Easter Gifts

While his male disciples abandoned him, Christ’s female followers witnessed his crucifixion & his burial “from a [safe] distance” (Mark 15:40-41,47).
While after his execution the disciples of John the Baptist came to take his remains for burial (6:29), the disciples of the crucified Jesus were too afraid or ashamed to come forward to do the same.

“The fearlessness of Joseph of Arimathea in requesting the body of Jesus is noted in contrast to the cowardly dispersal of the disciples. Joseph does what the disciples of Jesus should have done. He courageously associates himself with the crucified Jesus & gives him a proper burial.” (Stephen Binz)
“Within Judaism the anointing of a body for burial was the highest corporal work of mercy because it made those who performed it unclean themselves.
“To anoint the body of a condemned criminal, especially one who was crucified, was seen beyond the limit of service, for many Jews believed that such a one was abandoned even by God.” (Megan McKenna)
Joseph supplied what was lacking in the fearful disciples & lived up to his name, Yosef (Hebrew): may He add.
“When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body” (16:1).
Perhaps their reflective silence in observance of the Sabbath strengthened the women to do a belated work of mercy. Thus the first recipients of the Easter message (“He has risen”) were women who attempted an act of mercy.
Even belatedly, “we must go forth, after we have worshipped, into the tombs & cities & their outskirts to make sure that all those who have suffered, even killed, are treated with respect & honor” (McKenna).

On their way to the burial place, the women asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” (16:3). Perhaps they were like Filipinos who could add under their breath, “Ba(t)hala na (Let God take care of it).”
Indeed God already took care of it. In their attempt to perform an act of mercy toward the body of Christ trampled by sin, they would discover the Resurrection already at work.
Today, we can discover in acts of mercy, in feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, sheltering the homeless, employing the jobless, generating decent jobs, empowering the powerless, the Resurrection already at work.

Inside the tomb, the women find a young man dressed in a white robe who says to them, “He has risen...Go tell his disciples & Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” (16:5-7)
The young man in a white (baptismal) robe represents every baptized person who is empowered to proclaim the Easter message so much so that the (spectacular) appearance of the Risen Christ is unnecessary.
Indeed there is no appearance of the Risen Lord with the original ending of Mark’s gospel (16:8): “Trembling & bewildered, the women went out & fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.”
Why did the earliest gospel end this way?
“Mark leaves the Gospel incomplete because the good news of Jesus is incomplete. It must be taken up & proclaimed by people in every generation.” (Binz)
Why were the women afraid? Were they fearful of rebuke or retribution from the Lord, who in his suffering they left alone surrounded by enemies who taunted & demonized him?

The disciples were told to go (back) to Galilee, where Jesus’ ministry started, to rise above their shameful cowardice & to begin anew.
Were the disciples afraid to start anew after shameful failure? Were they afraid to go back to ministry in a poor region like Galilee, to take up the cross again, to follow a Suffering Messiah?

The Easter message has reached our generation. Thankfully, the women overcame their fearfulness, and the men listened to the women & proceeded together to where everything began.

“On the road back to Galilee [144 kms through rough terrain] they became a believing community,” an Easter community (McKenna).
What could have been discovered, discussed & understood on the rough road?
“God’s promise was never that life would be fair. God’s promise was that we won’t have to confront the pain & the unfairness alone.
“The 23rd Psalm doesn’t say...‘I will fear no evil because people get what they deserve & I’m a good person.’” (Harold Kushner)

This Easter, may the following be gifts we discover & cherish:
1. Acts of mercy by the baptized reveal Christ’s resurrection here & now.
2. We can discover the Resurrection whenever we dare start anew after (great) sin or failure.
3. Easter people proclaim in word & deed the good news that nobody will have to confront pain & unfairness alone.
Have the “women’s story” reached me to begin anew?

Love's Tongue & Christ's Cry

“You, my God, lonesome man,
Love’s bitten tongue
Heaven’s incredible wound”
(Vassar Miller, 1924-1998).

One can say that, on the cross, Christ bit his tongue, as he restrained himself from cursing both his enemies who were insulting him & his faithless disciples who abandoned him. (Do I not also bite my tongue especially when I try to restrain myself from unnecessarily hurting somebody with my words?)
Most of all, Jesus restrained himself from cursing his Father, whose sheer silence & seeming absence at Calvary was Christ’s last & most difficult temptation.
Christ’s last cry on the cross was inscrutable (Mark 15:37) like that of somebody with a severely bitten tongue. Yet this last cry & breath tore the curtain of the temple from top to bottom (15:38) & confirmed the destruction of an institution that no longer could bear fruits of justice & mercy (11:12-21). It was also a cry “for those who hunger & thirst for God’s Reign of justice & peace” (Megan McKenna).

