Easter Witnesses

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Created on Friday, 01 April 2011 01:00

Written by Richard Avery

Some years ago there was a fashion for vicars eating daffodils in the pulpit on Easter Sunday. I do not know who started it first, but it did make the news. The stories were passed around and there were copy-cat efforts by clergy for several years. Eccentricity? Partial mental breakdown after the rigors of Lent and Holy Week? Maybe in some instances, but I heard that this was a cunning plan. A plan to draw attention to the Easter message.

People would leave church and tell neighbours or work colleagues:
"You'll never believe what happened at church this Easter............ No, I'm not making this up it really did happen!"
And that's a bit like how the word first got out, centuries ago. Women and men reported to others what they had witnessed, what eyes had seen and ears heard. Jesus was alive again. Not dead in a tomb. But alive, recognisable, audible, tangible.

This Easter Gospel transformed Jesus' crushed and frightened followers and enabled them to understand the life and death of Jesus in a new light. It matters very much that the resurrection of Jesus Christ really happened:
"If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins." (1 Corinthians 15:17)
Without the resurrection the death of Jesus is a story of sin and evil triumphing over goodness. But in the light of the resurrection the Cross is a place of victory over sin and death, as Paul celebrates in the closing section of 1 Corinthians 15.

The news of the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances is the climax of all four Gospel narratives. Who does God choose to witness these things and bear this message first? Women! And, in particular, a woman with a very disreputable past: Mary Magdalene. In the truest sense of the word, women are the first 'apostles'. Apostle means one who is authorised to bear a message, acting for the one who sends out the 'apostle'. In John 20, when Mary meets the risen Jesus near the tomb, Jesus commissions her:
"Go to my brothers and tell them...". So "Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: 'I have seen the Lord!'" (17,18). In Matthew's account an Angel commissions both Mary Magdalene and 'the other Mary' to go and tell Jesus' disciples that Jesus is risen.

In a culture where the testimony of a woman counted for nothing in law this was highly surprising and, at times, embarrassing for the early Christians. Other writers mocked Christians for beliefs based on the words of women. However, Jesus had already gone against the patriarchal culture of the first century Jewish and Roman world by including women in his circle of disciples and even allowing them to travel together with him and the men.

In February some of us heard Bishop Tom Wright commenting on the importance of the resurrection narratives when understanding the Biblical case for the full inclusion of women in church ministry. He described the Gospels as giving us "a radical re-evaluation of the role of women". In contrast to the very limited role of women in Jewish religious life, amongst the followers of Jesus we find full participation of women, even in an apostolic role.

At Easter women were up at the front as witnesses to the Good News of Jesus. Today we need the witness of all Christ's followers, men and women, if we are to give others a chance to hear the message. Jesus is not buried with his good intentions, but alive with power to break the grip of sin and transform us day by day.

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

Richard