Beloved, brothers
This week is on Matthew 28:5-10:
In these verses, the two Marys have gone to Jesus' tomb, only to find that an angel has appeared. The men guarding the tomb are terrified, and judging by the angel's words, so are the women. His arrival caused an earthquake and blasted the stone "door" wide open. Picture a fireball coming down from the heavens and slamming into the ground in front of you, shaking the ground, blowing an enormous stone aside, and then when the dust settles there's a supernatural being sitting on top of the stone, looking right at you. I'd be terrified too!
As the angel addresses the women, I found my modern sensibilities hurt a little when he tells them to go tell the news to Jesus' disciples. These women had spent tons of time alongside Jesus, taking care of logistical details, listening to him, often sharing life like the disciples had, but the angel doesn't call them disciples. It's the sort of statement, like "I'm going to go hang out with my friends," that makes you silently wonder "Well what am I then?" But it was a different world in those days, and women didn't take up male roles any more than you'd expect your ten year old son to be your trial lawyer. (Bad example maybe, but you get the picture of where people were coming from, hopefully.)
The next bit is beautiful and where things redeem themselves. The women are happy to carry the good news along to the disciples and rush to carry out what is already a very honourable task they've been given. But Jesus meets them along the way, and is like "Hey." The women naturally are terrified, just as you or I would be if a dead relative or friend suddenly appeared out of nowhere. While the angel is all business ("There, I have told you, hurry up") Jesus is more tender and personal. Jesus is not going to see the men until he gets to Galilee, but he makes a special side trip to greet the women and comfort them.
This is more meaningful than it looks on the surface. Imagine this took place in Saudi Arabia back when they still outlawed women drivers, and that Jesus was asking the men to meet him in the next town over. How are the women going to get out there? Women can't travel on their own safely in a traditional society like that. Jesus makes special arrangements for special people.
Rather than taking some disruptive feminist stand over it, Jesus meets them in the culture they live in and shows them that they are loved and important in a way they can understand. That's something to keep in mind when ministering cross-culturally. If Jesus could play along with the cultural context he was ministering in, while being perfectly righteous, what are we adding by insisting on imposing our "enlightened" late-20th century western culture on those we minister to, in the name of righteousness?
Jesus tells the women "Go and tell my brothers." That's not the sort of familiarity we'd expect from God talking about men. He could have called them servants, disciples, slaves, subjects, etc but he called them "brothers," something even closer than a friend. God is so much higher than us, so much holier, that it's a really profound thing for him to call them "brothers." Take that image and lay that alongside so many churches where the pastor insists on being called "pastor" or "father" and has a whole hierarchy of satraps and courtiers people have to go through in order to interact with them. If Jesus calls them "brothers," who is any man to want it served up differently?
In calling the men "brothers," Jesus reveals a little bit more about the sort of relationship we have with him. A servant, or a disciple, can be bad or insufficient. The disciples were not ideal at the roles they were placed in. They'd basically abandoned him in the end, got snarled up in petty bickering, and were a bit slow to catch on to things Jesus saw as obvious. A bad servant will get punished and eventually replaced. A bad disciple will eventually wash out of the program or get pushed to the side.
A brother, on the other hand, is a permanent relationship. Regardless of what a brother does, he is still your brother. And regardless of who he is, you still have a kind of love for him that you don't have for an employee or a student. What Jesus is saying, without actually saying it explicitly, is "Look, you can mess up, but I'm still going to love you." After what happened, that speaks volumes.
It's hard to say whether Jesus is nicer to the men or the women, but it's obvious that he's nice to them both. The women are treated with tenderness and respect and the men are given the chance to prove themselves again while being reassured that they don't have to prove anything to be loved. Each gets what they need in the context of who they are. That shouldn't be surprising from a God who knows us so intimately but it's still great to see it demonstrated so clearly. It's an encouragement that whatever our circumstances, we are loved by God, and that he will find us where we are, whether we are trapped in cultural taboos, afraid and running, busy with an urgent errand, hiding ourselves in our work, or whatever. We are beloved like the women and like the men, brothers.
But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised, just as he said. Come and see the place where he was lying. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead. He is going ahead of you into Galilee. You will see him there.’ Listen, I have told you!”
