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FROM THE BEGINNING OF THESE REFLECTIONS, A MAJOR premise has been my persuasion that Jesus’ maturing sense of mission and vocation was not something separable from the social tissue of his life—its organic particularity, the extended web of personal relationships by which he was bound to his countrymen and contemporaries and to their common history. Notwithstanding his partiality for solitary prayer, the Gospels do not portray Jesus as a hermit who made occasional visits into town. They picture him, on the contrary, as a prayerful man actively involved with real people and surrounded by friends and disciples.
Some of these specific and identified people were women.
For this reason, the title of the present reflection is chosen with particular attention to its definite article—the women. That is to say, our interest here is not in Jesus’ relationship with women generally but with the particular women in whose company we find him—mother, friends, disciples, and beneficiaries of his mercy. These women appear to have been every bit as individual and unique as any of the apostles. The Good Shepherd called them by name (for example, Luke 10:41; John 20:16).
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Summarizing the Christian female discipleship, Luke testifies that its company was not only numerous but also a source of concrete support in Jesus’ ministry:
He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God, and the Twelve with him, and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities—Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others1—who provided for him from their resources. (Luke 8:1–3)
Luke’s reference to the “seven demons” driven from Mary Magdalene (cf. Mark 16:9) prompts the suspicion that some of these women were the recipients of Jesus’ healing and mercy. One thinks, for instance, of the “daughter of Abraham” whom Jesus healed in the synagogue, that lady “who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way straighten upright” (Luke 13:10–17). Then, there was another “daughter” who, until she touched the hem of his garment, had been hemorrhaging for twelve years (Luke 8:42–48). We recall, as well, the wife of Jairus, who watched Jesus raise her own daughter from the dead (Luke 8:49–56).
In addition to the Galilean women who traveled with him and the Twelve, we know of others associated with Jesus’ ministry. They included the two sisters of Lazarus at Bethany—that family of which John observes, “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (John 11:5).
Nor was his ministry limited to Jewish women. Both Mark (7:24–30) and Matthew (15:21–28) testify that he expelled a demon from the daughter of a Gentile woman, and John records a lengthy conversation with a woman of Samaria (John 4:6–26).
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In some instances, the stories of these women, narrated in greater detail, call for a more detailed examination, which we will take up now.
A FUNERAL PROCESSION
Luke tells us that Jesus, arriving at the gate of a Galilean town called Nain, is accompanied not only by his regular disciples but also by a large crowd that follows him to the town. The village gateway is narrow, so these companions, endeavoring to enter, completely fill it (Luke 7:11–16).
Alas, the congestion at the gate is a disadvantage to a second group—also large—which is simultaneously trying to leave the town; this one is a funeral cortege, accompanying the body of a recently deceased young man. The two crowds encounter each other at the gate. One side, it would seem, must give way to the other . . . or is there a third option?
Actually, there is. Jesus walks up to the funeral procession and stops it:
He went into a city called Nain; and many of his disciples went with him, and a large crowd. And when he came near the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother; and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the city was with her. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Weep no more.” Then he came and touched the open coffin, and the pallbearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, rise up, I tell you!” So he who was dead sat up and began to speak. And he presented him to his mother. (Luke 7:11–16)
Luke conveys the action of Jesus in this scene through five verbs: he sees the widow, he feels compassion for her, he speaks, he touches the bier, and he presents the risen son to his mother. Each of these is a human act, something done in the flesh.
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First, Luke tells us, “the Lord saw her.” The Gospels testify rather frequently that Jesus really did see people. Individual persons were not blurry and indistinct. He regarded them closely, attentive to their circumstances and needs. Thus, “Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him” (John 1:47); he saw the paralytic lying at the pool of Bethesda (5:5–6); “he saw a man who was blind from birth” (9:1); he saw the sister’s tears at the grave of Lazarus (11:33); and, as he hung on the cross, Jesus “saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing by” (19:26).
This scene at Nain is one of three in which the Evangelist Luke speaks of Jesus seeing the special need and circumstances of individual women. The Nain story is profitably compared with the account of Jesus healing the crippled “daughter of Abraham” in the synagogue, where he first sees the woman in distress (Luke 13:12). Near the end of his ministry, Luke says, Jesus “looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, but he saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites” (Luke 21:1–2; contrast Mark 12:42). Jesus’ habit of personal observation and assessment—his imaginative perception of individual needs—is portrayed in the Gospels as the impetus of many blessings.
