Faithful Women's Testimony Disregarded at First

No one expected that. Talk about a plot twist.

I can relate to the women at the tomb. Sadly, they didn’t go there with any hope. They went there within their grief. I’ve been there; I wonder if you have too. They even got there so early that it was barely even day. Clearly, they had gotten up and prepared to go within the darkness. I’ve been there–up before dawn, unable to sleep; I wonder if you have too. The women spent much of the day before preparing spices and ointments, likely in deep grief. I’ve been there as well–just wanting to do something for someone who has lost someone or even busying myself with things to avoid the pain of grief when I’ve lost someone. I wonder if you have too. I can imagine that the women just wanted to do something–they wanted to honor Jesus. But how is it that I know they didn’t go to Jesus’ grave with any hope? It’s because the spices and ointments they prepared were not for a body that was alive, but for a body that was dead. They didn’t expect anything to have happened. I’ve been there; I wonder if you have too. These women expected to face the reality of their unfathomable loss again. What came next, no one expected.

The women–Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, and other unnamed women with them–arrived at Jesus’ re-opened grave with his body missing. They didn’t know what to make of this. In another translation, it says “they were perplexed.” I’ve been there; I wonder if you have too. Two male angels told them: remember. The angels said “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He isn’t here, but has been raised. Remember what he told you…Then [the women] remembered [Jesus’] words. When they returned from the tomb, they reported all these things to the eleven and all the others.”

There are just some things that even while we don’t know what to make of them and are perplexed by them, we seem to have a deeper knowing, perhaps even a remembrance, that they are true. I’ve been there; I wonder if you have too. I desire to be like these women. I desire to remember Jesus’ words, and to speak about them to others. For it is by the sharing of “Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things” that I even know this story. I will join in remembering and retelling it as well, and perhaps I will be a woman who tells the story and gets to witness Jesus change everything for someone else.