Women in white raiment

by John Lemley

SEEKING THE LIVING AMONG THE DEAD.

After the body was taken down from the cross, Salome, with others, “beheld where He was laid.” O, this loving, faithful woman, true to her nature, how she clung to her Lord to the very last. And on the morning of the resurrection, “as it began to dawn,” we find Salome among the company of women hastening to the sepulchre to complete the anointing of the body of our Lord which had been so hurriedly buried on the evening of the crucifixion. But, upon reaching the garden, these women were amazed to find the tomb open and empty. These women—Salome, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and others with them—came seeking a dead body, but, instead, they found a living angel, who asked, “Why seek ye the living among the dead?” “He is risen; He is not here; behold the place where they laid Him!”

What these women, in company with Salome, had seen was enough to fill them with astonishment, and what they had heard from the lips of the angel was enough to fill their hearts with joy. Wonderful that He whom they had mourned as dead was indeed alive again, though they could hardly believe it.

But Salome’s prayer for her sons had sure answer. To James was given the high honor of being the first apostolic martyr. John had the distinction of caring for the Virgin Mary during her last years, and, on Patmos, the little rocky isle of his banishment, where he could hear only the sea-bird’s cry and the melancholy wash of waves, he listened to apocalyptic thunderings that were enough to tear any common soul to tatters. He was permitted to put the capstone on the magnificent column of Holy Scripture, a column that had been forty centuries in building.

Salome, the peaceful and brave, at the last went gladly away to her reward; for she was sure that her sons, having drank of His cup, and been baptized with His baptism, were now seated with Him in the throne of His glory.

In connection with our Lord’s Galilean ministry, we find the name of Joanna mentioned. She was the wife of Chuza, the steward of Herod Antipas. No doubt she followed Jesus, and ministered to Him out of her substance, out of gratitude for having restored her child to health. Her husband was the nobleman who went all the way from Capernaum to Cana, and besought our Lord that He “would come down and heal His son, for he was at the point of death.” Joanna was both at the crucifixion, and is mentioned by name as being one of those who brought spices and ointments to embalm the body of our Lord on the morning of the resurrection.

These women must have possessed means, as well as a spirit of liberality. All this is very beautiful indeed.

The last woman in White Raiment during the ministry of our Lord, is the widow with two mites. Her act of benevolence has associated with it many tender and pathetic touches. The circumstances, so far as they relate to the ministry of our Lord, are inexpressibly sad. He had come down to the last day of His public teaching, and the last hour of that ministry. Indeed the time of His departure from the Temple was at hand. He had taught in their streets, by the wayside, in desert places, in the Temple. He had wept over Jerusalem that had seen so many of His mighty works, and as in mental vision He saw the coming doom, He sobbed out, “Oh if thou hadst known ... the things which belong to thy peace!” But they refused to know, and had finally rejected Him as they had rejected His teaching. The very tears of the suffering Saviour broke out in great sobs of grief in the words, “Ye would not!” So, in the very last act, all efforts having failed, He exclaims, “Behold your house,” it was no longer God’s house, “is left unto you desolate!” As Jesus on that last day, and at the close of the last hour of the day, closed the door of mercy, how that word, “DESOLATE” must have sounded through its God-forsaken courts.

At a time when such a burden of unrequited toil and sorrow was resting upon the grieved heart of Jesus, the touching incident of this poor widow comes to our view. Jesus had left the inner court of the Temple, and, on His way through the court of the women, paused over against the treasury to point out one more beautiful lesson to His disciples. The people were casting their offerings into the thirteen great chests set to receive their gifts. These offerings were gifts of the people, and had no reference to “tithes.” These Jews, though they had utterly failed to comprehend the “day of their visitation,” were, nevertheless, liberal givers. They did not content themselves with giving a tenth of their income. So it was the “freewill offering,” the love gifts, that Jesus was watching. Twice in Exodus, once in Deuteronomy and once in Leviticus had God commanded, “And none shall appear before Me empty.” Three times a year was every Jew required to come before the Lord, and not one time empty-handed. Never was there an exception for rich or for poor, for great or for small. Not a pauper from Dan to Beer-sheba, would have dared to come without his offerings. In these modern times a sickly sentimentality has well-nigh made void the commandment of God. He made no discrimination in favor of the poor. He that had little, gave little. He that had much, gave much. A lamb or a kid was an offering acceptable. If any were too poor to furnish either, “a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons” might be brought. If this was too much, a few “tablespoonfuls of fine flour” was enough, and any neighbor would furnish them these. The money value of gifts might be brought, but the law was inexorable, “None shall appear before Me empty-handed”—none at these great feasts. At all other times they might be brought, at these they must.