We are looking at the women of the Resurrection accounts during the 50 Days of Easter. Despite the centrality and necessity of their witness, they can get overlooked in the familiarity of the story. Already we’ve met MaryMagdalene and Mary the Mother of our Lord and Salome the mother of the sons of Zebedee.
This week we continue our look at the important role of
the women in the Resurrection account of Luke and focus on Joanna and the
unnamed Myrrh Bearers. Luke is the only Gospel that lists Joanna by name. She
is introduced in Luke 8:2-3a as one of the women who had been healed of evil
spirits and infirmities…[including] Joanna the wife of Herod’s household
manager Chuza. Then we find her in chapter 24:10 as one of those coming to
the tomb. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition Joanna is venerated as one of the 8
Myrrh Bearers—the women who came to the grave on Sunday morning to complete the
burial rites for Jesus.
Joanna’s life was changed by her healing to the extent that
she traveled with Jesus and his followers (women and men). Even though her
husband was a ranking official in Herod’s court, she abandoned that life to
accompany Jesus. Luke tells us she, Susanna; and many other women…provided
financial support for Jesus and his disciples (Luke 8:3b).
This woman, who left everything, remained faithful to the
end and came to the tomb on Sunday morning to complete the anointing of the
body of the Rabbi. Joanna left her status as wife of Herod’s steward to
follow the Rabbi from Galilee. She used her own money to help fund his
ministry. She remained steadfast even when the men went into hiding. Along with
the other Myrrh Bearers she hears the amazing announcement from the angels. Luke
24 says on the first day of the week, at early dawn, [the women] came to the
tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled
away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body….suddenly
two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them…‘Why do you look for the
living among the dead? He is not here but has risen. Remember how he told
you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to
sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ Then they
remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the
eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the
mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the
apostles.
The men do not believe the witness of the women, although
Peter ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by
themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened. Peter is
amazed, but he tells no one.
We are told in all the Gospel accounts that the disciples
didn’t believe the women. Mark Roberts of the Fuller Du Pree Center explains in a Life for Leaders post, “I
expect the main reason the male disciples rejected what the woman told them was
the incredibility of what they reported. People just don’t rise from the dead.
People do, however, become confused and say things in error. Sometimes they
even lie. Whatever was going on with the women, the male disciples assumed they
were not accurately representing what had actually happened. It’s likely,
however, that something else motivated the men to discount what the women had
told them: gender bias. You see, in the culture of the time, the testimony of
women was not considered to be trustworthy…it’s likely that the male disciples
of Jesus were inclined to reject the testimony of the women, not only because
of its inherent incredibility but also because it came from women.”
The fact that the Gospels retain the stories of the women
is, as Roberts notes striking and proof that the Resurrection wasn’t a
concocted story or an allegory for “some transformational spiritual or
emotional experiences after Jesus had died, from which they concluded that he
was somehow still alive in spirit.” He goes on to argue that “the fact that
women figure so prominently in the Easter narrative as witnesses is compelling
evidence in favor of the historical reliability of that narrative…A fictitious
story would sure have starred Peter and the other male disciples…the best
explanation of the centrality of women in the stories of Jesus’s resurrection
is the fact that women were indeed central. And this suggests that the stories
are historically authentic.”
The women tell the apostles. Even though their words
weren’t believed, they bore witness to what they saw and heard. Because they were
not silent, we know that Jesus was raised. The faithful witness of Joanna
and the Myrrh Bearers who go to the tomb is the core of our own Easter story.
Like Joanna, we are to be faithful through good times and
hard. We are called to tell the story of how our lives are changed by the Risen
Lord. The story of our healing by the Holy One, the story of God’s actions in
our lives, the story of how all our lives are changed because of Easter.
How might you respond to someone who says that the Easter
story is made up or totally unbelievable?
