All we have are the stories, based on the unreasonable experience of people we never knew–and the choice of whether to believe them or not. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor, Home By Another Way
“All we have are the stories.” Yours. Mine. Those of women throughout time, throughout history, heard, known…and not.
Here’s one:
Very early on Sunday morning the women went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. They found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance.
So they went in, but they didn’t find the body of Jesus. As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes. The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.”
Then they remembered that he had said this. So they rushed back from the tomb to tell his eleven disciples—and everyone else—what had happened. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several other women who told the apostles what had happened. But the story sounded like nonsense to the men, so they didn’t believe it.
Were it not for the women’s insistence on life, the story may have ended in dark grief and disbelief. They tell the story. They keep the story. They ARE the story!
The same is true today.
Women know death – of body, mind, and spirit. Still, we sing over the bones and at the grave.
Women name what is true, tell the story, and will not be dissuaded no matter how nonsensical it may seem.
Women know life – birthed, nursed, nurtured, healed, grieved, and restored. Resurrection, indeed.