Second, says Luke, “He had compassion on her.” The root of the action in this scene is Jesus’ spontaneous gaze of sympathy. Not often does the New Testament identify Jesus’ inner emotions, but this is one of the places.2 Recognizing the dead man’s mother as a widow with no other children—and, thus, no further means of support—Jesus seizes the hour.
Moreover, his compassion here is modified by a significant detail: the dead son is an “only child.” In fact, this detail—only child—is a feature quite distinctive to Luke. The other gospels never use this expression to describe a beneficiary of Jesus’ blessings. In Luke, however, this action at Nain is the first of three miracles Jesus works for the benefit of parents of an “only child.”3 Luke also identifies the daughter of Jairus (Luke 8:42),4 and the epileptic son (Luke 9:38)5 as “only” children. This Lukan attention points to a particular social aspect of Jesus’ compassion: his enhanced sympathy for parents who would lose an “only child.”
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Third, Jesus speaks, first to the mother and then to her dead son. To each he speaks with authority: “Weep no more”6 and “Young man, rise up, I tell you.”
In all three gospel accounts of Jesus raising someone from the dead, he does so by speaking directly to the dead person. In addition to the present story, there are the instances of Jairus’s daughter (“Darling, arise”—Mark 5:41) and Jesus’ friend at Bethany (“Lazarus, come forth”—John 11:43).
In all three places, the voice of Christ is the instrument of resurrection:
Amen, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. (John 5:25)
Fourth, Jesus “came and touched the open coffin,” at which point “the pallbearers stood still.” Here we have more than a traffic jam at a village gateway; this funeral march, this procession to the cemetery, goes no further. It is over. The funeral is called off.
Luke takes special care here to portray the living Jesus as triumphant over death. Hence, it is significant that he refers to Jesus in this story as the Lord: “When the Lord saw her.” Now, this term “Lord”—ho Kyrios—is the title by which the early Christians normally designated the risen Messiah, victorious over death and the grave:
Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. (Acts 2:36)7
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Although the Bethlehem angels had called Jesus “the Lord Messiah” (Luke 2:11), the scene at Nain is the first time Luke uses his narrator’s voice to refer to Jesus by this important title. From this point on, Luke will frequently speak of Jesus as “the Lord.”8 That is to say, the victory over death at Nain is a turning point in the Lukan narrative; from here on in Luke’s account, Jesus is Lord.
Fifth, referring to the dead son, Luke says that Jesus “presented him to his mother.” This clause, which repeats word-for-word the Greek text of 1 Kings 17:23, puts the reader in mind of the prophet Elijah, who raised the “only son” of the widow of Zarephath (cf. Luke 4:25). Evidently the witnesses of this miracle also thought of that earlier story about a prophet because they exclaimed, “A great prophet has risen among us.”
This story of the widow’s son, found only in Luke, serves the overall integrity and message of his gospel. By inserting it into the narrative sequence he inherited from Mark, Luke prepares the reader for the inquiry Jesus will soon receive from John the Baptist: “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” (Luke 7:20). Jesus’ response to John’s query will include the detail, “dead people are raised” (7:22). Luke’s insertion of the event at Nain serves to justify the response that Jesus sends back to John.
JACOB’S WELL
Only John tells us what Jesus did at the Samaritan well:
So he came to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from his journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. (John 4:5–8)
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The woman is surprised at the request—or at least pretends to be—for two reasons: First, the culture of the day discouraged a man from addressing an unknown woman. Second, Jews generally avoided dealings with Samaritans. Both objections are conveyed in her answer: “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (John 4:9, emphasis added).
Thus begins a lengthy dialogue, in which Jesus offers to give this woman “living water,” a theological metaphor she is unable to grasp (John 4:1–15). Then, by way of being practical and getting down to business, he tells her, “Go, call your husband, and come here” (4:16). Jesus knows, of course, that she has no husband, a fact she readily admits. And here Jesus comes to the nub of the woman’s moral state:
You have well said, “I have no husband,” for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly. (John 4:17–18)
Now the discussion turns very practical, indeed!
When Jesus requested that the woman bring her husband, he was quite aware of her dubious marital situation. His request to the woman was an example of rhetorical pretense.
