How to Experience the Glory of God... Like a Woman

Matthew 28:8-10 

And they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to report it to His disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and take word to My brethren to leave for Galilee, and there they will see Me.”

Several weeks ago, I wrote about Experiencing the Glory of God like a Shepherd.  Shepherds were the some of the lowliest members of Jewish society at the time that Jesus was born, and yet God chose to appear to them in the fields through the presence of angels.  He didn't go to the rich, the powerful, the famous.  He went to the stinky nobodies, and brought them to His Son, who was born in a place to house animals.  With this in mind, it is really striking to realize that at the end (sort-0f) of Christ's life and the beginning of ours in Him, God chose to announce the resurrection to others who were lowly in the eyes of the society of the day: women.

You would think if Jesus was to resurrect, the first people He'd tell were His disciples.  Especially the three He was closest to: Peter, James and John.  It seems as if Peter and James were the first men to find out about the resurrection, but the first to find out were the women who went to bring spices to the tomb.  I am not an expert on Jewish customs or the political situation of the times, but I wonder why it wasn't the men who were bringing spices to what would have been believed to be the rotting, stinking corpse of Jesus.  It is kind of like how women are usually the ones washing dishes at a church gathering, I think.

I know that women in that culture and that day were socially inferior to men.  They had less rights, were less educated, and generally did not have any sort of social power.  Yet, the God of the Universe and the God of that people decided to tell them that Jesus had risen from the dead through another angel, and Jesus Himself even appeared to them.  I find it even more interesting that their first reaction was to worship and know who Jesus was while the men did not recognize him at first (such as on the Road to Emmaus) and some of them, like Thomas, doubted fiercely the news. 

In fact, in Luke 24:8-11, we find out the women were trying to tell the disciples about the resurrection of Jesus.  Verse 11 says, "But these words appeared to them [the disciples] as nonsense, and they would not believe them."  Finally, after Jesus revealed himself, it seems the disciples accepted what had happened.

I don't know that this scenario is necessarily about gender.  I don't think God favors men or women one above the other.  I think, instead, that this God-act reveals an aspect about the nature of God that we can see in his revelation to the shepherds.  God's ways aren't our ways-- He didn't go to the powerful and obvious, but He revealed Himself to those who would take joy in His presence and worship Him.  He valued the women, who in that society would have lesser value, so much that He chose to trust them with the revelation rather than the men who spent so much time with Him. God chose to reveal Himself first to the lowly and the humble, to those who were not self-sufficient, and those who would be receptive to him.  Then He opened the eyes of the rest.

In today's circumstances, this translates into purposefully seeking to have a heart that is receptive, so we can be the first that God reveals Himself to--His thoughts, and His glory.  It is also a demonstration of how we ourselves are to love and view others.  If we value those that God marks as valuable, if we have open, receptive hearts, if we pursue the right things such as going to the tomb (rather than whatever the disciples were doing, inside, away), then  we, ourselves, can experience the glory of God like the women at the tomb.