Mercy There Is Great

Jesus releasing souls from Hell.

The first Christians knew nothing about Easter and would not have recognized the word we associate with the celebration of the resurrection of Christ. The use of the word "Easter" did not become commonplace until the mid-second century, and is found in scripture once.  In the King James Version translation in Acts 12:4, Dr. Luke writes that Herod planned to put Peter on trial after "Easter".  In Luke's Greek version of this scripture, though, he says the trial would be after Passover, actually, "pascha" in the Greek, derived from the Hebrew "pesach".  It makes sense to me that the Elizabethan translation would use the Anglicized "Easter" which most Christians of that time would understand and accept.

Biblical scholars vary in their theories about the origins of the word Easter.  The Venerable Bede writes in De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after Eostre. She was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe.  Also named as a suspect is the Teutonic goddess of dawn (Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, derived from the word for spring), as well as the Chaldean goddess, Ishtar.  Since I'm not a Bible scholar and have no way of knowing which of these is correct, I'm going to move on.

I've often thought of what it was like for those closest to Jesus to see him brutalized and then crucified.  From the time he was arrested, fear and panic reigned among his disciples and family. Some disciples ran, hid from the authorities, some denied they even knew Jesus.  Some followed him all the way to the cross, where he was killed by the Romans as an example to any who dared to think of crossing them.   

When Mel Gibson produced the film , The Passion of the Christ, in 2004, I didn't go to see the film.  I did try to watch it when it was shown on television, but it was so graphic that I just couldn't watch the entire movie.  If I couldn't watch an actor portray the death of Christ, what must it have been like for Jesus' mother to watch this unfold before her eyes?  What was it like for John to watch Jesus drip blood from the thorns on his head, the whip marks on his back, and the nails that held him to the cross?  It was horror.  It was grief.  It was shock. 

After Jesus was taken from the cross and placed in a tomb, I feel quite certain that no one slept that night, the beginning of the Sabbath.  It's a rare person who has not experienced a death in his family.  The first few days pass in what most hope to be only an illusion, but as time passes, it is clear that the loss is reality.  Mary, Jesus' mother, must have felt that something so grisly and hideous as a crucifixion must have been a horrible nightmare.  But it was real.  It was as real as the plopping sound the blood of her son made as it fell in the dry dirt beneath the cross.

The Saturday after the crucifixion was spent with swollen, painful eyes.  No sleep after witnessing the monstrosity of a crucifixion, knowing that the mutilated body of your son, friend, teacher, brother lay in a stone tomb.  There was no hope on that Saturday, only weeping.  No one was able to eat in that hopeless grief.  The women made it through the day by gathering the items they would take to the tomb on Sunday morning to cleanse the body of Jesus.

Fear and terror obliterated the words that Jesus had spoken to his disciples; they did not remember his telling them about raising the temple up in three days.  All was lost.  Their only thoughts were about escaping the ghastly death Jesus had suffered the day before, so they hid in locked rooms with the windows shut even in the daytime heat, not daring to step outside the door.  Sobbing broke through the dark, stuffy silence. 

We've all been there after the wake, that time when the reality hits that your loved one is not coming back.  He didn't come laughing through the door, saying it was only a joke, looking for someone to make him a sandwich.  He didn't miss those lost shoes that you found behind the chair.  He didn't ask for his favorite dessert.  It didn't make any difference.  Your crying calms enough so that you begin to think about practical things, things like going to the tomb to clean the body and apply fragrant oils.  Since you haven't slept for three days, it's easy to be ready before sunrise to begin the walk out to the tomb. 

And then the unbelievable happened.  Mary saw Jesus standing in the garden.  The tomb had been opened.  There was an angel standing where the body should have been.  Some of the women started to cry again; they were speechless, but some were already on their way back to the room to tell the disciples what they had seen and heard.  Women were the first to preach the resurrection.

That weekend stretched the emotional cords of those who witnessed both the crucifixion and the resurrection.  And the reason for all of this?  Because God could not give any of us away to death and destruction.  He redeemed us with the blood that fell from the cross.  It doesn't matter what your sin is, "mercy there is great" because the blood of Jesus redeems every sin.

Mercy there was great
And grace was free,
Pardon there was multiplied to me,
There my burdened soul
Found liberty,
At Calvary.

Listen, Do You Want to Know a Secret?

The first people ever to testify of the resurrected Jesus were women, and Jesus himself is the one who told them to take the message to the disciples.

I don't mean to sound biased, but on Sunday morning the disciples were cowering in a locked room, while as soon as the sunlight flickered across the horizon, the women who had devotedly followed Jesus were on their way to his tomb to anoint his body with the spices they had prepared.  Their grief absorbed them; I imagine they were crying and glad to have something to do after spending an endless Sabbath waiting, according to the law, to prepare Jesus' body with the spices.

Scripture mentions at least five women who went to the tomb:  Mary Magdalene; Joanna; Mary, the mother of James the lesser; Salome (probably the wife of Zebedee and the mother of James and John); and Mary, the wife of Clopas.  References say that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was probably with John, who was instructed by Jesus to take care of her.

After their experience at the empty tomb, the women "fled", as Mark describes it.  They were in a hurry to tell the good news, the news that Jesus was not dead as they all thought.  He gave them a message to tell the disciples.  Luke says that when the women got back from the tomb, they told all these things to the disciples and to all the others.  They could not shut up about it.  The women had a message to tell, and no one could prevent them from telling it.  May Christian women today not shut up about the message that Jesus is alive.

But, then, they were only women.  At that time, women were not considered reliable witnesses.  Luke tells us that the disciples did not believe the women, because their words "seemed to them like nonsense."  The resurrection of Jesus is an incredible thing to hear.  But Peter and John ran to the tomb to see for themselves.  The empty tomb and folded-up burial clothes proved that the women had told the truth.  They weren't hysterical women; they were bearing witness to the risen Christ.

I've come to love the story in the Bible about the road to Emmaus.  I can't read it too many times.  It seems that on the evening after the women had brought the news to the disciples, two men, also disciples of the recently crucified Jesus, walked on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, a village about seven miles northwest of Jerusalem.  Why were they going to Emmaus?  It doesn't say.  Perhaps that's where they lived, and after the death of their teacher and leader, they were going home, or perhaps it was the first stop on the trip back to Galilee.  As they walked along, another man joined them.  They excitedly told him of strange goings-on in Jerusalem at the Passover.  They said, "Some of our women amazed us."

They couldn't believe he hadn't heard this news, but when he began telling them of how these things were prophesied to happen to the Messiah, their emotions were aroused.  As they approached Emmaus, the stranger appeared to be going on, but the disciples convinced him to stop and have supper with them.  When he gave thanks over the bread, they recognized him.  I can just see the slight smile on the face of Jesus as the pair comprehended who he was; he disappeared as they sat at the table.

This is not the only instance of women leaders in the scripture:  Deborah and Esther in the Old Testament, Lydia who held prayer meetings in Philippi and was converted to Christianity by Paul.  These women were followed by many generations of female teachers, missionaries, and evangelists.  Don't underestimate the love, devotion, and purpose of women who are committed to Christ.   If we can put our biases aside, their messages will amaze us.