In the Roman Empire a woman’s testimony was not legally valid. Male chauvinist much. This is so much more than giving a wife a pass on testifying against her husband. Nothing was legally validated through the witness of women. If you want to believe your wife that a tsunami is rushing toward the house, well, that’s on you. But if a woman witnessed a murder, well, that murderer is not going to see any consequences. And definitely, no earth shaking event can be validated on the witness of women. And yet. Yet, our God decided that the first witnesses to the earth-shattering event of the resurrection would be women. Shake it up God. Chuck out conventional wisdom and turn the world upside down. Maybe I’m making too much of this, but I don’t think so.
In Luke 24:1-12, on the first day of the week, deep in the dawn, the women came carrying prepared spices to take care of the body of Jesus. There is something about dawning. Philo used the phrase deep dawn to describe the time period that God divided the Red Sea and brought his people out of Egyptian bondage. The account in Exodus 14 mentions the dawn as the time that the Egyptians could see what God had done; that an opening was riven; that the Israelites were scampering to freedom. Is there a link here? Is this a path being opened up; is this a breaking of bondage; is this a dawning on the amazing workings of God? Well, that seems likely.
So, the women came to the tomb and found the stone rolled away. Some suggest a round stone cut flat and rolled on a track. Some suggest a spherical stone used as a plug over the mouth of the tomb. We don’t know and it doesn’t much matter. The stone has been rolled away. The women enter the tomb and are not able to find the body of the Lord Jesus. Even though the phrase “Lord Jesus” is not found in Luke elsewhere, it is found seventeen times in Acts. Imagine what must have been going through their minds. They are puzzled. The pieces do not fit together. And then two men sporting light flashing clothes are suddenly standing near them. That’s scary stuff. The women are, not surprisingly, terrified. Maybe they thought, “Can we go back to puzzlement please.” They bow with their faces to the ground. One source suggests that this is about fear and not wanting to look on the light flashing clothes. It is definitely about fear. Fearful submission seems a likely scenario.
There is not comforting “Do not be afraid.” Instead, a rebuking “Why do you seek the living one among the dead?” I’m guessing about the rebuking tone, but it seems likely. Don’t they remember the words of Jesus? How, when he was in Galilee he spoke about being delivered up into the hands of sinful men and crucified and on the third day he would rise again. We were introduced to these women in 8:1-3. In 9:22, 44 and in 18:31-32 Jesus had told his followers all of this. These women were apparently privy to the prediction. Did you not believe Jesus’ words? Or did you do some predicting on your own? They remembered. This is most likely to be read as an “ah ha” moment. You can almost see them slapping their hands to their foreheads and saying, “O, now I get it.” In 8:2-3, the three women mentioned were Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna. Some will make much out of this. Both lists tell us that other women were present. Well, problem solved.
These women leave and go report the whole thing to the eleven remaining apostles. Judas is no longer a part of the group. The apostles do not find the report credible. To them it sounds like nonsense. One source states that the word was used by physicians to refer to the babbling of patients suffering from delirium. Crazy ladies. Oh, and it is just women. Nothing validated here. To his credit, Peter gets up and runs to the tomb. He also looked in. And sees nothing but burial clothes. If someone had stolen the body, they would not have taken the time to remove the burial clothes. Peter also leaves the tomb. He is also perplexed by the whole thing.
Paul wrote: “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27 NASB). The Roman world said that the witness of women was foolish or weak. God picked up the witness of women and changed the world. Yes, men were involved as well. But the first witnesses; the first evangelists, were women. I believe God did this on purpose. What the world ignored, God elevated. Let that sink in. Grace.