Stephen
Terry, Director
The
Risen Lord
Commentary
for the September 28, 2024, Sabbath School Lesson
"But when they looked
up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man
dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 'Don't
be alarmed,' he said. 'You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was
crucified. He has risen! He is not here.'"
Mark 16:4-6, NIV
This week, I have spent many
hours in a group dedicated to Physics. I enjoy such groups because science has opened
a universe of metaphors for understanding my faith. While some see science as opposed
to faith, this seems strange to me. If, as I believe, God created the universe
and everything it contains, how can science, the study of that universe, speak
ill of him? We look at our own bodies and marvel at the wonders they encapsulate.
Philosophers through the ages have pondered on these wonders. What produces the
miracle of consciousness? How is it possible that this collection of molecules
which consists mostly of space in which these atoms are suspended be so self-aware?
Yet we are.
I wonder about those who never
ask these questions or ponder their answers, those for whom every matter is
settled and beyond question. If we are to be endowed with eternal life, what
will we do for that eternity? If we refuse to look beyond our own doorstep in
this life, what of the world to come? Does a centuries old experience answer
that question for those who refuse to engage with the wonders that are out there?
The Puritans who came to North America in the 17th century had the
opportunity to answer that question and, in the process, create a utopia in North
America. Instead, their faith led them to create a grim hell on earth. They
hated those who questioned their faith, even banning and murdering Quakers who
had a different, more progressive perspective. They drove Roger Williams to
Rhode Island Plantation, where he established the first democratic government, allowing
each person to worship according to their faith without civil penalties for
that belief. The Puritan's cheerless society gave us the Salem Witch Trials
that targeted women especially and murdered the innocent upon the testimony of
children. This is what can happen when faith isolates itself from science and
turns inward. I need not mention those men of science in Europe who had either
recanted their findings or were slaughtered by the church. While the Quakers
left much of that behind on those bloody shores where persecution reigned for
so long, the Puritans did not.
The Seventh-day Adventist
denomination had its beginnings in New England and in the milieu of Puritanism.
Its unwillingness to question its centuries-old dogma in the light of ongoing
scientific discovery has its roots in the Puritanical spirit and a striving for
perfectionism as a means to salvation. There is less grace than they would have
us believe and more self-righteous perfection than they would be willing to
admit. A prime example of this is the belief that men are holier than women. In
the context of Puritanical perfectionism, this means that women are inimically
flawed, by nature opposed to God. Eve succumbing to temptation in Eden is
offered as evidence of the imperfection of God's creation, at least as it pertains
to women. Even Adam blames God for such a flaw. (Genesis
3:12) Every time we deny the equality of women, we say, "Adam is right. It
is God's fault for creating women." It is no accident that the Salem trials targeted
women. It is the evil fruit of a poisonous tree, a tree we continue to nurture,
encouraging it to bloom and bear a heavy crop of despair for half of humanity.
Jesus' ministry made a concerted
effort to put humanity back on the right path. When God told Eve what the lot
of women would be after Eden, he was not cursing her. He was revealing what Adam's
desire to blame his wife and through her to blame God would bring to pass in a
world where mankind lived to deflect blame from himself. Man has followed true
to that scenario. He continually shifts the blame for evil in the world from
himself to God and since he cannot punish God, he acts as a tyrant to
womankind, increasing her suffering while relieving none of his own. Until we
accept responsibility and recognize we are to blame for the evil in the world
and stop blaming God for our own acting out, this will not change.
When Jesus met the Samaritan woman
at the well (John
4:1-42), this was a woman who had been so beaten down by men that she only
dared come to the well in the heat of the day when no one else from her village
would be there. Jesus knew her past and the suffering she had endured. In
asking for a drink of water, he demonstrated that she had value, that she was
capable of blessing another. The woman had not only been abused by men, but her
answer showed that she had suffered racism from the Jews. Incredulous that this
Jew would even speak to her, she was defensive, but lovingly, he revealed he
knew all about her, and it did not drive him from her in disgust. He embraced
her pain and gave value to her as a woman and her ideas and desire to be
valued. This was mankind as this woman had never experienced. He was not trying
to work an angle to bring her under his control. She could not believe what she
was hearing and experiencing and ran into town to tell others, or rather to ask
others. Her years of abuse had taught her not to make any assertions herself,
but to ask others what they thought. Those who followed her back to the well
brought them face to face with the Messiah. Yet, they refused to believe
because of what she had said, stating, "It is no longer because of what you
said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is
indeed the Savior of the world." How hard it is for mankind to admit that the
testimony of a woman is in any way sufficient.
This account parallels what
happened at the tomb once Jesus had risen on the first day of the week. He had
been placed in the tomb on Friday, what we call Good Friday today. Then he
rested in the tomb over the Sabbath according to the commandment, the day we now
call Saturday. Early on the next day, the first day of the week, a day we call
Easter Sunday today, he rose from death, leaving an empty tomb. The first ones
to discover the tomb was open and empty were women. Most notably, Mary
Magdalene was present. Her past was not much different than the Samaritan woman
at the well. With tears in her eyes, she pleaded to know where the body of Jesus
had been taken, not realizing he stood there with her. Once she realized who he
was, she was drawn to him. He responded by telling her to tell the others. Like
the Samaritan woman, she ran into town with the news of the Messiah. The Gospel
of Mark is conflicted about this. The earliest text for chapter 16 has the
women saying nothing because they were afraid. What would they have been afraid
of? The judgment that they were crazy by the men who followed Jesus for more
than three years? A later emendation of the text regarding Mary Magdalene reads,
"When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not
believe it." The later gospels were kinder to the women than Mark and that may
be why his gospel was added to after the fact.
Ironically, as Seventh-day
Adventists we are officially willing to see Jesus as resurrected and his call
for us to carry out the gospel commission, but we typically envision that as
men in western-style suits and ties carrying the good news to barely literate
tribal cultures around the world. That narrow, outdated vision of the work is perpetuating
several stereotypes that have long since died though we daily resurrect them as
though those malignant methods and ideas that are killing our church were
themselves as holy as the risen Savior. We are beginning to understand that the
seeds of the gospel have produced a sufficient crop in other lands that
indigenous means are adequate to forward the work in those regions. I hope we are
learning not to act like a big Caucasian brother, micromanaging the work in
every division. The racism and off-putting condescension of that should have
become self-evident by now.
But one of the biggest hurdles
we need to overcome is our ongoing support of blaming women, and through them,
blaming God for our present situation. Men are not holier than women. They are
not less liable for the evil in the world. Refusing to ordain women says the
opposite. It says they can never attain the perfection of mankind. They are a
flawed Creation. God made a mistake. Until we can overcome such thinking and
see them equally and fully loved by God, we show we have never grown beyond
Adam blaming Eve in Eden. If Eden is restored, it will not be Eden with that
mindset.