After an Easter sabbath rest from our reflections on Genesis 1 & John's Gospel, we return for a final time, based on Genesis 2-3 and John 20: 18 two stories which culminate with a woman in a garden...
I saw him… with my own eyes… although I
didn’t recognize him at first… it must have been the tears… I thought he must
have been the gardener, and I gave him a hard time about where they had put the
body… I can’t imagine what he thought… I gabbled on until he said “Miriam”… My
name… though you know me as Mary…
Whatever way he said my name cut through
my distress and confusion and I saw him as clearly as I see you now… my dear
teacher… “Rabboni” I said as I rushed to embrace him… But he wouldn’t let me…
Something about not holding him back from returning to his father… So I didn’t…
But he asked me to go and tell his friends and family that he had risen and was
returning to his Father God…
So I did… to a mixed reception… but they
saw that I was right in the end when they saw him themselves…
Although I was angry at the time that
they wouldn’t all believe me, I realized later that it was predictable… Of
course they wouldn’t believe a grief-stricken woman… Even when we’re in our
right minds a woman’s testimony is only worth a fraction of a man’s in court… And
that morning I will admit I wasn’t in my right mind…
But again, as I thought on it later, how
typical of God to allow me, a woman, to be the first person to see the Master
risen from the dead… and in a garden too… So many women-hating religious teachers
justify their position by pointing the finger of blame at a woman in a garden
for bringing sin into the world… when Eve gave in to the serpent’s temptation…
Was this Father God being funny? Or was
he bringing things strangely full circle?
I don’t know… I’ll leave the religious
teachers to work that one out… But me? I just know that I have seen the risen
Lord… Have you seen him?
Selah
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