jumped with each pound of the hammer. It was the women who stood silently at the foot of the cross as Jesus took his last breath, letting loose a wail so deep with grief that it felt as if the earth shook.
“The Women” watched as Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus body down and were the ones that carried him to the tomb. And while it was still dark, the same group of women prepared the spices and ointments needed to anoint Jesus’ body, the only thing they had left of their teacher and friend. They had been through it all and their grief was deep, sharp and very very present.
What made it worse was the shock of it all. Jesus had been warning them for a while that this was going to happen – that the Son of God would die and be raised on the third day – but he never got very specific about how that would happen. He never shared how this would all play out. He certainly never gave them any indication that it was going to include crucifixion – an execution done “within Ancient Rome as a means to dissuade other from perpetuating similar crimes or behaviors.[1]” It is harsh, humiliating and very public. It was used to place fear in the heart of anyone who dared to challenge the Roman status quo. There was no way that those surrounding Jesus would ever imagine that this would be the kind of death he would be face.
Amy Jill Levine and Ben Witherington III point out: “Had Jesus been explicit on the details of his death, the crucifixion would have been less of a shock. Had Jesus been explicit on the details of his resurrection or spent more time preparing his followers for the resurrection moment, the women would not have prepared the spices.[2]” The women would have known they wouldn’t need them. If Jesus had laid it all out for them, maybe offered a time line, a flow chart, any reassurance at all, he would have saved them the fear, the tears, the silent early morning walk to a tomb. There would be no doubt, no real grief.
Unfortunately, there was fear, there was doubt, there was grief… and in the midst of that there was no hope. Hope is missing from the story. You can feel it… as joyful and exciting this day is , even knowing how it all turns out – I can’t help but feel a sense of hopelessness carried by the women, that I sometimes carry with me when I come into the silence of the darkened sanctuary on Easter morning. The shadow of Good Friday still lingers mixed with a hushed sense of not quite knowing what is going to happen.
Over the five weeks of Lent we’ve spent time lingering in the in between places between two poles or dichotomies. Today is no different. Here we are, filled with hope because we KNOW how the story ends, but we also carry the grief of all that has led up to this moment. We can’t deny the grief that was held by the closest to Jesus which is very much at the heart of the Eater story. And we meet that grief and it’s companion, fear, in the dimly lit, locked room, in the walk to the tomb.
The entire Easter experience starts with sorrow and loss, but it doesn’t stay there. The Women find the tomb’s entrance unexpectantly open, the stone that had sealed in death had been rolled out of the way. WE know what this means, but the women did not. It was not joy they felt when the saw the open entrance. It was not hope that overwhelmed them – it was fear, horror, disbelief. They were fearful because that moved stone could only mean one thing – tomb thieves. Someone had to have broken in to steal whatever had been placed in the tomb with Jesus… and when they timidly venture into the tomb they realized an even more horrible truth: someone had taken his body.
Just as they were discussing this perplexing and fear inducing situation, two figures in dazzling clothes appear asking questions that the women don’t have answers to. “Why are you looking for the living among the dead? Do you remember what he told you?”
Interesting little aside here, the Greek word used here is astrapto (root word astra which means star) which really means “flashy”. The women respond to the flashy figures in an expected human way by throwing their faces to the ground. Slowly, the words spoken by the flashy figures start to sink in: Living, Not Here, Risen, Remember. Jesus was resurrected! Jesus was resurrected? Jesus was resurrected. And just like that, the women were on their feet, leaving everything behind, and they run towards town, to tell the others.
Except the telling of the disciples doesn’t go well. The disciples dismiss the women… they must be speaking nonsense born of the pain they are carrying. Most bibles translate the Greek word used here as “’as an idle tale.’’ The Greek word here is leros which is “better rendered as ‘nonsense’ or ‘the mutterings of the delirious’ which carries a lot more oomph[3] than “idle tale.” With all that has happened, how on earth could the disciples contemplate the reality of something so hopeful as Jesus’ resurrection? The women are delusional in their grief. Jeff Chu reflects on this, saying “the other apostles’ incredulity feels so relatable to me, especially in the context of our contemporary lives. In a world beset by so much sorrow, so much suffering, and so much heartbreak, a glimmer of good news can have such a hard time breaking my gloom. A glimpse of beauty, a flash of loveliness can feel like foolishness amidst so much bad news.[4]”
The disciples were so broken that they couldn’t see the glimpse of hope in the women’s words. Except for one…Peter. Somehow Peter was living in the in-between of grief and hope, lingering in this liminal space gave him the ability to run to the tomb to see if the women’s story was true. A little ember of hope drove him to the open tomb and there that glimmer turned into a blaze of hope. Hope can compel a person to action even when the grief is deep. Hope can keep us going for one more day. Hope can be that little bit of something that keeps the overwhelm at bay. The women are evidence of that. Peter is evidence of that. Each one of us sitting here is evidence of that.
Ann Lamott wrote: “Easter is about love and truth. Easter says that love is more powerful than failure, bigger than death, bigger than the dark, bigger than (anything that beats us down.) Easter says you can bury truth in the grave, but you can’t keep it there.” Grief and hope can co-exist together. It’s not wrong to sit with the grief of Good Friday on Easter Sunday because “mourning is the bittersweet memento of love.[5]” We grieve because we love, we hope because we are loved. “With memory, testimony, and time, we can recognize that grief is liminal, not terminal. And it need not crowd out other truths: that we have loved and have been loved. That we are not alone. That there is still hope in the land of the living.[6]”
Thanks be to God for a love that breaks us and puts us back together, for a love that resurrects and gives hope, for a love that reminds us we are never alone. Thanks to be to God for the good news of the resurrection. Jesus Christ is Risen. Amen.
[1] Wikipedia information
[2] Levine, Amy Jill & Ben Witherington III. The Gospel of Luke. 2018. p.652
[3] Jeff Chu, A Sanctified Art – Easter Sunday sermon commentary. P. 33
[4] Ibid, p.34
[5] Chu, p. 34
[6] Ibid
