The Witness of a Woman

Women will come yet again in the story of the empty tomb. Much has been said about the worthlessness of a woman's testimony and how odd it was, indeed, that a woman would be the first witness to the resurrection. But what if a woman was there because of the image she represented - the same image she has represented throughout all of Scripture - the covenantal people of God?

We have no reason to believe that the women who first witnessed the tomb were in any way unfaithful women; in fact, we are plainly told that they had gone to the tomb to properly prepare Jesus's body, which had not undergone the customary burial rituals of the Jewish people because of the late hour of the Sabbath approaching.

And in fact, these women are shown as particularly faithful because the Scriptures attest that they said to the only breathing being they could find, "I am looking for my Lord. Do you know where they have put Him?"

It's so easy for us to want to get modernly political with these narratives of women at the tomb, saying how radical it is that Jesus would have His greatest miracle - His own resurrection - attested to by the lowliest of society. Saying how forward-thinking the disciples must have been to include such a countercultural thread in their narratives, giving authority even to women! Saying how this alone shows equality between men and women or illustrates so well Paul's point that in Christ, there is no male nor female, or any other number of gender war-fueled narratives that have clouded our minds on these sorts of issues.

But there's nothing radical here. Rather, there is only something faithful.

Throughout His Word, God has referred to His people as His bride. Throughout His Word, He has held Israel as His "she." Throughout His Word, the image of His people has been the image of a woman. Just because in the story of Jesus, the women happen to have actual flesh and actual breasts does not make them any less of a symbol for what God has been saying all along: it is His people who are His witness.

Look again at what's happening with the women at the tomb. They have come to do the ceremonially-necessary thing and anoint the body of Jesus according to proper custom. This is a reflection of the ritual/purity covenant that exists between God and His people. They are troubled to not find what they were certain would be there and express in plain word their searching for their Lord. This is a reflection of Israel's constant seeking after Him. And indeed, if she had not been searching, no one ever would have noticed a newborn in a manger, star or no star.

And in so coming to the manger, they bear a powerful truth: it ain't over 'til it's over.

It looks like it's over. He looks like He's dead. But the covenant is not yet fulfilled. The duties are not yet complete. When they come to anoint the body, they are saying there is still an obligation left to be fulfilled. The people of God are still indebted to what He has done, still bound by His promise...still drawn by His promise. There's an ongoing something here that doesn't end at darkness, and that's amazingly important. Vital, even.

Without the testimony of the women, without the witness of God's faithful people, we just don't get that. 

Making a Scene

Women continue to show up in the story of Jesus in surprising, unexpected ways. We have been looking at this unfaithful woman for a couple of days and reimagining her story through the lens of covenantal unfaithfulness, but look at some of the other women who help to illustrate precisely the same point. 

There is the sinful woman who comes into Simon's house and anoints Jesus's head and/or feet with oil, rubbing expensive perfume into His flesh with her long hair. And everyone knows she's a whore. It's simply no secret. But what if she's not just a whore, but an image of the people of God - as women so often were throughout the Scriptures - and in this scene, she illustrates powerfully what Israel will do for this Jesus, this Messiah?

Jesus knew all along that He could never be known were it not for the witness of Israel, who, up to this point, has not been particularly stellar at such witnessing. Every time she seems to show something favorable of God to the surrounding nations, she just as quickly turns her back and becomes a disappointment yet again. A discouragement. A laughing stock.

Just look at how many times the leaders and prophets had to plead with God not to give Israel what she deserved because of how it would negatively reflect on Him, proving, perhaps, exactly what He was trying to demonstrate all along by recruiting a faithful people to be His witness to the world.

Now, we've got another unfaithful (sinful) woman in the picture and she's basically crashed this party. She's come into a house where she wasn't invited, walked straight into the center of everything, and made a spectacle of herself. Meanwhile, the homeowner and host of this shindig has failed to recognize even the most basic dignity of Jesus as a guest, let alone as a Messiah, and there doesn't appear to be much going on in the way of nudging Him to do anything Messiah-like.

Just the guys. Hanging out. Or whatever.

A few Pharisees here, a couple of commoners there, and this party is the epitome of all things chill, all things relaxed. It's pretty cool that Jesus decided to come to this house and hang out for awhile. It's pretty neat that He'd pick this group to spend His evening with. Nobody's that interested in rocking the boat by making it overtly religious or anything.

Except, of course, the woman.

She is the voice of Israel crying out in this moment. Sinful as she is, she cannot let this moment pass without doing something to demonstrate the true nature of the Son of God who graces them with His presence. And why?

