The Witness
Stories
Contents
"The Witness" by Keith Hewitt
"Reliable Women" by Frank Ramirez
"Airo the Stone!" by Frank Ramirez
"Eucatastrophe!" by Frank Ramirez
The Witness
by Keith Hewitt
John 20:1-18
I think everyone has the same instinct.
If you see a couple of men tearing down the street like their hair was on fire, and then a woman running after them, trying to keep up, everyone -- anyone -- would do the same thing I did.
I ran after them, because I wanted to see what happened next.
Thanks to a mild climate and my fluctuating financial circumstances, I spend many nights sleeping under the stars, so I’ve seen a lot of things in my day. Curled up under a cloak, in someone’s doorway, I’m just part of the background to most people in Jerusalem -- unless I interact with them, they don’t even notice me, particularly as dawn is breaking over the city. Most people who are out and about at that time of day are either on their way to work, and focused on what they’re doing; or they’re on their way home from something unseemly, and focused on not being recognized.
That’s why these three stood out -- two men running out of the city, followed by a woman, were bound to be the start of an interesting story, one that would be worth much in the retelling as I solicited donations for my daily bread from pilgrims at the Temple gates, once the world had woken up.
I couldn’t even run as fast as the woman, because the stones in the road hurt my feet -- I had no sandals that day, due to an unfortunate run of luck while I was casting lots with another gentleman of the street the day before. In the dim light, I struggled to keep them in sight as they ran a short ways out of the city, down to what I think had been a quarry, but was now being turned into a cemetery -- a collection of tombs cut into rock, final resting places for the wealthy.
On the way, cursing under my breath at the stones as they sliced my feet, we passed within sight of the hill where they crucified criminals. In spite of myself I shuddered at the sight of the upright beams, like some ghoulish forest of limbless trees, waiting to bear their burden of death. I remembered my father’s warning that one day I would end up on one of those trees, if I didn’t reform myself.
It was a tearful warning I had taken very seriously for the better part of a month ... and then I happened across a couple of silver bracelets that a young pilgrim woman just couldn’t seem to keep on her arm, and we ate like kings for a week. The lesson, I realized, was that the key to avoiding punishment wasn’t to avoid crime -- it was to avoid getting caught. And, generally speaking, that epiphany had guided my life for years.
Our mutual path dipped into the cemetery, then, and I stopped abruptly, leaning against a large outcropping of rock on the hillside while I caught my breath and tried to see what was happening. The two men -- and the woman, shortly behind them -- had stopped at a kind of a cleft, where a small doorway had been cut into the rock; the rock that should have closed it was sitting off to the side.
Trying not to breathe too loudly, I watched as one of the men leaned over to peer into the blackness beyond the door -- and then the other practically pushed him aside and boldly went inside the tomb. After a few moments, he came out holding some cloths -- white linen, from what I could tell at a distance, and as I watched it slowly dawned on me that he was holding grave clothes. I’d just realized what they were when the other men went in, then came out quickly.
Both of them looked very confused -- even frightened, I think. They both stood there, unmoving, not speaking, for what seemed like forever. The woman spoke to them several times, but they didn’t hear her, or were just not responding, I don’t know which. But eventually she pushed past them and entered the tomb, herself. While she was in there, the men left, headed back to town.
I was torn -- if I followed them, I might find out what they’d seen; but if I waited for the woman to be done, I might be able to see for myself. I was still trying to decide when I heard voices coming from inside the tomb -- what I took to be the woman’s voice, and two others.
That made the decision.
I looked around to be sure there was no one else in sight, then crept closer, eventually hiding behind another rock that was very close. By this time, my breathing was quiet and regular, so I could hear better ... well enough to hear the woman say, “ -- taken him away, and I don’t know where to find him.”
Grave robbing, I thought? It was an unspeakable crime, even in my circles I can’t say that I ever knew anyone who’d stolen a body. What would be the purpose, I wondered, and who would do such a thing? I was still pondering this when another voice -- a man’s voice -- said, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who is it you’re looking for?”
