Oh, How I Love Jesus

Last week, as Easter approached, my small group and I read the account in Luke of Jesus’ crucifixion, His burial, the discovery of His rising. And who was there? Women. Women witnessed the crucifixion. Women prepared spices to tenderly care for his dead body. They left at the earliest moment they could, after observing their Sabbath, and ran to his tomb. As Dorothy Sayers states in one of the essays included in her book Are Women Human?, it’s no wonder that women loved Jesus the way they did. He treated them as no man ever had. With highest value.

For maybe the first time, I really considered what it meant that women were the first to see the risen Lord.  How, when they rushed back to tell the apostles, they would be greeted with doubt and disbelief.

Beth Moore, in her Bible study, Jesus, the One and Only, wrote about it in a way that made me want to cheer:

Luke 24:11 records that the apostles "did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense."

Sisters, don't be insulted by this scene in Luke 24:11. Rather, be blessed that God was up to something awesome even in this seemingly insignificant detail. You see, "the witness of women was not [even] acceptable in that day." They couldn't testify as witnesses.

Now isn't this just like my Jesus! He threatened the status quo in countless ways, not the least of which concerned women. He invited them into Bible class (see Luke 10:39) after they had spent centuries learning what little Scripture they could from their husbands. He honored their service during a time in which men were the only ones who ministered publicly (see Mark 15:41). He healed, forgave, delivered, and made whole the very ones society shunned. Women of ill repute.

Appointing these women as the first to share the news of Jesus' resurrection was a definite "custom shaker." Jesus knew the apostles wouldn't believe them but perhaps He felt that the pending discovery of their authenticity would breed a fresh respect. After all, look at the first roll call we have in the post ascension New Testament church, and you'll see who comprised the first New Testament cell group (see Acts 1:13-14).

For centuries the synagogue kept men and women separate. Suddenly they would be working, praying, and worshiping shoulder-to-shoulder. Christ built His church on a foundation of mutual respect. Don't misunderstand. Christ wasn't prioritizing women over men. He simply took the ladder down to the basement where society had lowered women. With His nail-scarred hands, He lifted them to a place of respect and credibility.

Jesus gets a bad rap for things that “church” does and has done. But Jesus never treated women with anything other than respect. It’s no wonder I love Him the way I do.