The First Link

I would say, and I think most Christians would agree, that the single most important event in human history was the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It literally changed the world.  But as someone pointed out to me many years ago, we have no report of the event itself, but only of what came after.  No one was present when the resurrection took place.  The first indication that something remarkable had happened came hours later.

St. Matthew says, "After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb." (Mt. 28:1)  St. Mark reports, "When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices, so that they might go and anoint him." (Mk. 16:1)  St. Luke writes, "But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared." (Lk. 24:1)  The people to whom Luke refers are Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women disciples who are not named.

Finally, St. John tells us, "Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb...." (Jn. 20:1)

Clearly, the reports are not identical.  Skeptics often seize on those differences to dismiss the resurrection as a hoax.  However, as police detectives and trial lawyers will tell you, several people may witness the same event, yet remember the details differently.  That's the nature of eye-witness testimony.  In fact, I'd say that those differences actually support the truthfulness of the gospel stories.  If the four accounts were absolutely identical, we might well suspect a put-up job!

Differences aside, the four gospel writers do agree on several important points.  First, the day: it was Sunday, the first day of the week.  Second, the time: it was early morning, at or soon after dawn.  Third, the place: the tomb where Jesus had been hastily buried on Friday afternoon.  Fourth, the task: Jesus' body had to be anointed.  And finally the people: those who came on this day, at this time, to this place, for this purpose were women!

I find that last point perhaps the most important.  It was women who first saw that the tomb was empty.  It was to women that God first proclaimed the resurrection of his Son.

These women came to the tomb that morning because burial practices in 1st century Palestine required that a body be properly anointed with oil and spices before burial.  But this posed a problem, because contact with a dead body rendered a person ritually impure — or unclean, as Jewish law would say.  This type of spiritual contamination was deemed so serious that elaborate purification rituals were needed to restore a person to purity.  And until those rituals were completed, the contaminated person could not participate in normal society.

More specifically, a person rendered unclean by contact with a dead body could not eat the Passover meal.  Since Jesus died just a few hours before Passover began, that probably explains why his close friends, his male disciples, did not provide a proper burial.  It's clear, too, that the men were afraid that the punishment their leader had suffered would fall on them, too.

So it was that on Sunday morning the male disciples hid in their upper room while the task of anointing our Lord's body was left to these women.

We should also remember that in this day and place, women did not enjoy high status.  On the one hand, a woman was honored as mother and homemaker.  Yet she could be, and often was, treated as a kind of chattel property, spending her life under the control of her father, husband, or the male head of her family or clan.

In so many ways, women just didn't could for all that much.  And yet, it was to women that God first proclaimed the resurrection of his Son.  Perhaps we ought not to be surprised at this, because much the same thing happened 30-odd years earlier, at Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, when the first proclamation of our Lord's advent was made to shepherds keeping their flocks on the hills outside town.  Like women, shepherds ranked low in the pecking order.

We might assume that important "breaking news" should be given first to the people who count — to kings, or princes, or wealthy aristocrats, or pious priests.  We might think that the Somebodies of this world deserved to know first.  But at Jesus' birth and later at his resurrection, God chose to declare the Good News first to the Nobodies.

How like God to run roughshod over the social, religious, and political norms!  Favoring mere hired shepherds over the important people!  Favoring women over men!  It's scandalous!

But it's also entirely in keeping with what Jesus taught.  Time and again over the three years of his public ministry our Lord told his friends that the first must be last, and that those who would follow him must be servant of all.  The most eloquent demonstration of this principle occurred during the Last Supper when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples as an example of what they, his followers, must be and do.

In this regard, you may know that on Maundy Thursday Pope Francis celebrated mass at a juvenile detention center in Rome, and washed the feet of twelve inmates, including two women.  Some traditionalists soon complained that it was scandalous for the Pope to wash and kiss the feet of women. Yet it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that women participated in the Last Supper, and that when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, almost certainly those feet were both male and female.

Despite all the progress we've made over 2,000 years, this tendency to discount the worth and abilities of women persists.  Both in the larger society and in the Church, women struggle against long-standing bias.  There might be less bias if people would read their Bibles more closely, and note that God has a special place in the Divine Heart for the weak, the vulnerable, and those who get pushed to the margins, like shepherds and women.  That's just the way God is!  Get used to it!

As we celebrate Easter in this year of our Lord 2013, let us remember that by God's grace the Good News was first proclaimed to the Nobodies of this world — in this case, to a small group of women who came at dawn, saw the empty tomb, and told others.  These women are the first link in a 2,000-year-long chain of shared faith.  It is their witness which allows us today to proclaim with joy that "Christ is risen!  The Lord is risen indeed!"

Happy Easter!  And Amen!

Sermon preached Sunday, March 31st, The Sunday of the Resurrection, at Grace Episcopal Church, Long Rapids, Michigan. •••