It is an echo of what Jesus has said all along - that He has come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. In other words, the testimony of even unfaithful Israel is absolutely vital to His mission. Without her witness, you would never know He was coming and you certainly could not recognize Him once He got here.

So this sinful woman barges in, busts open a flask of the most valuable oil she can find and anoints the Savior before His crucifixion. Because for all the things that Israel got wrong, for all the times she went astray, for every term of the covenant she failed to live up to and every witness she neglected to make, she's got one thing right: this is Him.

And it's important enough to make a spectacle of it. 

Unfaithful

So let's reimagine this story of Jesus and the sinful woman with the understanding that this is not actually about sex, but about covenantal fidelity and the people of God. 

There is a sense that a "loose" woman in those days might possibly be held accountable for what she entices a man to do, but that's not present in this narrative; the Pharisees drag her before Jesus for her own unfaithfulness, not for what she convinced a man - who is nowhere to be seen - to do with her. She is not even accused of being a loose woman in the way that we would expect; she is just a woman caught in the act of unfaithfulness.

If you listen close, you can almost hear the Pharisee's question ring out with the same indignation with which they have asked Jesus in other places why His disciples don't fast and how they can possibly fathom eating without washing their hands. Tenderly, He has explained to them the nuances of love, which they have all but lost in the cut-and-dried nature of the law that they hold so fast to. Gently, He will do so again.

He bends down and starts doodling in the dirt, and I think it's because He wants them all to just stand there for a minute. He wants them to see the way that the unfaithful woman stands - hypervigilant to the presence of those who would condemn her, one hopeful eye on the One who could redeem her. There stand the experts, the high and mighty, the haughty, looking impatiently at Him. There stands the caught, the unfaithful, the sinner, looking tearfully at Him. He wants them to feel the tension in this moment.

And then He tears it wide open. Those who would condemn are being condemned. Those who have exposed the sin of another are being exposed. And they cannot bear it. One by one, they turn and walk away. Sullen. Silent. Sulking. This was not the plan. This was not the request. They wanted to see Him do one holy thing and condemn the lawbreaker, the covenant-defier, the unfaithful, but He has condemned only them, the experts, the hypocrites.

This is such an interesting and beautiful moment. By the time He looks up from the dust on the ground, all that remains is the unfaithful woman. The one person in all of this who had the most interest in turning away, in running away, in getting away is the only one who remains, and it doesn't sound like she has any intention of going anywhere. Her eyes still plead with Him for one ounce of mercy, one token of vindication. Something, anything that will tell her that something holy is happening here. 

And it happens. This man, who should never be talking to a woman, particularly not alone; this covenant-keeper, who should have nothing to do with this covenant-breaker; faith personified, who should be at least weary, if not wary, of this unfaithful woman, attends to her with the fullest measure of both mercy and grace, tenderness and dignity. 

Because what's really happening here is what all Israel needs to know - no matter how unfaithful you've been as the people of God, everything has changed right here, right now, as God Himself kneels in the dirt beside you. The very presence of God in the person of Jesus changes what unfaithful means. 

And it is demonstrated clearly in this one - this one so-called unfaithful woman - who cannot turn away, even though she has every earthly reason to do so. 

But we're not done. Oh, no - not by a long shot. Stay tuned.  

A Sinful Woman

There is a scene in the Gospels where a sinful woman, caught in the act of adultery, is brought before Jesus. And to most of us, this seems like a powerful scene centered on the nature of sexual sin, a real Sermon-on-the-Mount moment where Jesus has the chance to practice what He's preached (namely, that even lust is adultery and that sexual sin is intolerable). 

But what if the scene that unfolds here is not about sex at all?

One of the fundamental rules regarding biblical interpretation is that it's at least worth considering how images and ideas are used throughout the rest of the Scriptures when we come across them in one place or another. And throughout the Scriptures, the "unfaithful woman" we see is Israel herself, the people of God who have broken the covenant of relationship with Him. Over and over again, the image of the sinful woman is used to convict Israel of her sin, which is not sexual, but relational. Just think of Hosea and Gomer, where God ordered His prophet to marry one of these unfaithful women as an image of His love for His people. Or the way that Rahab the prostitute stood in contrast to the unfaithful spies (and later becomes part of Jesus's genealogy). Or even how Judah fails to keep his covenant duty and is convicted by Tamar herself as she poses as a prostitute. It's not about sex; it's never about sex. 

It's always about covenant.

