This is how God created us to live: in close community with other people, sharing the sorrows and joys of our lives. Life’s most joyous times are enhanced by this kind of mutuality, and the most trying days are eased by knowing that we are not alone.
Holy Week is a time of both extremes—from the wrenching loss of Good Friday to the triumphant exultation of Easter Sunday. The women named in the Gospels give us an image of life that is traveled in community. The women at the tomb face deep sorrow and astonishing joy in quick succession, and they bear witness to it all together.
I wonder if they stayed in close contact for the rest of their lives, bound together by this almost unbelievable shared experience. Whatever they were before those days, as they moved together through Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday, they became a community.
The message is an excerpt from “Women at the tomb” by Jordan Miller-Stubbendick in the April 2020 issue of Gather magazine. Today is Wednesday in Holy Week.
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