The First Witness
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
"The First Witness" by Larry Winebrenner
"Witnesses" by Larry Winebrenner
"Hope in Christ" by Larry Winebrenner
What's Up This Week
What does it mean to be a witness? That's an important question for us to consider as we witness to the life-changing power of Christ's resurrection -- and in this week's edition of StoryShare, Larry Winebrenner contemplates some of the qualities of witnesses as well as taking us inside the skin of Mary Magdalene, the first witness at the empty tomb. Larry also shares a brief thought on the hope this offers us -- and the transformation that can take place in our own self-image. Happy Easter! Christ is risen!
* * * * * * * * *
The First Witness
by Larry Winebrenner
John 20:1-18
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.
-- John 20:18
While the other women chatted quietly in the false dawn, Magdalene nursed her own thoughts. The women's talk was low, as if they had already reached the burial garden. Birds, however, were singing their morning songs cheerfully, as though naught amiss had ever happened.
[Note: While John's scripture mentions only Mary Magdalene, Matthew mentions both her and Mary, mother of James and Joses. in explaining who told the disciples, Luke 24:10 says, "It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles."]
Magdalene remembered her first encounter with her Lord. She was fired by desire so intense that she dared enter the camp just outside town in an olive grove. A sympathetic owner had told the disciples they could camp there. He even gave them permission to draw water from his well so they did not have to go to the city well for water.
As Mary approached Jesus, one of the disciples blocked her way. One fish was as good as another. She turned to entice him.
"Let her come to me, Simon," said a strong, commanding voice.
A shiver of anticipation ran up her spine. She approached the Master. Before she could touch him, he spoke.
"What you hunger for, woman, is not what you think," he said. "You want peace and comfort and communion with your creator who made you this way."
"What way is that?" she asked in a sultry voice.
"The way those devils are blocking," he answered. "Come out of her!"
Suddenly, she felt as though she were being thrashed with a large walking staff. Her head, her back, her hip, her chest, her stomach, her thighs, her hands all felt the sudden impact. But there was no pain. Instead she was filled with sheer delight as she had never before felt. She fell to her knees and looked up at the figure bending over her.
"How long have you been afflicted?" asked Jesus.
"As long as I can remember," she replied, as she accepted his hand to draw her back to her feet. His touch caused a feeling of goodness to surge through her veins. It was nothing she had ever experienced, even in her most ecstatic moment.
"Yes. This kind enters early and stays long. You will have to struggle to stay clean."
She looked at her savior.
"Will you help me?"
Jesus smiled encouragement.
"Mary, it is not something I can do. It is something you must do. But I will help you."
"I see women in your camp. To help you, no doubt. If you will help me, I will help you."
"No!" spat two women simultaneously.
Walking to the tomb, Mary Magdalene looked at two of her traveling companions. They had asked Jesus if he knew who she was and he had answered, "She's a child of God." That settled it. She traveled with them, and now these women were her very best friends.
Magdalene became aware that she had been asked a question.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I've just been thinking of him. How shall I ever manage without him? What was your question?"
Two of the others looked at each other. She could tell from their faces they knew what she meant. She blushed.
"Don't worry," said Joanna. "We'll help you. We were wondering how we can get the stone rolled away from the entrance. Do you think we could do it ourselves? Are we permitted? Perhaps a gardener?"
Mary Magdalene smiled. "Don't worry. Didn't they leave a couple of soldiers to guard the grave? Steal his body indeed! I know how to handle soldiers."
All her companions looked at her with shocked looks on their faces. Then they laughed with glee. "The Lord does provide," said Mary, mother of James.
Little did she know how true her words were. When they arrived, they saw the soldiers on the ground, out cold. It startled and frightened them. They rushed around the hillock in which the tomb was dug. Sitting atop the stone they had worried about, now rolled well away from the entrance, sat an angel. And they were filled with fear.
"Fear not," the angel told them at the new birth -- just as the angels had told the shepherds on the night of the Savior's birth. And what this angel said also brought good news of great joy.