I almost jumped out of my skin, because the voice came from outside the tomb -- I looked around quickly, saw a man standing by the entrance to the tomb. He looked ordinary, but I had no idea when or how he had gotten there without me seeing or hearing him. He was looking at the woman in the tomb, but for a moment he raised his eyes and looked toward me -- and even though I was flattened against the rock, I was sure he had seen me. But he gave no other sign.
She came out, but didn’t exactly answer him. She just fell on her knees and said, “If you’ve taken him, please let me know where you’ve laid him, so I can take him away somewhere safe.”
And then that man smiled as though they’d been friends for a hundred years, and he just said, “Mary ... ”
It was enough. Her face lit up in sudden recognition, and she reached for him, crying, “Rabbi!”
But he held up his hand and said, “Don’t cling to me, because I haven’t ascended to the Father, yet -- “
I missed the rest of it, because it seemed so odd that I was trying to figure it out. By the time I realized I was totally lost, with no hope of understanding, the man was suddenly gone, and the woman was running back to the city. I stood for a few moments, trying to sort out what I’d seen, and then I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and went down to look into the tomb for myself.
And it was empty.
What on earth? I said to myself, and felt goosebumps. That annoyed me, because there was nothing that should have caused them. Why should the sight of an empty tomb cause that kind of reaction? Clearly, if it had ever been occupied, whoever had been laid to rest there was not there now -- and that might be a mystery, but it was not mysterious, if you understand what I mean. It was nothing to give a person goosebumps.
So why did I suddenly feel like I was standing on the edge of some vast and deep abyss?
“Who do you seek?” a voice asked gently, behind me.
Trying not to jump out of my nonexistent sandals, I forced myself to turn around slowly, found myself face to face with the man who’d spoken to the woman -- back again, as quietly and mysteriously as before. “I’m not seeking anyone,” I answered, in what I hoped was a calm, level voice. “I’m just trying to understand what happened here.”
The man smiled, and suddenly I felt all of the apprehension drain from me, like water draining out of a pool. “Then seek out the ones who know me,” he said, and I think I rolled my eyes, because I hate these kinds of circular conversations. It’s why I never talk religion with anyone. I know for sure I gesture toward the empty tomb, and glanced at it before speaking ...
And never spoke. When I turned my eyes back to the man, he wasn’t there.
“Great,” I said under my breath. “Now what?”
But I already knew the answer to that question, at least, for I was suddenly sure that I would not rest until I’d solved the mystery of the empty tomb. And that answer seemed to lay with the people who discovered it ... or so I hoped. All I knew for sure was that I was going to find them, no matter what it took, because there was a mystery to be solved and a story to be told.
And I wanted to know what happens next.
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). Keith's newest book NaTiVity Dramas: The Third Season will be published September 2012. He is a local pastor, co-youth leader, former Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife, two children, and assorted dogs and cats.
* * *
Reliable Women
by Frank Ramirez
Acts 10:34-43
This passage is part of what some call Pentecost for the nations -- when Peter was called to witness to the Centurion Cornelius and his household. Right before the Holy Spirit falls upon the uncircumcised, which leads to Peter baptizing the whole household, the apostle says “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” (10:34-35) and proceeds to relate the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus. God ignores human barriers.
One of the more surprising elements of the resurrection narratives in all four gospels is that the women are in one way or another the first witnesses to the resurrection. God demonstrates no partiality in this matter as well. Why is this surprising? Because in the Roman world women were not considered reliable witnesses. The second century theologian Origen is aware that some who oppose Christianity, such as his opponent in his book Against Celsus, who ridicules the resurrection because the first witness is a “half-frantic woman,” who with other women “were engaged in the same system of delusion, who had either dreamed so, owing to a peculiar state of mind, or under the influence of a wandering imagination” had convinced themselves they had seen the Risen Lord (Against Celsus, Book II, Chapter 55).
No, the good news of the Resurrection breaks down the social barriers put up by men against women. If you are to believe in the good news you are going to have to believe those who were not believed in that time. You are going to have to believe on God’s terms, not society’s.
