In the last few days of the Christmas season I am reflecting on how much Jesus cared about women. He treated women with a dignity and respect that would have been shocking in His culture. Consider Luke 10:38-42:
“While they were traveling, he entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who also sat at the Lord’s feet and was listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, and she came up and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? So tell her to give me a hand.’ The Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her.’ ”
There are many aspects of this story that we often overlook. For starters, women dominate this story. That in and of itself would have been shocking in the first century, when women were often marginalized. But here, not only are the main characters women, but Mary is described as sitting “at the Lord’s feet.” This is the place of a disciple.
Jesus didn’t exclude women from His teaching, He included them and allowed them to sit in places normally reserved for men. Furthermore, when Martha protested because Mary wasn’t helping her, Jesus, instead of agreeing that Mary should be about “women’s work,” lovingly points out to Martha that fellowshipping with Him is the most important thing either woman could be doing. Jesus was countercultural for His day because He encouraged both men and women to study the scriptures and learn from Him.
The dignity and grace that Jesus shows to both women and men encourages me. When I look around our society I see many inequalities between not only women and men but between people of different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds. We can take heart that Jesus came not only to bring peace between God and man, but also peace between one another. I love the way Paul describes the peace Christ brings when he is writing to the church in Ephesus. “For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:14). Though we will have to wait until Christ’s second coming to fully experience the perfect relationships He came to restore, let us work with renewed vigor to share His message of peace by treating our fellow human beings with dignity and ensuring that all have the opportunity to meet Jesus.
May you find hope as you meditate on all Christ has accomplished through His birth, death, and resurrection. Merry Christmas!