Jesus was risen. They were to tell the disciples. The women rushed off, walking rapidly. Mary Magdalene ran, and arrived first. She knocked on the door of the house where all the disciples hid, fearing persecution by those who had turned Jesus over to the Romans to be crucified.
"It's me, Mary," she cried out breathlessly.
Thomas opened the door a crack. When he saw Mary, he opened the door wide, yanked her inside, and slammed it shut. He shot the bolt locking the door.
Before he could ask her what she was doing out so early, she cried out: "The tomb is empty. The body is gone!"
"The woman's crazy," said James.
"She's gone mad with grief," said Simon the Zealot. "Don't..." But before anyone else could speak, there as a banging on the door like a gang come to arrest them.
"Well, here they are," said Peter, believing them to be temple police.
Women's cries alerted them to the real identity. They were all babbling the same message Mary had brought. "The whole tribe has gone mad," said Levi.
But Peter took off for the tomb. John followed. Magdalene followed them both. Everyone else was asking and answering questions.
John outran Peter, but stopped at the entrance to glimpse into the tomb. Peter didn't stop, ducking just in time to prevent cracking his skull as he entered. John followed. Mary arrived then. She watched from outside the tomb.
"What's it mean?" asked Peter.
John looked at the linen and face cloth.
"It means he has risen from the dead. He is the Messiah."
Peter shook his head, not in disbelief, but in what to believe. He turned and went back to the house. So did John.
But not Mary Magdalene. She peered into the tomb. Was it possible? Had the Master arisen? She did believe he was the Messiah -- until he died, of course. She was not well versed in scripture, but she had never heard anybody say the scriptures said the Messiah would die and rise again. Nobody.
It was hard believing even an angel. Perhaps it was a trick. After all, it was a borrowed tomb. Maybe Joseph had not found the owner and paid him. Maybe the owner had refused payment and wouldn't sell the grave site. Maybe he had sent ruffians to beat up the guards and take the body out of the tomb. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. There were so many maybes.
A figure loomed behind her in the murkiness of the early fog. It was the gardener. He would know. She bowed her head and said respectfully, "Sir, where have they taken him? Tell me and I will go get the body."
"Mary."
A thrill of recognition flashed through her whole being. She turned and cried, "Rabboni!" She reached out to grab him in her arms.
"Don't hug me, Mary. I have to go to my Father first. Your father, too. My God. Your God. Go tell my brothers."
It pained her to leave him for even one moment, but her soul was filled with joy. Would she ever see him again?
Jesus seemed to hear the question in her mind.
"I will be with you always," he said.
She hurried back to the disciples. If they didn't believe her about the empty tomb, would they ever believe this?
Witnesses
by Larry Winebrenner
Acts 10:34-43
It is common knowledge that witnesses see events from different perspectives. Some even give false witness for their own purposes.
There is, for example, the story of Susanna and the Elders. In that story from the Apocrypha, two elders spied on Susanna as she bathed in her backyard behind a high fence. The two men lusted after her and plotted to seduce her. They would insist on her favors. If Susanna didn't comply, they would accuse her of trying to seduce them. The penalty for such an act was stoning -- and it only took two witnesses to convict a person of such a crime.
They tried. She resisted. They accused. But at her trial, her defender established a precedent maintained until the days of Jesus. In fact, it is still found in courts today. He insisted on questioning the witnesses separately. When their stories conflicted, he accused them of lying. Susanna was vindicated.
When Peter said that we are witnesses, he wasn't talking about just two witnesses. He wasn't even talking about just twelve. Paul tells the Corinthians that the risen Christ appeared to more than 500 witnesses (1 Corinthians 15:6).
Of course, there have been millions of witnesses since Paul's time -- including you. What does it mean to be a witness?
First of all, a witness must be believable. When you talk about God's love, do you display that love to every person with whom you come into contact?
Second, a witness must be reliable. Being believable means one trusts what someone says because they seem capable of witnessing the event. They weren't out of town when the house burned down. You've never seen them lie.