Indeed, this “request” was of a piece with Jesus’ occasional recourse to the rhetorical device known as erotema, something said—or more often asked—for the hidden purpose of soliciting reflection and/or taking a conversation in a particular direction. As we shall see later, this device was especially adept for springing a surprise.9
Put on the spot this way, our Samaritan lady decides to pose another theological question, this one less . . . well, personal:
Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. (John 4:19–20)
There ensues a further conversation on the point of proper worship, and then, in reply to the woman’s comment about the Messiah, Jesus tells her, “I who speak to you am he” (John 4:21–26).
The discussion comes abruptly to an end when the apostles arrive, and the Samaritan woman hurries off to tell her fellow citizens about the stranger she encountered at the well: “Come, see a man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” (4:29). When she introduces them to Jesus, they reach some conclusions of their own:
Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world. (John 4:42)
John’s story of the Samaritan woman—a story he surely knew from the lady’s own account—portrays a growth in her faith. As the narrative progresses, we observe a development in her understanding of Jesus, a development indicated in the various ways she addresses him. When she first meets Jesus, he is called simply “a Jew” (John 4:9).
This is important to the story as a whole because Jesus himself will presently declare, “Salvation is of the Jews” (4:22). On this woman’s lips, nonetheless, the designation “Jew” indicates two things: First, it says that she assesses Jesus only within a certain class of people. He is not yet a distinguishable person. And second, the word Jew indicates the woman’s sense of separation from Jesus, because “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.”
Next, she addresses Jesus as “Sir” (John 4:11; presumably the Aramaic Mar). The woman is making a significant step here in terms of personal respect. It indicates a change of attitude of her part. Then, within four verses “Sir” becomes “prophet” (4:19), when Jesus directs the woman’s attention to her own moral failings. The conversation next takes a new bound forward when Jesus identifies himself as the Messiah. Finally, when the other Samaritans meet him, he is called “the Savior of the world.” This is a considerable doctrinal development within a single story!
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The woman from Samaria has now come a long way. Starting out that day, hardly suspecting what lay ahead, she laboriously carried her sins to the well, where she met a Jew, who asked her for a drink of water. The Jew presently became a “Sir,” and then a “prophet” who reminded her that she was a sinner. No matter, though, for he did not press the point. He was, after all, the Messiah. And because this Messiah was likewise the Savior of the world, he knew exactly what to do with her sins.
A GENTILE
One of the most striking—and challenging—encounters in Jesus’ life was his meeting with a Gentile woman north of Galilee. Matthew describes her approach:
Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.” (Matthew 15:21–22)
So many gospel stories start this way: a person comes to Jesus—a blind man, say, or a leper, or a centurion concerned about his son—and this person is invariably helped, most often without delay. Consequently, the reader expects Jesus simply to tell this woman, “Why, certainly, go your way, your daughter is healed.”
Instead, Matthew informs us, “But he answered her not a word.”
Oof, this is tough! The woman persists in her request, however, to the distress of the disciples, who “came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she cries out after us’” (Matthew 15:23).10 And, as though the woman were not sufficiently discouraged, Jesus says to her, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). At this point, we Gentile readers can hardly believe our ears!
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This woman, however, just will not give up: “Then she came and prostrated before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me!’” (Matthew 15:25). The scene is becoming embarrassing. Can things get worse?
Yes, they can—and do: “But he answered and said, ‘It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the puppies.’” Oh, my! Is Jesus calling this Gentile a dog? No wonder the gospel of Luke does not relate this story!
Then, all of a sudden, the story changes, and it is the woman who changes it. Like Jesus’ mother at Cana, she gets pushy with the Savior: “Yes, Lord,” she responds, “yet even the puppies eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”
In the end, of course, “her daughter was healed from that very hour” (Matthew 15:28), but the reader may be left with the feeling that the whole transaction was excessively painful and that Jesus, at least for a while, was acting terribly out of character. What should be said about this?
Not for a moment do I believe Jesus was insulting this woman. Once again, I take his silence and then his reference to puppies as a rhetorical pretense, very much like his request that the Samaritan woman should summon her husband.
What was Jesus’ purpose here? In Matthew’s gospel he clearly intended to try this woman’s faith. Indeed, it is her faith that he recommends: “Ma’am, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire” (Matthew 15:28, emphasis added). A friend of mine once compared this lady’s faith to that of Abraham, as he “haggled a price” with God over the fate of Sodom.
