Women Evangelists: Unauthorized Worship, Part 5

Should women be forbidden to speak about the Christ?

Apparently Jesus Himself didn't think so.

He stopped at a well near Sychar of Samaria and spoke to a women whose reputation was known in town, but most visiting Jews would not have known (John 4). After they had spoken, He did not forbid her from going "back to the town and [saying] to the people, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" Nor was He so offended at the turnout she prodded that He immediately left town on the run; in fact, He stayed two days there.

In Samaria. Thanks to a woman.

Nor did He choose to appear first to the remaining eleven on the morning of the third day after His crucifixion. No, instead, "When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons." (Mark 16:9).

A cured demoniac. A woman.

In fact, the eleven didn't believe her nor her feminine friends at first (Luke 24:10-11). But they were ones He sent - and Peter and John had enough curiosity stirred to go and see for themselves (John 20:3-9).

Granted, these women were not evangelists in the sense that they wrote any of the four gospels, nor were they Protestant (or Mormon!) missionaries or ministers. But in the word's original use in scripture, they were bringing good news.

Good news about Jesus.

In one case, news of a prophet who might be the Christ who shared news about His kingdom.

In the other, news of the Son of God miraculously raised from the dead.

Really, really good news.

They were not telling old wives' tales (1 Timothy 4:7), nor were they disgracing an assembly by inquiring about things during worship (1 Corinthians 14:34-35). They had good news to share, and they were sharing it.

They were people who sinned who had also encountered the embodied Grace and Word of God, and there was an urgency about this good news that could not be delayed nor kept silent - and Jesus encouraged it, giving them this good news to share.

Against all of the prejudices of culture - but against no prohibitions of the Law - Jesus gave that news of Himself to women to share with men and it was enough that people came looking for the Christ.

He told one woman "... the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" and "... true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

He told the others that He was "...returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."

Really, really, really good news.

To women who would serve as His messengers in a world that only listened to men, He gave this gospel.

He innovated.

And people responded.

"And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world." ~ John 4:41-42

"Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)" ~ John 20:8-9

They believed.

Now, you may object that neither of these situations involved gathered worship, but let's remember that Jesus' message to the woman at the well was that true worship was no longer a matter of time and place, but of spirit and truth. His words were "a time is coming and has now come."

People were gathered. They heard gospel. They believed.

Just what Jesus wants - and what glorifies His Father's name through Him (Romans 15).

Isaiah 53:1-7; Matthew 26:62-63

52 Weeks at the Table - Week 29

The prophecy Isaiah has been given to share seems incredible, even to him: "Who has believed our message?" He expresses it in past tense, so certain is it that it may as well have already happened. God sends a Servant - not handsome, not esteemed - and suffers not only as we suffer, but actually bears our suffering and our guilt. And we misunderstand. We see Him struck down by God. But the truth is, He is stricken and smitten by us; by our sins. All of us have wandered away from God like bleating sheep ... but this Lamb of God is led to slaughter silent.

"The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him. They blindfolded him and demanded, 'Prophesy! Who hit you?' And they said many other insulting things to him." ~ Luke 22:63-64 ... "Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, 'Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?' But Jesus remained silent. The high priest said to him, 'I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.' ~ Matthew 26:62-63 ... "The Jews insisted, 'We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.' When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, and he went back inside the palace. 'Where do you come from?' he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer." John 19:7-9

Holy God, one of your wisest once said that there is a time to be silent and a time to speak. You speak even in Your silence, and before You now we listen. We hear the sheep-brained bleat of our own lives echoed in the mockery of the soldiers and the high priest and hear our fear in the words of Pilate. Remind us in this bread that Your Son's body was given for us; that we are now that body in Him. Amen.

Father God, only One could claim to be the Son of God; the Suffering Servant foretold by Isaiah, and that is Jesus. He was silent in response to cruelty and cowardice, yet could not remain silent about that truth. He gave His consent through silence to the brutality that results from sin. He gave His blood to remove our transgressions, and we remember Him in penitence through this cup. Forgive us, we pray; embolden us that we too might never be silent about the truth of Your Son - however difficult to believe that it might seem to others. Amen.

2 Kings 13:20-21; Matthew 27:52-53

52 Weeks at the Table - Week 28

It reads almost like a footnote to the main narrative - the two verses of 2 Kings 13:20-21 - "Elisha died and was buried. Now Moabite raiders used to enter the country every spring. Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man's body into Elisha's tomb. When the body touched Elisha's bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet." The man's name isn't given. His fate isn't disclosed. Something so astounding - life arising from death, without a breathing, speaking prophet as the channel of it - should seemingly deserve more information! But, like the army raised from dry bones before amazed Ezekiel (chapter 37), no more is said of the matter.

In fact, the short passage reads almost like the two verses of Matthew 27:52-53 - not disclosed in any of the other three gospel accounts: "The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people." No names. No details. And yet, those few words communicate the power of resurrection unleashed on the earth at the very moment Jesus died. Who these "holy people" were seems to be of little or no consequence compared to the fact that they lived again, and that the power of resurrection was associated with Him even after His death.

Two spare verses say it all.

Creator and Sustainer, we are completely humbled by Your power to create life from the dead; to raise children unto Abraham from rocks and earth; to bring dead works to life through faith in Christ; to bring life back to those who have passed beyond it in the body of Christ. For this bread, which both recalls it and builds it up, giving life to the dying, we give You our awed thanksgiving through Jesus: Amen.

For the lifeblood that flows through our veins and arteries, O God, we give You thanks. It should have been required of us to atone for our self-filled sins, but You provided Your very own dearest blood; that of Your Son Jesus. It took the place of ours as His life took the blame for ours. We remember it throughout this life in the sharing of this cup, on which we ask your blessing through Christ: Amen.

Lamentations 2; John 19

52 Weeks at the Table - Week 27

After the death of Elisha, another succession of wicked kings ruled Jerusalem - with the exception of Josiah, the reformer-king who sought to destroy the altars and worship-objects of the detestable false gods and rebuilt the temple and re-instituted Passover. It was not enough to turn the hearts of Judah back to God or to turn His wrath away from their sin - so God turned His back on them, as it had been with Israel to the north. Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, and when he had starved its populace into submission, he razed its holy and royal buildings to the ground. Those who escaped deportation to Babylon, fled to Egypt. The second of the acrostic Lamentations mourns:

My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within, my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city. They say to their mothers, "Where is bread and wine?" as they faint like wounded men in the streets of the city, as their lives ebb away in their mothers' arms. (2:11-12)

It was a meal featuring bread and wine which preceded the capture of Jesus and His final exile to a cross on a hill outside of Jerusalem. The apostle whom he loved records that there He entrusted the care of his mother to John just before a spongeful of wine vinegar was lifted to His dehydrated lips. Then He surrendered His Spirit and bore the weight of sin not-His-own to the death He did not deserve. (John 19)

Holy, Righteous, One God ... what You have done for us in giving Your Son exceeds the boundaries of love and grace that man can perceive. It is inexplicable, inexpressible and incomprehensible. We cannot grasp nor measure its dimensions. We can only bow, with this bread - His body - dissolving in our mouths as His sacrifice dissolves our sins, and remember Him in gratitude a for which we have no sufficient words. Amen.

Sovereign Lord God, if we can only begin to understand the grief and pain of Jesus' mother at the cross, then we can surely do no more to comprehend Your own as His Father. We remember the trembling of the earth; the rending of the temple's veil; the moment of Your wrath expressed to and yet withheld from us by the grace of His blood. Bless this cup - His blood - and we who share it to always remember Him, and remember why. Amen.