Easter Day: April 16, 2006

“When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices, so that they might go and anoint  Jesus.”

It was to be their last act of devotion.  They had not slept in days.  From the time they had entered Jerusalem shouting hosannas after their long pilgrimage from Galilee, to the days of terror surrounding Jesus’ passion and execution, the women had kept vigil.  For hours in the dark of night, they mixed the myrrh and frankincense to anoint his body.  And once they had accomplished this, it would be done.

No one was left.  Not the adulating crowds, not the cabal of executioners.  Not even the men to whom Jesus had entrusted his heart and soul.  They had all given in to their worst instincts, and were long gone.   Only a handful of Galilean peasant women remained.  Mary of Magdelena, and  Mary the mother of James, and Salome.

And friends, I don’t think this is a mistake.  I don’t think it just so happened that at the end of this horrifying, bloody tale, it was mothers, and sisters, and women who were there that first Easter morning.  For little has changed in time.  Then as now, it is men who have drunk deeply at the trough of power, violence, and corruption, and it is women who have been left to pick up the pieces.   It is women who clean up the carnage,   witness the violence; it is women who bury their war-dead, and carry the grief of the generations destroyed by hatred and rage.

They were there, because women have always been there when it is over.  They have always been there to shelter the last flickering flame of hope and peace when all light has been extinguished.  They have always been the ones to carry on when dreams die and faith is lost.

This morning, I am thinking of  Julian of Norwich, the great English mystic of the 14th century, who wrote these words: “It is a mother’s heart that lives in the heart of God.” 

It was the day after Easter three years ago that I left to embark on my pilgrimage in Spain.  And I shall never forget what lay in store for me in every town and hamlet, in paintings and mosaics, in sculpture and fresoes.  The Pieta.  Mary cradling the lifeless body of her son.  A mother’s love that cannot, that will not die.   A woman’s heart that cannot, that will not turn away.  A believer’s faith that cannot, that will not shrink away. 

You see, we misread the Gospel if we say God abandoned Jesus on the cross.  Because the women never ran away, never fled into the night, never gave up hope.  And in this God’s love found an earthly dwelling and a place to be reborn.  I believe we also misconstrue the Gospel if we see the resurrection as simply some external, supernatural event.  For the Resurrection is one with the faith of those women who rose early to go to the Tomb that first Easter morning.  Jesus rises from the dead because the women believed. 

Think of it.  Every post-resurrection appearance of Jesus in the biblical text in premised on the belief of those women, who dared to see what was beyond imagining.   The risen Jesus is first seen by them, proclaimed by them, believed by them, embraced by them.

And even now, so far and yet so near to us time, their voices have never been stilled.  Even now, I hear them trembling with these words:  He is risen.  He is with us again.  He is alive.  No more is death the victor.  No more are war and violence and terror the final answer.  Eternity trumps all human corruptibility. He is risen, alleluia, he is risen indeed.

Let us pray.  O Eternal God, let us live without fear.  You have made us holy, you have always protected us.  You love us as mother.  Let us go in peace to follow the good road your Son Jesus travelled, and may your blessing be with us always.