Matthew 27:55, 56.

“Many women were there, watching from a distance.  They had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses and the mother of Zebedee’s children.”

Of the Apostles, only John was there, comforting Jesus’ mother.  All the others had fled. Matthew lists some of the women who where there, all from Galilee, as was noted. Their devotion to Jesus stood in stark contrast to the Apostles who where nowhere to be found. Even the Apostle Matthew, the author of these words, had slipped into darkness.  The women, to their credit, were  there!  They saw the beaten Jesus – heard scorn and curses called down on him as his body bled.  Those women, bless them, could somehow absorb the pathos of it all.  They stayed, unlike the others from Galilee.

The women could do nothing – but grieve and weep and hope.  That little cluster of Galilean women, lovers of Jesus, standing among the heartless Jews and cruel Romans, was a little precious island of love. They represent the new reality, the Kingdom of God on the earth. They  have no weapons except hope and love. They have no leader except their crucified, seemingly helpless Jesus, slowly dying there before their eyes, suspended between heaven and earth – held up to ridicule.

I think especially of Mary Magdalene from whom Jesus had exorcised seven demons of hell. Was she thinking, “He delivered me, why is he not unable to do anything at all?” Common sense says, “Disown him.”  Spiritual awareness says, “I believe that Jesus is the Messiah of God. There is no other.”

The followers of Jesus have always stood in this door of hope. They can be ridiculed but they believe no matter what.

Join that cluster of hope in a sea of human hopelessness. It is the threshold into the Kingdom of God.