Today our Pastor, who is a woman, preached a sermon based on the first verses of Luke.
According to vs. 1–12, the women arrived at the tomb with prepared spices to rub on Jesus’ corpse. I can’t imagine what they were feeling. They were mourning the loss of someone they loved, yet they showed up to do their duty.
This must be familiar to most women who will get up from their sickbed to help a sick child or ailing family member.
Yet, the women found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Jesus was gone! The women wondered what had happened. Then two angels came on the scene. They told the women: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen!”
The women, who included Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and others, ran to the apostles. But none of them believed the women — they thought they were spewing garbage. Only Peter went to the tomb to check.
My pastor pointed out that the women at the tomb became the first evangelists after the Resurrection. She said, if we wanted to be historically accurate, women should always preach the Easter sermon.
Too often in modern times women have been portrayed as spiritually weak. Yet the Bible clearly tells us that women were often the first to believe, to trust, and to love Jesus. And Jesus loved them — he praised Mary’s annointing His feet even though his disciples criticized her spending money on expensive fragrant oil. He told the bleeding woman that her faith had healed her. He talked to the Samaritan woman at the well who then shared the news with her village. And He first appeared to the women who loved Him and had come, despite their grief, to serve Him one last time.
As women who believe in the resurrected Christ, we can take joy in His deep love for us and His forgiveness of our sins. We must remember that all of us — male, female, Jew, Greek, rich, poor, old, young — we who believe are equal in God’s eyes. Some, like the little children, may be particuarly beloved. Certainly He wanted them to come to Him.
In the photo at the top of this article is one of my associate pastors — like the head pastor, she is a woman. The other associate pastor is a man, as is the music minister. In our church, we have had men, women, old and young give the scripture reading and share the prayer requests for the congregation. All races have been represented in this — from a black man from Nigeria to a tiny Hispanic girl to a Korean lady.
I think this is great, especially on Easter. He died for all of us, and then He rose from the dead, giving us all hope in eternal life and a reason to celebrate.
I wish you all a Happy Easter. I wish you joy, healing, and love. Amen.
I am fighting stage IV cancer. If you can help with medical bills, I would really appreciate it. Or if you enjoy my writing and would like to buy me a cup of coffee, that’s great too. Maybe someday I can return the favor.
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This post was previously published on Shefali O’Hara’s blog.
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