The tempted Christ, the naked Adam on the cross, kept faith in the loving Father’s plan of service in suffering & thus transformed the cruel cross into the new tree of knowledge, power, justice & life.
Every Christian’s cross, whether small or big, is the burning bush of Christ’s faithful presence in each moment.
This is beautifully expressed in the following lines from Vassar Miller’s poem, “A Duller Moses”:

“On time’s bramble bush impaling me
Each moment is a thorn aflame with God
Burning within, without me night & day.”

“I tremble dreaming between sleep & sleep
That He, both radiance & incendiary,
In my heart lies as on the cross He lay
(Which bed is fouler?), making my bone-heap –
Oh, monstrous miracle! – God’s sanctuary.”

With the breath & cry of “Love’s bitten tongue,” Christ on the cross creates a living temple in the believer’s heart, where echo the cries of brothers & sisters suffering with their crosses & hungering for divine justice & peace.

Private and Public Sinners

Only Luke’s gospel has the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Lk 18:9-14). The parable shows divine acceptance of the public sinner who humbly requests for mercy, on the one hand, and divine disapproval of the private sinner who looks down on the public sinner on the other.
Why were tax collectors considered public sinners? According to E.P. Sanders ("Historical Figure of Jesus," 1993), the tax collectors included customs officers, and they were mostly petty functionaries. The small towns around Galilee’s large lake (the Sea of Galilee) exported and imported goods. The customs officers collected taxes on the exported and imported commodities. In Galilee, these collections were then turned over to the puppet king, Herod Antipas, who in turn had to pay tribute to Rome.

There were indeed tax collectors who cheated and enriched themselves by charging more than the required amounts. Yet even if some were honest, tax collectors were seen as instruments of Herod and Rome, instruments of oppression, and thus they would be disliked by people in general.

As for the private sinner, he is usually blind to his hidden sins or sinful attitudes of arrogance, envy, and resentment. Jesus was chosen and sent to bring about “recovery of sight for the blind” especially for the spiritually blind (Lk 4:18). The merciful Father wants the conversion of both private and public sinners and their adoption of a new way of seeing that will lead to their reconciliation with God and with one another.
Another private sinner in Luke’s gospel is the older son in the parable of the gracious father with two (lost) sons (15:11-32) which is the longest parable in all the gospels and is exclusive to Luke. The younger son left his father and became a loser and public sinner, “but the older son has never really been there [with his father].” For years he has been “slaving for his father, resentful, selfish and angry” (Megan McKenna).
“Luke presents the mission and message of Jesus as a prophetic critique of the status quo” (Dennis Sweetland). This status quo is a world of separation, inequity or enmity between rich and poor, insider and outsider, male and female, private sinner and public sinner.
Before his conversion, Saul was a private sinner: “a Pharisee…[whose] legalistic righteousness [was] faultless” (Philippians 3:5-6). As an apostle, Paul preached the Gospel in season and out of season, and suffered as a good soldier of Christ.
The apostle experienced persecution in which he said, “no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me.” Yet like Christ on the cross, he humbly prayed for those who turned their back on him: “may it not be held against them” (2 Timothy 4:16).
We have all sinned. May we accept this deep truth with faith in Christ and be ready to work and suffer for the Gospel of reconciliation until our last days when we can thank God and with deep humility say, like the apostle, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).

Persistent Widow

Authentic faith, constant prayer, and the pursuit of justice are inseparable in the parable of the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8). To win over opponents, we need both to lift up our hands in prayer and to act, work, or fight, as illustrated in the story of the battle between the Israelites and the Amalekites (Exodus 17:8-16).
In the parable of the widow, who was one of the most vulnerable figures in ancient society, she faced a formidable obstacle to her pursuit of justice: “a judge who neither feared God nor cared about people” (Lk 18:2). The widow, however, was courageous and persistent.
Somebody cheated or harmed her. Perhaps she was poor and yet her son did not fulfill his duty to provide her some support. Or she had no son, and although still marriageable, her brother-in-law refused to fulfill his duty of marrying her and securing her future. Maybe her adversary gave the judge a bribe.
Because her persistent pleas were wearing him out, the unjust judge decided to grant her justice. He did the right thing for an inferior or selfish reason.
Are we like the courageous widow or the unjust judge? Don’t we sometimes do the right thing for the wrong or inferior reason?
The story-teller and theologian, Megan McKenna, is right: God is like the persistent widow rather than the unjust judge. God is not someone either selfish or indifferent whom we have to pressure, shake up, or wear out through persistent prayers in order that we can get what we want or what we think is good.
God is like the widow. Even though God’s word through the prophets at many times had been ignored or rejected, God persisted and sent the beloved Son to set free all who are imprisoned or oppressed by sin and selfishness. Even though the Son was rejected and executed shamefully, his Spirit remains and keeps on calling us to conversion, justice, peace and mercy.
Some Church leader should put up a "Chapel (or Shrine) of (God) the Persistent Widow." Do we have the deep faith to see God in the widow or in the weak or vulnerable person who persists to seek what is right? May the Lord increase our faith: may the Lord help us to be constant in prayer and steadfast in the pursuit of justice.