And really, even here in this Gospel scene, that's not that far of a stretch. It's the Pharisees who bring this woman before Jesus. And even though we know the Pharisees had a thing for trying to trap Jesus, particularly as regarded definition of sin and law, it would be quite an aberration to see them concerned with sexual sin here. It's uncharacteristic of them. These are the guys, remember, who cornered Jesus on the way His disciples washed their hands (or not). These are the ones who couldn't believe He would touch an unclean man. The emphasis of the Pharisees has always been on ritual purity, relational purity with the covenant of God. They never bring forth a thief. Or a murderer. Or a liar. Why would they bring an adulteress if not for the covenantal nature of her crime?

While we're on it, notice here that they bring a woman. Women were of lesser status in those times, even under the covenantal law of God. We are told of sinful women a few times in the Gospels, but by and large, the Scriptural witness is that if you're bringing a sinner before the community, you're bringing a man. Women were men's property, not agents of their own free will, so whatever you might consider a woman guilty of, it would actually have been the man's responsibility. 

And if this particular woman is caught in adultery, then the question we've all been asking since we first read this story is a poignant one: where is the man? The law would have centered on him if this were a story about sexual sin. The Pharisees would have dragged him to Jesus, and for many reasons. The law was more pertinent to him than to her. Whatever Jesus would have to say to him would be more easily understood as speaking to the nature of the law itself than whatever He would say to the woman. Everything about this screams that if it were a matter of sexual sin, it would have been the man who features front and center.

But here stands the woman. 

It changes the way that we see this story if it's not, after all, about sex. If we re-interpret this passage through the lens of covenantal infidelity the way that all other stories of unfaithful women in Scripture are interpreted, then it says something different about...well, about everything.  

Resurrected

Most of us Christians want to know what that day is going to be like when we enter death and then are brought back to life to stand before our Lord and King, resurrected into something new and wonderful. 

Well, I don't know. Sorry. 

But I do have some thoughts based loosely on my earthly experiences, of which death and resurrection are not so distant possibilities. 

I could have died this week. That's not hyperbole. That's not a stretch of the imagination. And it's not the first time. I try not to talk much about my personal life on this blog because what I want you to see in this space is God, but I hope that as I share this particular story that you will see Him in an important and powerful way. 

On Wednesday night, I went into anaphylactic shock. For nearly three hours, emergency room staff worked diligently just to get the reaction to stop so that my body could start coming out of it. (At this point, I should say that I live with a condition that causes anaphylactic reactions, which can occur at essentially any time for essentially any reason and sometimes for no reason at all. Most of the time, this is manageable with the tools that my medical team has given me, and trips to the ER are very rare. Wednesday was one of those rare days.)

Once I'm that out of control, there's not a lot that I can do, and darkness comes to settle over me like a heavy cloud. There's usually at least one person in the room whose job it is to try to talk to me, to try to keep me engaged, but the vast majority can only talk about me. I can hear them. "Can she....? No, she can't do that right now. Is she...? Yes...." And there's this very real sense of a world at a distance, an entire group of people who are trying to hold on at the same time they are letting go. 

Hours later, there comes this moment - this moment where it's finally going to be okay. And it's always the same moment. It's always hilariously, beautifully the same moment. It comes with a deep breath, a little smile, and tremendous joy as this person, these persons, who have worked so hard to keep you alive welcome you back to the realm of the living. I still remember thirteen years ago when it was a male doctor standing at the foot of my bed, putting his clipboard down after more than 8 long hours of my own unconsciousness, relieved to be able to look at me again. This past week, it was the moment when the doctor who had been treating me didn't stop at the curtain, but came fully into the room and stood next to me. Smiling. Breathing. Elated. 

If you've seen Apollo 13, you know this moment. It's the moment when the capsule is re-entering the atmosphere and the crew goes into this long communicative blackout and everyone in mission control is holding their breath for what turns out to be a lot longer than any of them had anticipated. And then, there's this little crackle - just a little static - but it's essentially the best noise in all the world. Yeah, death and life - it's that moment. 

It's this kind of moment that I imagine that resurrection must be like. Not just in the way that death and darkness are lifted, which is incredible in and of itself, but in the way that all of a sudden, we see God face-to-face. And this Lord, this God, this Creator who has invested so much, so very, very much, in saving us sees His work pay off. He sees it worth it. Right before His very eyes. And we see in His eyes just how hard it was, just how grueling, just how emotionally taxing and existentially exhausting. But He's smiling. Breathing. Elated. 

He pulls back the curtain, puts down the clipboard, steps into the room, which doesn't feel as ominous or dark or heavy as it once did, and He simply says, Welcome back. 

Welcome Home.