That is to say, rhetorical considerations provide the key to the conversation between Jesus and this Gentile woman. Perhaps this point is more clearly expressed in Mark’s version of the story, where she is known as “a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth” (Mark 7:26).
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In Mark’s account, the woman is praised not for her faith but for her “word”—her manner of expression: dia touton ton logon. Jesus admits that this woman has bested him in the conversation! He tells her, in effect, “Ma’am, you certainly have a way with words.” Jesus recognizes the good logic and superior style in which the woman humbly asserts, “Even the puppies under the table eat from the children’s crumbs.” The lady is not only persistent; she is also eloquent. And Jesus is . . . well, impressed!
A DESPERATE CASE
As the Savior begins to walk toward the home of Jairus—where he will raise that man’s daughter from the dead—a large crowd of followers is pressing around him. Hiding within this crowd is a woman who, strictly speaking, is not supposed to be there, mixing indiscriminately with other people. She is ritually unclean.
Twelve years earlier, this woman began to have her period, something that she had taken as normal since about the age of twelve. She did not worry about this; it was a scheduled inconvenience, as it were, a nuisance at best, something women had experienced ever since the day Eve took that first bite of the forbidden fruit. She was confident, however, that the bleeding would be over in a few days.
Meanwhile, this lady recognized a social fact: she was ritually impure, according to the Mosaic Law. And as ritually impure, she suffered a measure of monthly ostracism: For instance, she did not eat at the common table with her family during this time. She was forbidden, moreover, to prepare the family’s meals. She slept alone and was prohibited from touching her husband and children for a few days. The details were all worked out in the Torah. It would be over soon; the proper sacrifice would be offered, and she could return to her normal life and routine.
Much to her chagrin, the bleeding did not stop. It continued for a whole month, and then a second month, and then a third. At some point she consulted physicians about the problem, but to no avail. Indeed, according to the gospel of Mark, her consultation with the doctors actually made things worse—a detail curiously omitted by “the beloved physician,” the Evangelist Luke!
By the end of the year, the lady was in terrible shape. She suffered from severe anemia from the loss of blood and iron. Her nerves were on edge. She had not touched another human being in twelve months. Instead of enduring ostracism for a few days, she started to suffer the emotional ravages of total isolation.
Her responses grew erratic and strange, as depression became chronic. By the end of a year, the woman’s self-image and sense of personal dignity were severely impaired. But a second year followed, and this one much worse.
Let us not regard this woman as a fictional character in one of Jesus’ parables. She is a real person, whose very soul and body are being destroyed by a condition over which she has no control. By the time we find her in the gospel story,11 this lady has suffered the trauma and devastation of her condition for twelve whole years. Meanwhile, her children have grown up, and now she has grandchildren, whom she is forbidden to touch. Life is passing her by, and her sole hope is that it will pass by quickly.
She is bent and beaten. Those who knew her could say, “Who has believed our report? There is no beauty in her. She is despised and rejected of men, a woman of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We turned our faces, as it were, away from her. She is smitten by God and afflicted.”
Like Job, she longs to die—anything to escape the fate in which her hopeless existence is reduced to the confines of a coffin: sick beyond measure, emotionally isolated, physically weak, unable to think clearly, totally listless in mind and body, and deprived of elementary hope—a skeleton of herself.
Nonetheless, the lady has, of late, heard a rumor about the wonder-worker, Jesus of Nazareth. There is word on the street that healings have been conveyed by the mere touch of his clothing (Matthew 14:36).
Clinging desperately to this final chance of deliverance, she resolves even to violate the Law by hiding herself in a crowd. Unnoticed, she inches forward to the point where her extended finger, reaching through the closely packed mass of other bodies, can barely touch the hem of Jesus’ garment. “And immediately,” says Luke, “her flow of blood stopped” (8:44). She feels the sudden surge of health rushing into her wasted frame. The trauma of twelve years is over!
Yes, it is over, but something new is just about to begin. This lady is not the only one who feels something when Jesus’ garment is touched. Jesus, also, perceives that power—dynamis—has gone out from him, and he is unwilling to let the matter lie. Turning about, he declares, “Somebody touched me, for I perceived power going out from me.”
Indeed, somebody. For twelve years this woman has thought of herself as a nobody, but to Jesus she is somebody. He will not permit her to be concealed, lost, and absorbed in a crowd. She has an identity. She is somebody! Now healed in body by the physical act of touching, she must begin the healing of her spirit by being spoken to and reassured.
