After I preached the Easter sermon on Sunday, I was driving home and a number of thoughts were ricocheting through my head - specifically about the unique challenges the women in our community face.
The statistics are alarming. 1 in 4 women sitting in our churches have been raped or sexually assaulted. 1 in 12 women will be stalked and on average the stalking will last almost 2 years. Approximately 1 in 5 female high school students report being physically or sexually abused by a dating partner.
We live in a culture of boys who haven't learned to grow up and be men. These boys are bullies who haven't learned how to exercise self-control. Instead of showing respect and honor to our women, they act like overgrown children, lashing out in anger or abuse when they don't get whatever immediate gratification they want in the moment. There is no excuse for these half-men and their pitiful displays of abusive weakness. These men need to know that God knows their secret abuses and will repay the violence they are visiting on his daughters.
My thoughts, though, are not directed to these half-men. I want to address our ladies.
Easter - the resurrection of Jesus - is for you. The first person Jesus revealed himself to after his resurrection was Mary Magdalene. She didn't recognize him at first - but when he said her name, "Mary" - she knew it was him - and she clung in joy to him. Why did Jesus chose to reveal himself to Mary first? Why not Peter? Or John, the disciple who had been commissioned to care for Mary his mother? Or even all of the disciples together?
I don't know the answer - but I do know why he shouldn't have from a cultural perspective. Mary Magdalene was a woman with a shady past. She had been abused by men and had been dismissed by a culture dominated by men. She had few allies in her culture. As a woman, her testimony would never be accepted in court and she was dismissed even by the disciples when she brought the news.
But, for whatever reason, Jesus honored her. She will forever be remembered as the first person to see the resurrected Christ. The disciples who wrote the gospels knew that by even writing that as part of the resurrection account, it was likely to make their accounts of events less believable to the people of their culture (if they were making the story up, you can be sure they wouldn't have Jesus showing up to her first!).
I think, could I preach another Easter sermon, I would like to include these points to my sisters in Jesus as well:
1. If you have been abused, devalued, or made to feel small - you need to know that Jesus loves you - he respects you - he honors you - he sees and wants to restore your dignity. In honoring Mary, Jesus honored you. You need to hear his voice speaking your name just like Mary - calling your name and drawing you near.
2. You are a daughter of God - and you deserve better than a half-man. Do not allow your heart to pull you into a repeating cycle of abuse, moving from one half-man to another, because you think that somehow you deserve it. You don't. If Jesus has honored you in this way, who is that man-boy to dishonor you in abuse? There are real men out there - men empowered by and submitted to Jesus - who will love you as Jesus loved the church. Settle for nothing less.
3. Take hope in the resurrection. If the resurrection power was enough to put the body of Jesus back together - to bring life out of death - could it not also bring wholeness, dignity, and peace back into your broken heart? If the resurrection could take his body - scourged beyond recognition - abused and humiliated publicly - and restore it to strength, dignity, and wholeness - could it not also give you a renewed sense of physical and emotional purity?
My heart breaks for your suffering - and while a man has violated your trust and stolen your sense of wholeness - another man has come to restore it by suffering in your place (and mine) so that we can stop trying to earn our way back to God - back to wholeness - and simply accept it as a gift in his grace.
The statistics are alarming. 1 in 4 women sitting in our churches have been raped or sexually assaulted. 1 in 12 women will be stalked and on average the stalking will last almost 2 years. Approximately 1 in 5 female high school students report being physically or sexually abused by a dating partner.
We live in a culture of boys who haven't learned to grow up and be men. These boys are bullies who haven't learned how to exercise self-control. Instead of showing respect and honor to our women, they act like overgrown children, lashing out in anger or abuse when they don't get whatever immediate gratification they want in the moment. There is no excuse for these half-men and their pitiful displays of abusive weakness. These men need to know that God knows their secret abuses and will repay the violence they are visiting on his daughters.
My thoughts, though, are not directed to these half-men. I want to address our ladies.
Easter - the resurrection of Jesus - is for you. The first person Jesus revealed himself to after his resurrection was Mary Magdalene. She didn't recognize him at first - but when he said her name, "Mary" - she knew it was him - and she clung in joy to him. Why did Jesus chose to reveal himself to Mary first? Why not Peter? Or John, the disciple who had been commissioned to care for Mary his mother? Or even all of the disciples together?
I don't know the answer - but I do know why he shouldn't have from a cultural perspective. Mary Magdalene was a woman with a shady past. She had been abused by men and had been dismissed by a culture dominated by men. She had few allies in her culture. As a woman, her testimony would never be accepted in court and she was dismissed even by the disciples when she brought the news.
But, for whatever reason, Jesus honored her. She will forever be remembered as the first person to see the resurrected Christ. The disciples who wrote the gospels knew that by even writing that as part of the resurrection account, it was likely to make their accounts of events less believable to the people of their culture (if they were making the story up, you can be sure they wouldn't have Jesus showing up to her first!).
I think, could I preach another Easter sermon, I would like to include these points to my sisters in Jesus as well:
1. If you have been abused, devalued, or made to feel small - you need to know that Jesus loves you - he respects you - he honors you - he sees and wants to restore your dignity. In honoring Mary, Jesus honored you. You need to hear his voice speaking your name just like Mary - calling your name and drawing you near.
2. You are a daughter of God - and you deserve better than a half-man. Do not allow your heart to pull you into a repeating cycle of abuse, moving from one half-man to another, because you think that somehow you deserve it. You don't. If Jesus has honored you in this way, who is that man-boy to dishonor you in abuse? There are real men out there - men empowered by and submitted to Jesus - who will love you as Jesus loved the church. Settle for nothing less.
3. Take hope in the resurrection. If the resurrection power was enough to put the body of Jesus back together - to bring life out of death - could it not also bring wholeness, dignity, and peace back into your broken heart? If the resurrection could take his body - scourged beyond recognition - abused and humiliated publicly - and restore it to strength, dignity, and wholeness - could it not also give you a renewed sense of physical and emotional purity?
My heart breaks for your suffering - and while a man has violated your trust and stolen your sense of wholeness - another man has come to restore it by suffering in your place (and mine) so that we can stop trying to earn our way back to God - back to wholeness - and simply accept it as a gift in his grace.
Comments
Your point about women are well taken and appreciated. Paul cited numerous women who labored with him in his work as well. I believe, as co-heirs, they should be granted full equality as pastors, teachers and leaders (elders/deacons) in the church.