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It just came to me. Why He appeared first to her. My pastor mentioned Christ showing His risen body to a woman that resurrection morning, and I realized I had always wondered why it had not been one of His male followers, one of the twelve, the chosen, the strong, the leaders of the day.
Now I know. I can understand. It was because she was fully in the grief. She could. not. leave. Him. He had made her emotions and He knew she would not leave His death and in it He came to her to comfort and show her life. She found Him, alive, amidst the terrible mess.
It was women who came to do the thing that did not matter, that would not fix anything in this world, to weep and cry and be present in the agonizingly hopeless pain. The women who needed His body, needed the ritual, the safety and security to know even His death had a home.
And I want to know, was it beautiful there, were there flowers and walkways, did the light glint golden in the morning, hinting of the hope to come? Or was it all greyness and stones masking the grief, hiding her in fog and steeling her heart to be strong? What was the morning He came to her like? One thing I do know, I know how she cried, I know how her heart leapt in her throat. I know how she grabbed for Him. I know.
We know, we who are called a weaker vessel, made to be open, that pain and beauty can flow in and out of us. And so we shatter easier than a solid rock, open as we are for possibility, vessels of life and death. So I believe He made our hearts of incredible stuff so that we could birth babies and watch lovers go to war.
Such incredible stuff for we feel things that the men never feel. My man loves, protects, works for and grieves with me but he will never truly know. And when it is all too much Christ comes with real life. And He sent her back to her brothers with words of hope and joy. Some believed and some thought they sounded like nonsense.
It is hard to leave the death, and I don’t ever want to completely because then I would loose my sweet Joshua. He is not here but God comes and promises me he is alive. Please Lord take my shattering, my emptiness and longing and fill it with Your life so I can share it with my precious men, big and little here on this earth with me.
As this truth sits with me I realize maybe also He let her be the first to tell the good news because who better to celebrate His rising than a vessel made to cherish, bring forth and rejoice in new life? Finally, a peace settles in me. It is more than ok to be deeply present in the pain, to know and honor what is lost in this world, but I can’t be blind to His life overcoming it all. Sobbing inconsolably in the garden is necessary, but don’t miss when He comes to console His daughter.
John 20:1-18