So they left the tomb quickly, with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. But Jesus met them, saying, “Greetings!” They came to him, held on to his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. They will see me there.”
In these verses, the two Marys have gone to Jesus' tomb, only to find that an angel has appeared. The men guarding the tomb are terrified, and judging by the angel's words, so are the women. His arrival caused an earthquake and blasted the stone "door" wide open. Picture a fireball coming down from the heavens and slamming into the ground in front of you, shaking the ground, blowing an enormous stone aside, and then when the dust settles there's a supernatural being sitting on top of the stone, looking right at you. I'd be terrified too!
As the angel addresses the women, I found my modern sensibilities hurt a little when he tells them to go tell the news to Jesus' disciples. These women had spent tons of time alongside Jesus, taking care of logistical details, listening to him, often sharing life like the disciples had, but the angel doesn't call them disciples. It's the sort of statement, like "I'm going to go hang out with my friends," that makes you silently wonder "Well what am I then?" But it was a different world in those days, and women didn't take up male roles any more than you'd expect your ten year old son to be your trial lawyer. (Bad example maybe, but you get the picture of where people were coming from, hopefully.)
The next bit is beautiful and where things redeem themselves. The women are happy to carry the good news along to the disciples and rush to carry out what is already a very honourable task they've been given. But Jesus meets them along the way, and is like "Hey." The women naturally are terrified, just as you or I would be if a dead relative or friend suddenly appeared out of nowhere. While the angel is all business ("There, I have told you, hurry up") Jesus is more tender and personal. Jesus is not going to see the men until he gets to Galilee, but he makes a special side trip to greet the women and comfort them.
This is more meaningful than it looks on the surface. Imagine this took place in Saudi Arabia back when they still outlawed women drivers, and that Jesus was asking the men to meet him in the next town over. How are the women going to get out there? Women can't travel on their own safely in a traditional society like that. Jesus makes special arrangements for special people.
Rather than taking some disruptive feminist stand over it, Jesus meets them in the culture they live in and shows them that they are loved and important in a way they can understand. That's something to keep in mind when ministering cross-culturally. If Jesus could play along with the cultural context he was ministering in, while being perfectly righteous, what are we adding by insisting on imposing our "enlightened" late-20th century western culture on those we minister to, in the name of righteousness?
Jesus tells the women "Go and tell my brothers." That's not the sort of familiarity we'd expect from God talking about men. He could have called them servants, disciples, slaves, subjects, etc but he called them "brothers," something even closer than a friend. God is so much higher than us, so much holier, that it's a really profound thing for him to call them "brothers." Take that image and lay that alongside so many churches where the pastor insists on being called "pastor" or "father" and has a whole hierarchy of satraps and courtiers people have to go through in order to interact with them. If Jesus calls them "brothers," who is any man to want it served up differently?
In calling the men "brothers," Jesus reveals a little bit more about the sort of relationship we have with him. A servant, or a disciple, can be bad or insufficient. The disciples were not ideal at the roles they were placed in. They'd basically abandoned him in the end, got snarled up in petty bickering, and were a bit slow to catch on to things Jesus saw as obvious. A bad servant will get punished and eventually replaced. A bad disciple will eventually wash out of the program or get pushed to the side.
A brother, on the other hand, is a permanent relationship. Regardless of what a brother does, he is still your brother. And regardless of who he is, you still have a kind of love for him that you don't have for an employee or a student. What Jesus is saying, without actually saying it explicitly, is "Look, you can mess up, but I'm still going to love you." After what happened, that speaks volumes.
It's hard to say whether Jesus is nicer to the men or the women, but it's obvious that he's nice to them both. The women are treated with tenderness and respect and the men are given the chance to prove themselves again while being reassured that they don't have to prove anything to be loved. Each gets what they need in the context of who they are. That shouldn't be surprising from a God who knows us so intimately but it's still great to see it demonstrated so clearly. It's an encouragement that whatever our circumstances, we are loved by God, and that he will find us where we are, whether we are trapped in cultural taboos, afraid and running, busy with an urgent errand, hiding ourselves in our work, or whatever. We are beloved like the women and like the men, brothers.
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