* * *
Airo the Stone!
by Frank Ramirez
John 20:1-18
You know how you get a picture in your mind and after a while you just assume it's true? Like even Bible stuff? Like, for instance, Mary riding a donkey on the road to Bethlehem before she gives birth to Jesus? It's on all kinds of Christmas cards, even though there's no donkey mentioned anywhere, and we have no reason to believe Mary did anything other than walk three days from Nazareth to the city of David.
Well, Easter cards show a round stone rolled away from the tomb on the morning of the Resurrection, but there is really no evidence that when Mary of Magdala arrived at a tomb that had been covered by a round stone. According to Amos Kloner more than nine hundred tombs have been found around Jerusalem that come from the same era as Jesus, only four were covered with massive round stones. The others were covered with massive square stones
And while it might just be possible that a round stone covered the tomb, in today's gospel passage from John, the evangelist uses the verb airo, which means 'take away' not 'roll away.'
(Want to know more? Read: "Did a Rolling Stone Close Jesus' Tomb?" by Amos Kloner, from Biblical Archaeological Review, September/October 1999.)
* * *
Eucatastrophe!
by Frank Ramirez
Matthew 28:1-10
According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word catastophe originally meant: “The change or revolution which produces the conclusion or final event of a dramatic piece.” That ending could be good or bad. Gradually the word came to mean “A final event; a conclusion generally unhappy; a disasterous end, finish-up, conclusion, upshot; overthrow, ruin, calamitious fate.”
Because of this J.R.R. Tolkien, the noted author of The Lord of the Rings, who himself worked on the Oxford English Dictionary before he became a professor of philology, coined the word ‘eucatastrophe,’ adding the Greek prefix “eu” which means good. A eucatastrophe is a sudden turn of events for the good. Tolkien stated that the resurrection is the eucatastrophe of human history, the unexpected and wonderful surprise ending of not only the story of Jesus, but our story as well!
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and is the senior pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren near Nappanee, Indiana. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
*****************************************
StoryShare, April 16, 2017, issue.
Copyright 2017 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.
"The Witness" by Keith Hewitt
"Reliable Women" by Frank Ramirez
"Airo the Stone!" by Frank Ramirez
"Eucatastrophe!" by Frank Ramirez
The Witness
by Keith Hewitt
John 20:1-18
I think everyone has the same instinct.
If you see a couple of men tearing down the street like their hair was on fire, and then a woman running after them, trying to keep up, everyone -- anyone -- would do the same thing I did.
I ran after them, because I wanted to see what happened next.
Thanks to a mild climate and my fluctuating financial circumstances, I spend many nights sleeping under the stars, so I’ve seen a lot of things in my day. Curled up under a cloak, in someone’s doorway, I’m just part of the background to most people in Jerusalem -- unless I interact with them, they don’t even notice me, particularly as dawn is breaking over the city. Most people who are out and about at that time of day are either on their way to work, and focused on what they’re doing; or they’re on their way home from something unseemly, and focused on not being recognized.
That’s why these three stood out -- two men running out of the city, followed by a woman, were bound to be the start of an interesting story, one that would be worth much in the retelling as I solicited donations for my daily bread from pilgrims at the Temple gates, once the world had woken up.
I couldn’t even run as fast as the woman, because the stones in the road hurt my feet -- I had no sandals that day, due to an unfortunate run of luck while I was casting lots with another gentleman of the street the day before. In the dim light, I struggled to keep them in sight as they ran a short ways out of the city, down to what I think had been a quarry, but was now being turned into a cemetery -- a collection of tombs cut into rock, final resting places for the wealthy.
On the way, cursing under my breath at the stones as they sliced my feet, we passed within sight of the hill where they crucified criminals. In spite of myself I shuddered at the sight of the upright beams, like some ghoulish forest of limbless trees, waiting to bear their burden of death. I remembered my father’s warning that one day I would end up on one of those trees, if I didn’t reform myself.