Being reliable means you trust someone because they have the ability to testify accurately about the event. A civil engineer has the education to enable him to testify to the structural weakness of a collapsed bridge. A fisherman in the river can give all kinds of testimony if he saw the bridge collapse -- the time of the event, weather conditions, and so forth. But he cannot give reliable testimony regarding the structural weakness of the bridge unless he has the training to do so.
A third quality of a witness is fearlessness. A witness swears in court to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This is as true on the school ground as in court. When a teacher asks "Who threw that stone?" someone answering truthfully could be at risk. If a mean bully threw it, he will beat up anyone who testifies against him.
This is also true in situations where witnessing for Jesus can cost you your life. During World War II a Lutheran pastor in Germany was imprisoned and beaten for making accusations against the Nazi party. On Easter morn he was released as an act of good will toward the members of his church who were complaining about having no pastor to conduct Easter services. The pastor was strictly warned about saying anything against the Nazi party -- and to embarrass him, he was also prohibited from saying anything about the resurrection.
Easter morn the church was packed. Not only were worshipers there, but SS troops also lined the walls, holding automatic rifles to intimidate the pastor. He climbed into the pulpit, looked at the sea of expectant faces before him, took a deep breath, and shouted the traditional Easter greeting: "Christ is risen!"
Five hundred worshipers responded with the traditional reply "He is risen indeed!"
Hope in Christ
by Larry Winebrenner
1 Corinthians 15:19-26
If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
-- 1 Corinthians 15:19
For those whose hope is in Christ, there is no need to argue about the matter. Of course, we look forward to "A pie in the sky, in the sweet by and by." Who doesn't want their eternal reward?
Yet that hope, that expectation is often demeaned. "What has Christ done for me lately?" people ask, like some crime boss. Still others say, "If you're good to God, God will be good to you" -- as if God were a gardener selling blessings like so many bunches of onions.
God does bless. God blesses those whom God wants to bless. That's the whole thrust of the Protestant Reformation. No one earns blessings… otherwise it's not grace.
Jesus said "It rains on the just and the unjust." That's true whether the rain is a blessing (as when the ground is parched) or a curse (as when the river has already overflowed its banks).
Paul put this in perspective when he told the Corinthians, "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." The application of this concept emerges very clearly in the well-known musical Man of La Mancha, based on the great literary masterpiece Don Quixote.
Don Quixote is an elderly gentleman experiencing what has all the signs of dementia. He believes himself to be one of the knights of old. His adventures include such ludicrous events as his mistaking a windmill for a dragon and attacking the windmill on horseback with a lance.
One of his journeys takes him to an inn where he insists that the chambermaid is his true love whom he vows to defend and protect. She doesn't want to be a lady-love. She wants to be the chambermaid in the inn, as she always has been.
Her name is Aldonza, but Don Quixote keeps calling her Dulcinea. Eventually Don Quixote continues on his way. He is tricked into believing that he is defeated by superior knights. The trickster is the betrothed of Quixote's niece. She wants her uncle home. He must sign a will before he dies.
The defeat is too much for him. As he lies on his deathbed, Aldonza shows up and gives him temporary hope, but the family restrains him and he dies. Quixote's traveling companion on his journeys turns to the woman and says, "I'm sorry, Aldonza."
The chambermaid has been shown a better side of herself -- she has been given hope beyond all she treasured and has been satisfied with.
So she turns to him and says, "Don't call me Aldonza. I'm Dulcinea."
Larry Winebrenner is now retired and living in Miami Gardens, Florida. He taught for 33 years at Miami-Dade Community College, and served as pastor of churches in Georgia, Florida, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Larry is currently active at First United Methodist Church in downtown Miami, where he leads discussion in an adult fellowship group on Sunday mornings and preaches occasionally. He has authored two college textbooks, written four novels, served as an editor for three newspapers and an academic journal, and contributed articles to several magazines.
**************
StoryShare, April 4, 2010, issue.
