Easter

[hadjie]

The empty tomb

         John 20

That woman was the first word spoken

must have taken even the angels by surprise,

who were used to bringing their fiery glory

down to the clanging swords of battlefields,

to priests tugging at their beards

in lamentation, to voices thundering in temples

and muscles hefting stones from mountaintops,

not to a trembling woman whose hair clung

to her neck with tears, who for a moment

held the souls of the nations like a basket of figs.

                                                                                                                Tania Runyan

This poem brings home to me how utterly radical the good news was and is.  When I was ten years old, I wrote a school essay that for some reason made the point that Jesus was one of the first male religious leaders to treat women with compassion and respect.  The fact that the Church has historically  utterly failed in that respect does not negate the testimony of the gospels.

John 20: 11-16   

      Mary stood crying outside the tomb.  Still crying, she bent over and looked in the tomb, and saw two angels there, dressed in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head, the other at the feet.  "Woman, why are you crying?" they asked her.
     She answered, "They have taken my Lord away, and I do not know where they have put him!"
     When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there;  but she did not know that it was Jesus.  "Woman, why are you crying?"  Jesus asked her.  "Who is it that you are looking for?"
     She thought he was the gardener, so she said to him, "If you took him away, sir, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him."
     Jesus said to her, "Mary!"
     She turned toward him and said in Hebrew, "Rabboni!"  (This means "Teacher.")
     "Do not hold on to me,"  Jesus told her, "because I have not yet gone back up to the Father.  But go to my brothers and tell them for me, "'I go back up to him who is my Father and your Father, my God and your God.'"
     So Mary Magdalene went and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had told her this.

    

Comments

Here via <lj user=emily_shore>

[tree_and_leaf]

I like that poem very much! One of the meditations at the Good Friday service I attended made the point that, particularly in Mark's Gospel, the women come off much better than the thick-headed and at times hard-hearted and ungenerous male disciples. And while it's depressing that the church has nevertheless taken a very long time to recognise that women aren't defective men, as you say, it doesn't negate the testimony of the Gospels...

Re: Here via <lj user=emily_shore>

[hadjie.livejournal.com]

Thank you for commenting. I think that the time is coming round again for women in the church. This is certainly so in the Episcopal Church in the U.S., so much so that some men are complaining of the "feminization of the church." Happy Easter to you!

[shanith.livejournal.com]

I read the passage yesterday and was struck by how beautiful it was. Its stayed with me since and has certainly shaped my thinking this Easter. Thank you very much for sharing, and also your own reflections on it.

[hadjie.livejournal.com]

Hello shanith! Thank you for your gracious comment. Happy Easter to you and your family.

[shanith.livejournal.com]

And to yours - incase the message didn't get through ;-)

Do you know much Graham Kendrick? The passage reminded me strongly of 'Led like a lamb' - particularly the third verse.

The lentil soup sounded very good!

[wendelah1]

Very good observation about the radical nature of the Gospel of Jesus, when you filter out the sexism of the church and society.