So, he who calls each of his sheep by name requires the lady to come forward and be identified. Now, says Luke,
when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before him, she declared to him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched him and how she was healed immediately. (Luke 8:47)
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Jesus then declares the word of personal reassurance, which begins the healing of her soul: “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
It is legitimate to wonder what the lady thought of this reference to her faith. She probably felt she had no faith at all. In her case, faith had disguised itself as desperation. Yet, weak as it was—no larger than a mustard seed—this faith had filled the finger she placed on the fringe of Jesus’ robe. It had been sufficient; the mountain was moved and thrown into the sea.
TWO SCENES IN BETHANY
Although Jesus sometimes spoke reproachfully to his disciples (cf. Mark 8:17–21, 33), he was reluctant, it seems, to let anyone else do so. Thus, we find him, on occasion, defending these disciples against their critics and enemies (Luke 5:33–35; 6:1–5). The most notable instance, surely, involved Jesus’ concern for their safety at the moment of his arrest: “If you seek me, let these go their way” (John 18:8).
Jesus’ instinct to protect his loved ones extended in a special way to the women. In the Gospels we find not a single example of someone criticizing a woman in Jesus’ presence and getting away with it.
The Gospels are emphatic on this point. For instance, on the occasion when he restored a crippled woman in the synagogue, Jesus became incensed and shouted “Hypocrite!” to the synagogue leader who embarrassed the woman and blamed her for being healed on the Sabbath (Luke 13:10–16).
Likewise, Jesus was quick to defend a sinful woman against the self-righteous sneers of a Pharisee named Simon (Luke 7:36–50). Most memorable, perhaps, was the occasion when he put to shame the accusers of an adulteress (John 8:2–11).
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We know of two instances when Jesus came to the defense of Mary of Bethany, one of those three siblings of whom we are told, “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (John 11:5).
The first of these stories—recorded by Luke (10:38–42)—describes the time when Jesus came to “a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha welcomed him into her house.” This last detail is important: Jesus came to Martha’s house. Martha was in charge, and, to make Jesus feel welcome, she went to great pains, “distracted by all the preparations that had to be made” (Luke 10:40).
As the day wore on, and the finishing times for the various dishes started to converge—the salad to be mixed, the roasted corn to be stirred, the fish to be cut, the cups to be filled, the table to be set, and the bread to come out of the oven—Martha’s dedicated industry began to assume a note of impatience. One of the reasons she was so busy—or at least according to Martha—was that this younger sister of hers was not helping with the chores: “Mary, seated at the feet of Jesus, was listening12 to his word.”
When Martha felt she could endure it no more, she mentioned this concern to their guest: “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her, then, to give me a hand.” That is to say, Martha accused her sister of wasting time when there was work to be done. It must have seemed to her a perfectly reasonable concern, and Jesus, she was confident, would certainly agree.
To her consternation, however, his response not only defended Martha’s sister but went on to assert the superiority of Mary’s peaceful occupation:
Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But only one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the better13 portion, which will not be taken away from her. (Luke 10:41–42)
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In order to understand how Mary’s occupation represented the “better portion,” it is useful to consider her activity—sitting and listening to Jesus’ word—within the context of Luke’s larger story. For starts, this description supports a comparison of Mary of Bethany with Jesus’ own mother, who “kept all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19, 51).
Both Jesus’ mother and Mary of Bethany are portrayed as true contemplatives, who embody the model described in the parable of the sower. In Luke’s version of that parable, the seeds “that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good [agathe] heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience” (Luke 8:15). For Luke, that is to say, true contemplation involves the hearing of God’s word in purity of heart. For Luke, both Jesus’ mother and Mary of Bethany are portrayed as occupied with the “one thing necessary.”
Jesus’ second defense of Mary of Bethany is narrated by John (12:1–8). It was she, John tells us, who, just six days before the Passover, “took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair.”
Whereas in the former story, Mary was reprimanded for wasting time, in the present instance she is accused of wasting money. Her critic now is none other than Judas Iscariot, that famous apostolic bookkeeper and efficiency expert, a man who knew a thing or two about finances: “Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred silver pieces and given to the poor?”
