March 31st Sunrise:
We Are The Women
March 31, 2013
Potsdam Sunrise
Call: Luke 23: 44-56
Text: Luke 24: 1-12
Read: W&S #31
[Read 24: 1-12]
At the time of His ascension, Jesus The Christ
Commissioned and charged His disciples
To be His witnesses
In Jerusalem
In all Judea and Samaria
And to the ends of the earth.
And, at that same time,
He commissioned and he charged us, as the successors to the disciples,
to be His witnesses
In our own towns and villages
In all our state and the rest of the United States
And throughout and across the entire world.
This he did. This he expects.
And forty days before that, on Easter itself, he gave us examples,
Examples that it can be done
Examples of how it is done.
You and I have, in our hymn,
just asked ourselves and we have asked each other:
Were you there when they crucified our Lord?
I wasn't. Were you?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
I wasn't. Were you?
Were you there when they pierced him in the side?
Were you there when the sun refused to shine?
I wasn't. Were you?
Were you there when
After taking his lifeless body down from the cross
Joseph of Arimathea laid him in his tomb?
I wasn't. Were you?
Of course not!
We were not there. But we do know all about it.
We know all about it because
The women who had followed him from Galilee were there
They were there each step of the way.
The women were witnesses To his crucifixion
For they were there and they saw
Him being nailed to the cross
They were there and they saw
When he was pierced in his side
They were there and they saw
The darkness when the sun refused to shine.
Too, they were witnesses to his burial
For they were there and they saw Joseph of Arimathea
Place Christ's lifeless body in a tomb hewn out of rock.
One more thing.
Those women were witnesses not just to the crucifixion and burial
They were witnesses to his resurrection
For they were there and they saw the empty tomb
On the third day, The first day of the week
When at early dawn they arrived at that tomb
with the spices they had prepared.
But they couldn't apply those spices to his body
For they found no body
In the tomb where they had seen it placed on Friday
Instead, They found a pair of angels standing beside them.
They were there And they were terrified.
But they heard those angels ask and inform them
"Why do you look for the living among the dead?
He is not here.
He has risen.
And they heard the angels remind them of what Christ himself had told them
"Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee,
that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and crucified
and on the third day rise again.
You and I know all about
His crucifixion his burial and his resurrection
Because those women were witnesses
And because they told others about what they had experienced
Those women instinctively and courageously
Fulfilled the Great Commission
Before it was given.
I am fully convinced that it is
Both intentional and significant that
In a society that did not value them,
The first witnesses to the empty tomb,
And the most extensive witnesses to his death and burial
were women
many of whom were nameless
and others of whom we know little.
On the most important and most transforming days of Christ's ministry
God provided you and me with witnesses
And examples
of what Christ would charge us to be and do 40 days later
And those examples were not
the high priests
those examples were not
the Scribes and Pharisees
those examples were not
the politically or militarily powerful
those examples were
Not the wealthy businessmen
And those examples were not the male disciples and their leaders
The examples of being witnesses were women
Women who in that society had few rights
Women who like the slaves in the early United States
were basically property more than people.
Women in those days were for procreation and pleasure
Women in those days were for taking care of the residence
and raising the children
Women in those days were not for
Giving testimony on religious matters
And yet it was women who were the witnesses
Who were chosen to set examples for you and for me.
By choosing them
God not only made sure that the remarkable love story
of the death, burial, and resurrection
would be told and would be shared
God also made sure that you and I would see
If we pay attention -
That one does not have to be
Politically, socially, economically important
To fulfill Christ's great commission
If women in a society like the one in which
Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James lived,
Could be chosen and empowered to be Christ's witnesses
How in the world can you and I
protest and complain
About God's demand that we be witnesses
When all of us are more powerful than those women were.
In coming out here before the sun rises
You and I have chosen
To imitate, remember, and be inspired
by the empty tomb
And by the people who first saw it
Today we take great joy
In the resurrection, of course,
And we do so, by declaring
On the first day of the week
at early dawn
that
"We - males and females alike - are the women."
Whether we continue to be depends on
Whether we choose to lead lives and use words
that tell His story
and of our experiences with him.
I pray that we do so
Not just at dawn
But for 24 hours each day.