As I write, the International Women's Day with this year's theme of 'Embrace Equity', has just passed, and Easter is just a couple of weeks away.
I have various messages from the first still lingering in my mind, and various contexts of the second beckoning me to think on them once again.
But this year for some reason those two issues have seemed to intersect for me in a fresh way.
The World's Confusion about Women
International Women's Day is often an opportunity for championing women's rights of various kinds. It might be highlighting the difficulties women in some countries have just to be able to drive a car or be seen in the streets. Or it might be giving awards to women, or highlighting high achieving women in sports or community.
But of course we live in a crazy 21st century mostly God-less world. So this year it was reported that the USA First Lady awarded a women's 'courage award' to a biological man. And then in other quarters recently it seemed some leaders in the world struggled to even define a 'woman'. So, as the world on one hand wants to promote the 'rights' of women, it is at the same time undermining the meaning and value of who a woman even is.
When a world sadly ignores or rejects God this should come as no surprise.
On the other hand, Easter is a great time to be reminded that God knows and cares about women. He created the gender distinction with clear biological sexual markers and is deeply concerned about the women in this world, just as much as He is concerned about the men in this world. He doesn't need a 'Women's Day' in order to properly value women.
The Concern of Christ for Women
A reading of the gospels brings clear reminders of how Jesus' showed honour to women who were not culturally honoured, giving them equal value alongside men, on many levels.
One of these ways was in regard to knowledge and learning. Like Paul explains (Acts 22:3) that he sat 'at the feet' of Gamaliel, it was common for a man to be a 'disciple' of a great teacher and learn in this way.
So when we read in Luke 10 about Mary sitting and learning at the feet of Jesus as her 'rabbi' (teacher), this has counter-cultural significance. The average Jewish man would have found this unacceptable. Jesus not only allowed the situation of a woman being in the position of one of his devoted 'disciples' but endorsed it as being of even greater value (thus honour) than doing the normal culturally expected household tasks associated with the cultural honour of a woman. So while he may have chosen men as His core disciples and be the ones to later lead the post-pentecost church, He also promoted the idea of women having the opportunity to learn and grow in their understanding of Biblical truth and even be in a position of what we might call today a 'theology student'.
One of the ways in which honour is culturally assigned in any culture is related to who has knowledge (or access to knowledge) and who does not.
Here in Africa, traditionally an oral society, knowledge (particularly cultural knowledge but not limited to that) is something still seen very much as a sign of honour status. It gains a person a level of superiority above others, not only through power of how to use that knowledge more than someone else, but simply having others realise that some people have a certain exclusivity to access certain knowledge.
But the issue is not limited to the culture of Jesus' day or of Africa. I couldn't tell you how many times in my school days (too many to count) when someone would proudly chant: 'I know something you don't know'! It was a statement of superiority and higher importance and greater status than others.
Even today, there is a sense where the degree to which women are given access to certain fields of study, is taken as the signal of whether women are considered equally mentally competent to learn something that may have been previously considered only for men to learn.
While Jesus (as Creator) knows perfectly why He chooses to have men in certain leadership roles, it is in no way a reason to say he thought of women as having 'less' value as people or as disciples.
*we must be careful to differentiate between a woman's identity value as a human being and member of the body of Christ, and her activity roles which very much depend on how God created us to be having differing skills, strengths, weaknesses, physical capabilities and calling, and thus hold differing positions from men in some instances, both in human society as a whole and within the church (see a previous blog post on understanding this often mis-understood vital distinction).
Jesus made it clear that women could and should learn and have equal value in that regard. They didn't need to gain their sense of identity and honour from what was culturally expected of them, nor did they need to feel angry or threatened by those who moved away from having culture as defining and directing them and had rather chosen Christ to be their standard and Lord.
All of Scripture shows God's counter-cultural view of women, from including women in the earthly genealogy/lineage of Jesus (Rahab, Ruth, Tamar, Bathsheba and of course Mary) to using someone like Esther to be the means of saving the Jews from extinction and annihilation, we are shown in Scripture that Jesus not only valued women but chose women for critical service to Him and His people.
The Gospel, and Women at the Cross
I find it very interesting how all of Jesus' disciples forsook him (except for John - John 19:25-29), being unwilling to risk being associated with the shame of the cross. And yet we have recorded that it was the women who were willing (along with John) to be seen supporting and being identified with the shame of the cross. They stood watching when others had abandoned Jesus.
Then along with Nicodemus, it was women who were concerned about showing honour to Christ, and who visited the tomb despite the difficulty, discouragement and shaming they may have faced. But their love for their Lord outweighed such obstacles. And thus it was the women who were the first to learn of the good news of the resurrection - while the men were hiding away in fear. It was Mary Magdalene who was the first to see and talk with the risen Christ, and it was her and a couple of other women, to whom Jesus gave the first 'go, tell' gospel (good news) 'commission' (Matthew 28:7; Mark 16:9).
It is easy in a Western setting to miss the significance of this occasion. In the West we are generally used to women being supposed to have some level of equality to men. In the West we are also not as cognitively attuned to the realities of how honour and shame play out in many other cultural social contexts. We may not notice or be impressed by the fact that the culturally less-thought-of women are the 'first' to see the risen Christ, speak with and be spoken to by the risen Christ, and be entrusted first with the message of the risen Christ.
Women were culturally more in the category of 'last' than 'first', but here Jesus' puts life to his previous but profoundly honour-oriented words, about the 'last shall be first'.
Here, the women were elevated to 'first'. They became the first ones to have the most important knowledge ever gained - 'He is not here, He is Risen'!
The Gospel, and Women on Commission
Matthew 28:19-20 gives us the most well known 'Great Commission' verse…
...But it is also the chapter (28:7) that gives us the description of the instance of the first post-resurrection gospel message 'sending' out. This wasn't the 'go into all the world' message, but before that could be given to the disciples, the disciples had to hear, comprehend and believe the resurrection message themselves.
It was women who were sent by Jesus to 'go quickly and tell' the message to the disciples who for all kinds of reasons had closed their minds to even the possibility of such a reality.
The men were still locked away and focused on themselves and their own fears and shame risks, and although they had had the privilege for 3 years of being the most deeply exposed to the Truth, at that point they were missing the most significant truth of all. Thomas was so filled with doubts about this new 'unbelievable' and maybe heretical message, he took quite a bit of extra convincing. They had got locked into only part of the story, part of the truth and were missing the most important factor.
Instead, it was the women who were the first to hear and know what must have been the most profound relief and joy of their lives - their Saviour was alive, there was no reason for shame, for hiding, for fear. Though the world might shame them for association with the cross, they knew this good news turned all that upside-down…or right-side-up. They now knew that the cross was not the end, the shame was not the end, the resurrection victory had been won and Christ's honour had been not only restored but magnified. This was not a message to hide from, but to share.
The gospel is a message which not only overcomes the shame of sin, but it also is a message which overcomes ungodly social shame boundaries and brings new value to a person. To understand we are all equal in value as God's created human beings in His image (which sadly our modern world has rejected), is a gift of inherent fundamental honour, but in Christ we are given the further ascribed honour of being 'in Christ' where there is no male or female, slave or free, Jew or Gentile. No gender, social position or ethnicity matters or determines such foundational value. We don't have to switch genders, or change social position, or achieve great feats, or share 'sameness' in appearance or capacity, or try to redefine or rely on our ethnicity for significance. This is wonderful good news.
The gospel is something which we all equally have the opportunity to rejoice in, and the responsibility to share.
This Easter, be reminded of what good news about 'honour' the gospel message truly brings…and then 'go quickly and tell' it to others.
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