Copyright 2010 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
What's Up This Week
"The First Witness" by Larry Winebrenner
"Witnesses" by Larry Winebrenner
"Hope in Christ" by Larry Winebrenner
What's Up This Week
What does it mean to be a witness? That's an important question for us to consider as we witness to the life-changing power of Christ's resurrection -- and in this week's edition of StoryShare, Larry Winebrenner contemplates some of the qualities of witnesses as well as taking us inside the skin of Mary Magdalene, the first witness at the empty tomb. Larry also shares a brief thought on the hope this offers us -- and the transformation that can take place in our own self-image. Happy Easter! Christ is risen!
* * * * * * * * *
The First Witness
by Larry Winebrenner
John 20:1-18
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.
-- John 20:18
While the other women chatted quietly in the false dawn, Magdalene nursed her own thoughts. The women's talk was low, as if they had already reached the burial garden. Birds, however, were singing their morning songs cheerfully, as though naught amiss had ever happened.
[Note: While John's scripture mentions only Mary Magdalene, Matthew mentions both her and Mary, mother of James and Joses. in explaining who told the disciples, Luke 24:10 says, "It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles."]
Magdalene remembered her first encounter with her Lord. She was fired by desire so intense that she dared enter the camp just outside town in an olive grove. A sympathetic owner had told the disciples they could camp there. He even gave them permission to draw water from his well so they did not have to go to the city well for water.
As Mary approached Jesus, one of the disciples blocked her way. One fish was as good as another. She turned to entice him.
"Let her come to me, Simon," said a strong, commanding voice.
A shiver of anticipation ran up her spine. She approached the Master. Before she could touch him, he spoke.
"What you hunger for, woman, is not what you think," he said. "You want peace and comfort and communion with your creator who made you this way."
"What way is that?" she asked in a sultry voice.
"The way those devils are blocking," he answered. "Come out of her!"
Suddenly, she felt as though she were being thrashed with a large walking staff. Her head, her back, her hip, her chest, her stomach, her thighs, her hands all felt the sudden impact. But there was no pain. Instead she was filled with sheer delight as she had never before felt. She fell to her knees and looked up at the figure bending over her.
"How long have you been afflicted?" asked Jesus.
"As long as I can remember," she replied, as she accepted his hand to draw her back to her feet. His touch caused a feeling of goodness to surge through her veins. It was nothing she had ever experienced, even in her most ecstatic moment.
"Yes. This kind enters early and stays long. You will have to struggle to stay clean."
She looked at her savior.
"Will you help me?"
Jesus smiled encouragement.
"Mary, it is not something I can do. It is something you must do. But I will help you."
"I see women in your camp. To help you, no doubt. If you will help me, I will help you."
"No!" spat two women simultaneously.
Walking to the tomb, Mary Magdalene looked at two of her traveling companions. They had asked Jesus if he knew who she was and he had answered, "She's a child of God." That settled it. She traveled with them, and now these women were her very best friends.
Magdalene became aware that she had been asked a question.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I've just been thinking of him. How shall I ever manage without him? What was your question?"
Two of the others looked at each other. She could tell from their faces they knew what she meant. She blushed.
"Don't worry," said Joanna. "We'll help you. We were wondering how we can get the stone rolled away from the entrance. Do you think we could do it ourselves? Are we permitted? Perhaps a gardener?"
Mary Magdalene smiled. "Don't worry. Didn't they leave a couple of soldiers to guard the grave? Steal his body indeed! I know how to handle soldiers."
All her companions looked at her with shocked looks on their faces. Then they laughed with glee. "The Lord does provide," said Mary, mother of James.
Little did she know how true her words were. When they arrived, they saw the soldiers on the ground, out cold. It startled and frightened them. They rushed around the hillock in which the tomb was dug. Sitting atop the stone they had worried about, now rolled well away from the entrance, sat an angel. And they were filled with fear.
"Fear not," the angel told them at the new birth -- just as the angels had told the shepherds on the night of the Savior's birth. And what this angel said also brought good news of great joy.
