Remember the Women
By Pastor Paula Burchill
I was struck on Easter this year about how we got from the darkness of Good Friday, to an empty tomb and women who ran away terrified to a sanctuary filled with flowers and people singing hymns to Jesus on Easter Sunday, almost 2000 years later, in Silverdale, WA. When I preached from Acts 1 and Jesus’ promise of sending his spirit last week, I wrote this poem to express my awe of how Jesus’ spirit has changed the world.
Remember the Women?
They were the last to remain at the cross
Their grief…it must have been paralyzing
How can a mother watch her son die like that and still survive?
And yet they did
Going through the motions
They did what you did after someone died
They went to wash his body
To anoint him again with spices
Holding each other up
Women’s work
But when they got there—–he was not there
A being—arrayed in white…told them, he is gone
Just like he told you
He told us?
But we saw him
Nails, spear pierced him through
The being told them, Jesus has gone ahead of you to Jerusalem
Tell the disciples. And Peter
But they were so scared. So very, very scared
Their world was flipped
Seeing the light of the world die like that
Hopes dashed
Darkness
So they ran away….terrified
But Jesus was there. Already there
He met them. He did what he promised
He appeared to them and when he ascended to heaven, he left them his spirit
His Spirit?
When they shared the meal—they were filled
When they remembered his word—they were filled
When they forgave Peter and John and each other for leaving, for disappointing, for denying—they were filled
And when they were filled with the Spirit, the Spirit flowed out of them
From Jerusalem into Judea, and Samaria and to all the ends of the earth
To Bergen and Beijing, Nairobi and Nicaragua, Sidney and Silverdale
Remember the women?
They are why YOU are here
They were terrified, then filled, then sent
You too
You terrified ones. You, too, are filled with the Spirit. You too are sent
Just like Jesus told you
