The Women of Holy Week

“Perhaps it is no wonder that women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross, they had never known a man like this Man, there never has been such another,” Dorothy Sayers wrote, considering the way women occupied a significant place in the life of Christ. 

The relationship between Mary and Elizabeth, the shared bond of two women bearing children, one bearing Christ and one bearing the one who prepared the way. Their friendship was so sweet and sincere, a model of what my own friendships should look like. The presence of Christ brought people closer to him, but also closer to each other. Women were the first to come together to worship Christ. 

But what of those bleak days of Friday and Saturday, when all hope felt lost, there the women still remained, still getting things done. They didn’t flee the crucifixion the way the disciples did; Mary was there to watch the death of her son, and John was there as well. Perhaps that is unfair to the disciples, perhaps his female followers were not under the same scrutiny of the Pharisees as the disciples were and had less to fear. But that has long been a theme woven throughout the Bible with tales of the bravery and cleverness of women making a difference. The rest of the world underestimated them and cast them aside, but with God they were made vessels of justice and faithfulness and became rocks of the Church — just look at Lydia, Phoebe, Junia, or Priscilla. 

On Maundy Thursday at my church, it is the tradition that women strip the altar at the end of the service, moving into Good Friday. The church lights dim as the women perform the ritual, solemnly folding the fabric, reminiscent of the women preparing the fabric to adorn Christ’s body, “What Wondrous Love Is This” playing softly as the altar is stripped bare, everything taken away, the Word removed. 

For my last few years, a tradition formed amongst my book club on Good Friday. All Good Friday we’d fast, stomach’s grumbling throughout the evening service, dressed in solemn colors. We’d all then walk back to the comfortable row house where our friends lived, and the fast would be broken with fresh bread and butter. Cups of tea or decaf coffee would be sipped in low candlelight, and everyone had brought their little books of poetry to read aloud. T.S. Eliot, Mary Oliver, and Wendell Berry were just a few of the names we’ve read. Something about the quiet and darkness, huddled in a room together, reminds me of what that first Good Friday must have been like, before Sabbath began. How the women would have walked together in the sudden darkness after the crucifixion. 

One of them would have walked beside Mary. John would have been there too, of course. But one of them would have held her arm as they walked away. No mother would have the strength to walk away from the crucifixion by herself.

Did Martha corral them all over to her house? Shaky and weary, they’d all sit around, in silence. Martha would set bread on the table. “We should all eat something,” she’d remark practically. 

Did they discuss who would provide the spices for his body? “I’ll have to drop them off at your house.” In that way women rally together, naturally organizing meal trains for the sick, the weary, those who have welcomed a new child, even in the death of Christ the women still planned. 

Was the place and time set between the Marys in the bitter night of Friday for when they’d walk to the tomb on Sunday? Of course they didn’t fully understand that in that dreadful night, in all their attempts at practicality and purpose, death was already beginning to work itself backwards. 

Saturday was a day of solemnity — it was sabbath so they would have kept to themselves, still trying to sort through all the emotions of Friday: was it true, had they really killed their rabbi? 

And then on Sunday, if they are like me they would have spent the morning crying, but told themselves “stiff upper lip” before it was time to meet up with one another. Eyes red from crying they’d have trudged together, a slow steady walk through the shadows of the dawn. Maybe in silence, perhaps they’d tell stories, remembering Christ and what he’d done for each of them. Maybe a moment of levity, the way crying and laughter often follow the other. Was one Mary timid about the guards, “they won’t let us near the body, but I suppose we might as well ask.” Mary Magdalene in boldness, “Of course we have to try, and we’re just women, what do they possibly think we could do?” Not knowing the shock that was to come when they arrived. 

The sprint to go tell the disciples what they had heard and witnessed. But Mary Magdalene, who would meet Christ face to face, who would fall before him. He would say her name aloud and she would know him. Yes, the women hold a place of prominence in those three days. 

And so through these Holy Days that march toward the cross and empty tomb, I remember too the women who walked in lock step with Jesus, seeking to emulate them in my own community. Women who were bonded together, who moved through tragedy with purpose, who saw what needs to be done and carry it out. Women who followed their Savior to the foot of the cross and beyond, whose devotion to him brought them together. Like many women in the centuries that would follow, they flocked to Jesus and found each other in the process.