Unholy Sh+t: while the men are busy hiding from the cops, the women storm the castle to face down the guards

It was my first Easter Sunday as a newly ordained priest, and I was very nervous. While preparing my notes for my sermon, I was hit with a sudden panic: none of the stories lined up, and worst of all, the math wasn’t correct either.

Jesus wasn’t buried for three whole days, as I had been taught. He was basically out of the office for like a day and a half. Now, we can talk a lot about local customs, how days are tabulated, and if the “next day” is determined by when you went to bed, if you’ve passed the midnight threshold, or if it is sunset. But let me tell you, there is nothing worse than finding yourself having an existential crisis about the resurrection hours before you are supposed to preach your very first sermon on the subject.

Fortunately, I picked up the phone. I called the woman, who would eventually become my wife, to hash it out with her. As it turns out, that was the most Biblically response I could have had.

Unholy Sh+t: An Irreverent Bible Study

Easter Sunday

Today’s reading: John 20:1-9

Alright, we can debate a lot about whether Jesus was real or not, or the myriad of literary issues with the Bible. All in all, it’s just not a well-written book or even that entertaining of a story by pretty much anyone's definition. That all being said, you must admit that Jesus rising from the dead is a pretty stellar third act. Like, imagine it from the perspective of the Romans. You go through all this trouble of killing some dude you think might be about to do a little uprising, and then BAM! He respawns, and his superpowers have leveled up. It’s clear they were setting this up for a multiverse franchise *cue I’m a Survivor by Destiny’s Child* I would like to see Iron Man do that! Genuinely, please bring Iron Man back.

There are so many things to focus on with the Easter story: like that the resurrection of Jesus caused a mass resurrection of the dead, and now the undead were roaming the city (Matthew 27:52-53), or that Judas also died, so that means him and Jesus probably had a pretty awkward conversation in the afterlife after Jesus descended to Hades, aka the Harrowing of Hell (Ephesians 4:9, 1 Peter 3:18–20.) But as fascinating as all these points are to ponder, can we take a moment to talk about the real heroes of this story: the women.

No? Okay, fine. Yes, the dead rose immediately after Jesus did. However, it wasn’t just any old dead people. It says explicitly that “the saints” rose from the dead and started walking around the city. That is some wild-ass sh+t. Listen, the Bible has some pretty out-there stories; I’m not gonna lie. But stories like the creation, the great flood, and such are almost entirely believed to be allegorical, well, and there are the evangelicals, but they don’t count. Most everyone else understands that these stories can’t possibly be word for word how things happened, and there wasn’t anyone around to write these stories down; they were passed down orally (I’ll see you in confession). You won't like my answer, but there isn’t one. Only the Gospel of Matthew makes this claim; logically, there are no historical records of the events. I don’t know about you, but if I was chilling and then Adam and Eve walked up speaking God knows what language, I would probably lose my f+cking sh+t. There are a few theories out there as to what the writer of Matthew might have been trying to say, but no one knows why they would make such a wild claim that has absolutely no backing in any other text, historical or spiritual. Needless to say, the reason that most pastors skip over this one on Sunday is because it’s bonkers.

As for Jesus appearing in the underworld, this has been a longstanding belief alluded to in the epistles. The general understanding is that if Jesus was both man and God, he also had a real soul. During the time of his death, he couldn’t go to Heaven because, according to tradition, no human being had yet ascended into Heaven but rather “the place of the dead,” which is essentially a place of deep sleep where the righteous souls went to wait until the arrival of the Messiah. Jesus alludes to this in Matthew 12:40, which is one of the earliest beliefs of the Church. It even made it into the Apostles’ Creed, which says, “[He] suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; he descended into hell; on the third day he rose again from the dead.” Now, it should be noted that the creed was originally written in Latin, and the words used were “inferos,” which literally translates to “the souls of the dead” or “the underworld.” So they aren’t talking about Hell as the place used to scare children into getting right with the Lord, but Hades. Why is that? Because Hell is a myth that neither early Christians nor devout Jews, such as Jesus, believed in.

The more important point is that absolutely none of this would be known, or even being discussed, if it weren’t for the women because, at the time of all these amazing events, the men were still hiding.