It was a tearful warning I had taken very seriously for the better part of a month ... and then I happened across a couple of silver bracelets that a young pilgrim woman just couldn’t seem to keep on her arm, and we ate like kings for a week. The lesson, I realized, was that the key to avoiding punishment wasn’t to avoid crime -- it was to avoid getting caught. And, generally speaking, that epiphany had guided my life for years.
Our mutual path dipped into the cemetery, then, and I stopped abruptly, leaning against a large outcropping of rock on the hillside while I caught my breath and tried to see what was happening. The two men -- and the woman, shortly behind them -- had stopped at a kind of a cleft, where a small doorway had been cut into the rock; the rock that should have closed it was sitting off to the side.
Trying not to breathe too loudly, I watched as one of the men leaned over to peer into the blackness beyond the door -- and then the other practically pushed him aside and boldly went inside the tomb. After a few moments, he came out holding some cloths -- white linen, from what I could tell at a distance, and as I watched it slowly dawned on me that he was holding grave clothes. I’d just realized what they were when the other men went in, then came out quickly.
Both of them looked very confused -- even frightened, I think. They both stood there, unmoving, not speaking, for what seemed like forever. The woman spoke to them several times, but they didn’t hear her, or were just not responding, I don’t know which. But eventually she pushed past them and entered the tomb, herself. While she was in there, the men left, headed back to town.
I was torn -- if I followed them, I might find out what they’d seen; but if I waited for the woman to be done, I might be able to see for myself. I was still trying to decide when I heard voices coming from inside the tomb -- what I took to be the woman’s voice, and two others.
That made the decision.
I looked around to be sure there was no one else in sight, then crept closer, eventually hiding behind another rock that was very close. By this time, my breathing was quiet and regular, so I could hear better ... well enough to hear the woman say, “ -- taken him away, and I don’t know where to find him.”
Grave robbing, I thought? It was an unspeakable crime, even in my circles I can’t say that I ever knew anyone who’d stolen a body. What would be the purpose, I wondered, and who would do such a thing? I was still pondering this when another voice -- a man’s voice -- said, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who is it you’re looking for?”
I almost jumped out of my skin, because the voice came from outside the tomb -- I looked around quickly, saw a man standing by the entrance to the tomb. He looked ordinary, but I had no idea when or how he had gotten there without me seeing or hearing him. He was looking at the woman in the tomb, but for a moment he raised his eyes and looked toward me -- and even though I was flattened against the rock, I was sure he had seen me. But he gave no other sign.
She came out, but didn’t exactly answer him. She just fell on her knees and said, “If you’ve taken him, please let me know where you’ve laid him, so I can take him away somewhere safe.”
And then that man smiled as though they’d been friends for a hundred years, and he just said, “Mary ... ”
It was enough. Her face lit up in sudden recognition, and she reached for him, crying, “Rabbi!”
But he held up his hand and said, “Don’t cling to me, because I haven’t ascended to the Father, yet -- “
I missed the rest of it, because it seemed so odd that I was trying to figure it out. By the time I realized I was totally lost, with no hope of understanding, the man was suddenly gone, and the woman was running back to the city. I stood for a few moments, trying to sort out what I’d seen, and then I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and went down to look into the tomb for myself.
And it was empty.
What on earth? I said to myself, and felt goosebumps. That annoyed me, because there was nothing that should have caused them. Why should the sight of an empty tomb cause that kind of reaction? Clearly, if it had ever been occupied, whoever had been laid to rest there was not there now -- and that might be a mystery, but it was not mysterious, if you understand what I mean. It was nothing to give a person goosebumps.
So why did I suddenly feel like I was standing on the edge of some vast and deep abyss?
“Who do you seek?” a voice asked gently, behind me.
Trying not to jump out of my nonexistent sandals, I forced myself to turn around slowly, found myself face to face with the man who’d spoken to the woman -- back again, as quietly and mysteriously as before. “I’m not seeking anyone,” I answered, in what I hoped was a calm, level voice. “I’m just trying to understand what happened here.”