Jesus was risen. They were to tell the disciples. The women rushed off, walking rapidly. Mary Magdalene ran, and arrived first. She knocked on the door of the house where all the disciples hid, fearing persecution by those who had turned Jesus over to the Romans to be crucified.
"It's me, Mary," she cried out breathlessly.
Thomas opened the door a crack. When he saw Mary, he opened the door wide, yanked her inside, and slammed it shut. He shot the bolt locking the door.
Before he could ask her what she was doing out so early, she cried out: "The tomb is empty. The body is gone!"
"The woman's crazy," said James.
"She's gone mad with grief," said Simon the Zealot. "Don't..." But before anyone else could speak, there as a banging on the door like a gang come to arrest them.
"Well, here they are," said Peter, believing them to be temple police.
Women's cries alerted them to the real identity. They were all babbling the same message Mary had brought. "The whole tribe has gone mad," said Levi.
But Peter took off for the tomb. John followed. Magdalene followed them both. Everyone else was asking and answering questions.
John outran Peter, but stopped at the entrance to glimpse into the tomb. Peter didn't stop, ducking just in time to prevent cracking his skull as he entered. John followed. Mary arrived then. She watched from outside the tomb.
"What's it mean?" asked Peter.
John looked at the linen and face cloth.
"It means he has risen from the dead. He is the Messiah."
Peter shook his head, not in disbelief, but in what to believe. He turned and went back to the house. So did John.
But not Mary Magdalene. She peered into the tomb. Was it possible? Had the Master arisen? She did believe he was the Messiah -- until he died, of course. She was not well versed in scripture, but she had never heard anybody say the scriptures said the Messiah would die and rise again. Nobody.
It was hard believing even an angel. Perhaps it was a trick. After all, it was a borrowed tomb. Maybe Joseph had not found the owner and paid him. Maybe the owner had refused payment and wouldn't sell the grave site. Maybe he had sent ruffians to beat up the guards and take the body out of the tomb. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. There were so many maybes.
A figure loomed behind her in the murkiness of the early fog. It was the gardener. He would know. She bowed her head and said respectfully, "Sir, where have they taken him? Tell me and I will go get the body."
"Mary."
A thrill of recognition flashed through her whole being. She turned and cried, "Rabboni!" She reached out to grab him in her arms.
"Don't hug me, Mary. I have to go to my Father first. Your father, too. My God. Your God. Go tell my brothers."
It pained her to leave him for even one moment, but her soul was filled with joy. Would she ever see him again?
Jesus seemed to hear the question in her mind.
"I will be with you always," he said.
She hurried back to the disciples. If they didn't believe her about the empty tomb, would they ever believe this?
Witnesses
by Larry Winebrenner
Acts 10:34-43
It is common knowledge that witnesses see events from different perspectives. Some even give false witness for their own purposes.
There is, for example, the story of Susanna and the Elders. In that story from the Apocrypha, two elders spied on Susanna as she bathed in her backyard behind a high fence. The two men lusted after her and plotted to seduce her. They would insist on her favors. If Susanna didn't comply, they would accuse her of trying to seduce them. The penalty for such an act was stoning -- and it only took two witnesses to convict a person of such a crime.
They tried. She resisted. They accused. But at her trial, her defender established a precedent maintained until the days of Jesus. In fact, it is still found in courts today. He insisted on questioning the witnesses separately. When their stories conflicted, he accused them of lying. Susanna was vindicated.
When Peter said that we are witnesses, he wasn't talking about just two witnesses. He wasn't even talking about just twelve. Paul tells the Corinthians that the risen Christ appeared to more than 500 witnesses (1 Corinthians 15:6).
Of course, there have been millions of witnesses since Paul's time -- including you. What does it mean to be a witness?
First of all, a witness must be believable. When you talk about God's love, do you display that love to every person with whom you come into contact?
Second, a witness must be reliable. Being believable means one trusts what someone says because they seem capable of witnessing the event. They weren't out of town when the house burned down. You've never seen them lie.
