Women of Hope
Eastertide: Tuesday, April 19, 2022
Sviatoslav Vladyka – Modern Myrrhbearers: Saint Joanna
INVOCATION
O Spirit, help us to look for the living.
CLOUD OF WITNESS
The person who most needed hope after Jesus was executed was Peter, the friend who fell asleep on Jesus in his time of need, the student whom Jesus rebuked when he reacted to his arrest with violence, and the sheep who abandoned his shepherd.
But here’s the beautiful thing: Peter’s hope was restored by the voices of women who were just as faithful to the dead as they were to the living.
The women left the tomb and went to the eleven apostles and the other followers. They told them everything that happened at the tomb. These women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and some others. They told the apostles everything that happened. But the apostles did not believe what they said. It sounded like nonsense. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb to see. He looked in, but he saw only the cloth that Jesus’ body had been wrapped in. It was just lying there. Peter went away to be alone, wondering what had happened.
Luke 21:9-13, The Easy-To-Read Version
COMMENTARY
The beauty of Easter is rooted in the ugliness of crucifixion, an entirely legal process that is also wholly immoral. It is still the case that what is legal is not necessarily ethical, moral, or right.
We are called to be on the side of the crucified, not the empire that crucifies. That is the way of Jesus. The way of Jesus is also life and love. It is easy to find the broken places in our world and those that deal death.
Where are the resurrection spaces? Where do we look to see that death does not, in fact, have the last word? And what is our work in bridging the gap between death and life?
Wilda Gafney, The Shadows of Easter
BENEDICTION
Adapted from Church of St. George-St. Francis
May The Epiphany of Light’s love dwell with us,
keeping us from all harm, and
making us one in mind and heart,
Now and Forever.
thank you for this.
Something about this translation, really hit hard "the apostles did not believe what they said. it sounded like nonsense." Of course it sounded like nonsense; it is staggering to believe the beauty of the cross and the death and resurrection of Jesus. (Amen!). But what connected today was that the women were not believed, and it reminds my of the mythology of Cassaandra.
I'm not trying to focus on a negative, it's an immensely beautiful and powerful story. The women's role in it is amazing, and easily overlooked. I've heard sermons that address the women being the first to discover Jesus resurrection. I've never heard a sermon focusing on how the women's testimony was accurate, truthful, honest, and yet dismissed and not believed by the men. Maybe that aspect should be the focus of a sermon?