There is an illustrated children’s story of military roles by rank in the use of a cannon that goes like this: Private Parriage brought the carriage, Corporal Farrell brought the barrel, Sergeant Chowder brought the powder, Captain Bammer brought he rammer, Major Scott brought the shot, and General Border gave the order…..But Drummer Hoff fired it off. The big KABANG comes from the lowliest soldier.
In the greatest story ever told, the climax of which we revisited this past weekend, all the principal players were men. The ruler gave the order after being presented charges by local Jewish officials. The centurion took charge of the execution. And the disciples who scurried for cover in fear were all men.
But it was the lowly women who discovered the empty tomb, met the angels, and informed the male disciples hiding in fear behind locked doors. It is the testimony of these two women, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, fully corroborated by the testimony of Peter to Mark (Mk. 16: 1-8), John’s memory of that morning (Jn. 20: 1-9, 11-18), Luke’s exhaustive investigation (Lk. 24:1-10) and Matthew’s account (Mt. 28:1-2), that fired off the Gospel….the explosive good news of God’s glory bestowed on this pesky itinerant preacher from Galilee who called himself the Son of Man. How fitting! How persuasive!
These women had nothing to gain from such an outrageous story except ridicule. They had no standing in community nor did they seek any. Their place was to serve and keep quiet. Instead, they shouted their discovery. The only logical explanation for such outlandish behavior is that their testimony is true.
And for anyone experienced in taking testimony of eye witnesses, the story of the angels also rings true. Variously described by the gospel writers many years later, the commonality is striking…..one or two men, dressed in white, saying that Jesus is not here, but has been raised and will present himself to the disciples.
You can’t make this up. The notion that these women in their position in society would conspire to make up this story, risk their own safety in the telling, and for no reward, sticking to it for the rest of their lives is utterly nonsensical.
As J.R.R. Tolkien argued persuasively to a doubting C.S. Lewis, he should approach the New Testament with the same imaginative expectation that he brought to his beloved pagan myths, except Tolkien emphasized the decisive difference. The story of Christ is simply a true myth working on us in the same way as others but with the tremendous difference that it really happened.1 We know this from the women. Thanks be to God.
- From Alister McGrath’s biography C.S. Lewis