Being reliable means you trust someone because they have the ability to testify accurately about the event. A civil engineer has the education to enable him to testify to the structural weakness of a collapsed bridge. A fisherman in the river can give all kinds of testimony if he saw the bridge collapse -- the time of the event, weather conditions, and so forth. But he cannot give reliable testimony regarding the structural weakness of the bridge unless he has the training to do so.
A third quality of a witness is fearlessness. A witness swears in court to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This is as true on the school ground as in court. When a teacher asks "Who threw that stone?" someone answering truthfully could be at risk. If a mean bully threw it, he will beat up anyone who testifies against him.
This is also true in situations where witnessing for Jesus can cost you your life. During World War II a Lutheran pastor in Germany was imprisoned and beaten for making accusations against the Nazi party. On Easter morn he was released as an act of good will toward the members of his church who were complaining about having no pastor to conduct Easter services. The pastor was strictly warned about saying anything against the Nazi party -- and to embarrass him, he was also prohibited from saying anything about the resurrection.
Easter morn the church was packed. Not only were worshipers there, but SS troops also lined the walls, holding automatic rifles to intimidate the pastor. He climbed into the pulpit, looked at the sea of expectant faces before him, took a deep breath, and shouted the traditional Easter greeting: "Christ is risen!"
Five hundred worshipers responded with the traditional reply "He is risen indeed!"
Hope in Christ
by Larry Winebrenner
1 Corinthians 15:19-26
If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
-- 1 Corinthians 15:19
For those whose hope is in Christ, there is no need to argue about the matter. Of course, we look forward to "A pie in the sky, in the sweet by and by." Who doesn't want their eternal reward?
Yet that hope, that expectation is often demeaned. "What has Christ done for me lately?" people ask, like some crime boss. Still others say, "If you're good to God, God will be good to you" -- as if God were a gardener selling blessings like so many bunches of onions.
God does bless. God blesses those whom God wants to bless. That's the whole thrust of the Protestant Reformation. No one earns blessings… otherwise it's not grace.
Jesus said "It rains on the just and the unjust." That's true whether the rain is a blessing (as when the ground is parched) or a curse (as when the river has already overflowed its banks).
Paul put this in perspective when he told the Corinthians, "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." The application of this concept emerges very clearly in the well-known musical Man of La Mancha, based on the great literary masterpiece Don Quixote.
Don Quixote is an elderly gentleman experiencing what has all the signs of dementia. He believes himself to be one of the knights of old. His adventures include such ludicrous events as his mistaking a windmill for a dragon and attacking the windmill on horseback with a lance.
One of his journeys takes him to an inn where he insists that the chambermaid is his true love whom he vows to defend and protect. She doesn't want to be a lady-love. She wants to be the chambermaid in the inn, as she always has been.
Her name is Aldonza, but Don Quixote keeps calling her Dulcinea. Eventually Don Quixote continues on his way. He is tricked into believing that he is defeated by superior knights. The trickster is the betrothed of Quixote's niece. She wants her uncle home. He must sign a will before he dies.
The defeat is too much for him. As he lies on his deathbed, Aldonza shows up and gives him temporary hope, but the family restrains him and he dies. Quixote's traveling companion on his journeys turns to the woman and says, "I'm sorry, Aldonza."
The chambermaid has been shown a better side of herself -- she has been given hope beyond all she treasured and has been satisfied with.
So she turns to him and says, "Don't call me Aldonza. I'm Dulcinea."
Larry Winebrenner is now retired and living in Miami Gardens, Florida. He taught for 33 years at Miami-Dade Community College, and served as pastor of churches in Georgia, Florida, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Larry is currently active at First United Methodist Church in downtown Miami, where he leads discussion in an adult fellowship group on Sunday mornings and preaches occasionally. He has authored two college textbooks, written four novels, served as an editor for three newspapers and an academic journal, and contributed articles to several magazines.
**************
StoryShare, April 4, 2010, issue.
Copyright 2010 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