John, the narrator, aware that Judas is about to sell Jesus out for a fraction of that amount, lets his readers in on a dirty little secret: Judas, he explains, “said this, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it.”
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The reader is struck by Jesus’ restraint in this story. He says very little here to Judas Iscariot, even though he knew “it was he who would betray Him, being one of the twelve” (John 6:71). Jesus does, however, defend Mary of Bethany by placing her action in the context of the murder to which Judas’s betrayal will lead: “Let her be, that she may preserve it for the day of my burial.”
Whereas the first story contrasts Mary’s “better portion” with the good activities of her sister, this second story opposes her loving generosity with the evil being plotted by Judas.
AN OFFICIAL LINK
Alone among the four Evangelists, Luke tells the story of Jesus’ judicial appearance before Herod Antipas on the day of the Crucifixion (23:6–12).
This is the same Herod whom Luke mentions closer to the beginning of his gospel, at the inauguration of the ministry of John the Baptist (3:1). Thus, in Luke’s literary construction, these two references to Herod Antipas serve to frame Jesus’ public ministry, which, as that Evangelist was careful to note, extended to
all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John to that day when he was taken up from us. (Acts 1:21–22)
Luke also tells how the animosity of Herod Antipas toward Jesus (cf. Luke 13:31) was later directed against Jesus’ disciples (cf. Acts 12:1, 11). Indeed, Luke regarded the collusion of Antipas and Pontius Pilate, which was sealed at Jesus’ trial (Luke 23:12), as the fulfillment of David’s prophecy (Psalm 2:1–2) of the gathering of the world’s leaders “against the Lord and against His Christ” (Acts 4:25–27).
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It is significant that Luke, when he tells us of Jesus’ appearance before Antipas on Good Friday, does more than state the bare event. He goes into some detail about how
Herod, with his men of war, treated him with contempt and mocked him, arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him back to Pilate. (Luke 23:11)
This description implies that Luke had access to an eyewitness account of the event, an event at which, as far as we know, no Christian disciple was present. The historian rightly inquires how Luke knew all this.
Moreover, in addition to these external items of the narrative, Luke even addresses the motive and internal dispositions of Antipas, saying that
he was exceedingly glad; for he had desired for a long time to see him, because he had heard many things about him, and he hoped to see some miracle done by him. (23:8)
Once again the historian properly wonders how Luke was privy to these sentiments. What was his source for this material, a source apparently not available to the other Evangelists?
Luke himself provides a hint toward answering this historical question when he mentions a certain Chuza, described as a “steward” of Herod Antipas. The underlying Greek noun here is epitropos, the same word that refers to the vineyard foreman in Matthew 20:8, but in the Lukan context it more likely points to a high political office, such as a chief of staff.
It does not tax belief to imagine that such a person would be present at Jesus’ arraignment before Herod Antipas. Indeed, this would be exactly the sort of person we would expect to be present on that occasion, when Herod was in Jerusalem to observe the Passover. Furthermore, Chuza is also the sort of person we would expect to be familiar with Herod’s own thoughts, sentiments, and motives with respect to Jesus.
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And how did Chuza’s information come to Luke? Most certainly through Chuza’s wife, Joanna, whom Luke includes among the Galilean women who traveled with Jesus and the apostles, providing for him “from their substance” (Luke 8:3). Joanna, whom Luke is the only Evangelist to mention by name, was surely his special channel of information that only he, among the Evangelists, seems to have had. Married to a well-placed political figure in the Galilean court, Joanna was apparently a lady of some means, who used her resources to provide for the traveling ministry of Jesus and the apostles. Acting in this capacity, she must have been very well-known among the earliest Christians. Only Luke, however, speaks of her by name, a fact that seems to indicate that he had interviewed her in the composition of his gospel.
We can guess that Joanna’s adherence to Jesus was not without its difficulties for her domestic life. Here she was, the wife of a high political official, providing support for someone who would die as a political criminal.
Her loyalty was supremely rewarded, however, because the risen Lord saw fit to number Joanna among the holy myrrh-bearers, those surprised women who “came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared,” found the stone rolled away from the tomb, then prostrated before the two herald angels of the Pascha, and subsequently “told these things to the apostles” (Luke 24:1, 5–7, 10). One suspects that Joanna also had a thing or two to tell her husband, Chuza, later that day. In her adherence to Jesus, she had put all her eggs in one basket; it turned out to be the Easter basket.