The man smiled, and suddenly I felt all of the apprehension drain from me, like water draining out of a pool. “Then seek out the ones who know me,” he said, and I think I rolled my eyes, because I hate these kinds of circular conversations. It’s why I never talk religion with anyone. I know for sure I gesture toward the empty tomb, and glanced at it before speaking ...
And never spoke. When I turned my eyes back to the man, he wasn’t there.
“Great,” I said under my breath. “Now what?”
But I already knew the answer to that question, at least, for I was suddenly sure that I would not rest until I’d solved the mystery of the empty tomb. And that answer seemed to lay with the people who discovered it ... or so I hoped. All I knew for sure was that I was going to find them, no matter what it took, because there was a mystery to be solved and a story to be told.
And I wanted to know what happens next.
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). Keith's newest book NaTiVity Dramas: The Third Season will be published September 2012. He is a local pastor, co-youth leader, former Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife, two children, and assorted dogs and cats.
* * *
Reliable Women
by Frank Ramirez
Acts 10:34-43
This passage is part of what some call Pentecost for the nations -- when Peter was called to witness to the Centurion Cornelius and his household. Right before the Holy Spirit falls upon the uncircumcised, which leads to Peter baptizing the whole household, the apostle says “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” (10:34-35) and proceeds to relate the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus. God ignores human barriers.
One of the more surprising elements of the resurrection narratives in all four gospels is that the women are in one way or another the first witnesses to the resurrection. God demonstrates no partiality in this matter as well. Why is this surprising? Because in the Roman world women were not considered reliable witnesses. The second century theologian Origen is aware that some who oppose Christianity, such as his opponent in his book Against Celsus, who ridicules the resurrection because the first witness is a “half-frantic woman,” who with other women “were engaged in the same system of delusion, who had either dreamed so, owing to a peculiar state of mind, or under the influence of a wandering imagination” had convinced themselves they had seen the Risen Lord (Against Celsus, Book II, Chapter 55).
No, the good news of the Resurrection breaks down the social barriers put up by men against women. If you are to believe in the good news you are going to have to believe those who were not believed in that time. You are going to have to believe on God’s terms, not society’s.
* * *
Airo the Stone!
by Frank Ramirez
John 20:1-18
You know how you get a picture in your mind and after a while you just assume it's true? Like even Bible stuff? Like, for instance, Mary riding a donkey on the road to Bethlehem before she gives birth to Jesus? It's on all kinds of Christmas cards, even though there's no donkey mentioned anywhere, and we have no reason to believe Mary did anything other than walk three days from Nazareth to the city of David.
Well, Easter cards show a round stone rolled away from the tomb on the morning of the Resurrection, but there is really no evidence that when Mary of Magdala arrived at a tomb that had been covered by a round stone. According to Amos Kloner more than nine hundred tombs have been found around Jerusalem that come from the same era as Jesus, only four were covered with massive round stones. The others were covered with massive square stones
And while it might just be possible that a round stone covered the tomb, in today's gospel passage from John, the evangelist uses the verb airo, which means 'take away' not 'roll away.'
(Want to know more? Read: "Did a Rolling Stone Close Jesus' Tomb?" by Amos Kloner, from Biblical Archaeological Review, September/October 1999.)
* * *
Eucatastrophe!
by Frank Ramirez
Matthew 28:1-10
According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word catastophe originally meant: “The change or revolution which produces the conclusion or final event of a dramatic piece.” That ending could be good or bad. Gradually the word came to mean “A final event; a conclusion generally unhappy; a disasterous end, finish-up, conclusion, upshot; overthrow, ruin, calamitious fate.”
Because of this J.R.R. Tolkien, the noted author of The Lord of the Rings, who himself worked on the Oxford English Dictionary before he became a professor of philology, coined the word ‘eucatastrophe,’ adding the Greek prefix “eu” which means good. A eucatastrophe is a sudden turn of events for the good. Tolkien stated that the resurrection is the eucatastrophe of human history, the unexpected and wonderful surprise ending of not only the story of Jesus, but our story as well!
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and is the senior pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren near Nappanee, Indiana. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
*****************************************
StoryShare, April 16, 2017, issue.
Copyright 2017 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.
