Many Women Were There
Were you there?
A break from the usual, I’m reflecting on the Gospel of Matthew this Holy Week.
55 Many women were also there, looking on from a distance; they had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him. 56 Among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph,[t] and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. (Matthew 27)
“Many women were there,” Matthew tells us, as Jesus was dying on the cross. Many women. Several were named. Watching. Listening. Praying. Remembering.
The old hymn asks you, over and over: “Were You There?” When they crucified my Lord—nailed him to the tree? Were YOU there, when they laid him in the tomb? Were you there with the many women? Were you there?
No. Of course not. You weren’t there.
But the women were there: they watched and listened and remembered. They remembered, and retold, so it could be written down in all its excruciating detail, so that you could read it again and know Jesus’ death.
We do not read these dramatic scriptures together so that we can go back there, mentally or emotionally or spiritually.
What’s more important than going back, is that you pay attention to how the cross of Christ moves forward, into this time, to the center of your life.
Taking us into God’s future.