The fact that women are barred from the priesthood is absurd on multiple levels, beginning with that Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is quite literally the first priest and original chalice to carry the body and blood of Jesus. We focus a lot on the blood spilled at the cross, but the very first time Jesus' blood was shed would have been in conjunction with the Theotokos when the umbilical cord was cut. The whole function of the priesthood is to bring forth the body and blood of Christ. I wonder who did that first? Mary’s womb first held the body and blood of Christ. The priest is supposed to present the body of Christ to the people, and, you guessed it, Mary did that first, too. Every action that a priest takes, Mary did it first. She proclaimed the Good News that the Messiah was here in the Magnificat, the first hymn of the new covenant. There is nothing that a priest does that Mary didn’t do. If Mary was acting as a priest by way of literally being the first to hold the Eucharist, the body of Christ, then women being withheld the rite of the priesthood is just silly. There are countless examples of women in ministry, from the ancient writings all the way up to, and this will shock you, even Paul. So many stories point to women having active roles in the early church, but one real head-scratcher is the resurrection story.

Jesus dies on Good Friday, and his disciples scatter. Judas betrayed Jesus and then made an early exit. Peter flat-out denied even knowing the guy, not once, but THRICE! (Ew, Peter!) The entire apostle boys club hides out for fear of what might happen to them (Mark 14:50, Matthew 26:56, John 20:19). They are cowering behind locked doors, afraid that at any moment, they too will be arrested. This isn’t novel information. Most of us were told in Sunday School that Jesus’ friends abandoned him after his death, but this isn’t true. His fair-weather friends abandoned him, but those who truly cared stuck it out.

Enter the first Evangelist of the Gospel: Mary Magdalene.

While the fishermen turned fishers of men are holed up in some bunker sh+tting themselves, the women folk are ready to go face down the Roman guards at the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body. I can not stress enough that the dudes are literally hiding from the cops, and these ladies are hiking up their skirts to walk right into the thick of it. If these events were happening today, there would likely be a picture of Mary Magdalene putting on lipstick in the reflection of a riot gear shield.

When the women arrive at the tomb, Jesus isn’t there. At first, there is some confusion. Mary Magdalene even converses with someone she assumes to be the gardener, but eventually, Jesus is all, “jk, it’s me; I’ve come back from the dead. Go and tell everyone I’m alive.” So Mary Magdalene and all the other Marys head to go tell the apostles. Which, I assume, means they had to do all their secret knocks so that these cowards would open the door. They are all, “Good news: Jesus is alive!” Now, here is the kicker: they don’t believe them. Yes, eventually, Peter and John have a running contest to see who can get to the tomb first, but overall, the reaction is disbelief. This whole disbelieving thing keeps moving around like a virus, even reaching the most notorious of disbelievers, poor ol’ Thomas (we will get to him later, don’t worry).

But what really grinds my gears about the whole Easter story is that after a woman is the first priest, a woman is the first evangelist, the first preacher, these no-good hiding, backstabbing traitors have the audacity to turn around to these women and essentially say, “alright ladies, we will take it from here” and then just straight up cut them out of the whole priesthood thing. If Mary Magdalene had listened to the likes of Paul with his whole, “I do not permit women to preach blah blah blah my wife left me, so I’m making it everyone else’s problem” nonsense, then not a single motherf+cker would even know Jesus was alive. But thanks to Mary Magdalene, we do know. This earned her the title Apostles to the Apostles.

(SIDEBAR: Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute. Not that there is any problem with being one; sex work is real work. But it’s just factually inaccurate. Long story short, some Pope mistakenly attributed this profession to her, and it stuck. Pope Gregory the (not so) Great conflated a bunch of stories, got all the different Marys confused in his head, and was just like, “Yeah, she was totally a hooker.” Again, there’s nothing wrong with being a sex worker, but it's also really rude to accuse someone of anything if they didn’t actually do it. This has also significantly diminished her standing for centuries. She was no longer viewed as the Apostle to the Apostles but as that harlot woman whom Jesus kept around to make a point about forgiveness. In reality, Mary Magdalene was an independently wealthy woman and a benefactor of Jesus. You can read a more indepth analys here.)

For nearly two thousand years, Christians have celebrated Easter; for most of that time, it has been exclusively men standing behind the pulpit and altar proclaiming the Good News that Christ is risen, but they only know that because of a woman. The body of Christ is only present because of a woman. If anything, every Easter Sunday service around the world should be exclusively preached by women.

This Easter, as you walk around saying “Christ is Risen,” I would like to propose a new liturgical response other than, “He is risen indeed. Alleluia.” I think we should change it to, “As the women told us. Alleluia!”