Podcast Episode

The Women of Easter

About this Episode

Episode Summary

Join Eryn and Elisa for a special episode of God Hears Her where they focus on the women of Easter, such as Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, as well as others who experienced Jesus’ compassion. They look back in time and consider what the female disciples who walked with Jesus would have felt when He was killed on a cross.

Episode Transcript

God Hears Her Podcast

Episode 34 – The Women of Easter with Elisa Morgan and Eryn Eddy

Elisa: ​You know, when we get pulled into our double-mindedness, into the, “Well, maybe it never really happened. Maybe I wasn’t really ever freed from this habit,” or, “I really haven’t been healed from this relationship,” or…or…or, “Maybe that moment of rejection does pronounce who I am,” and we get pulled into that. And when we can only see through that, you know, we’re…we’re in the dead. You know, whereas when we move into the living place that He’s brought us into, into the new life, into the place of being seen and heard, then we can recognize He is there still, in us, with us. And He makes an enormous difference.

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Voice: You’re listening to ​God Hears Her, ​a podcast for women where we explore the stunning truth that God hears you. He sees you, and He loves you because you are His. Find out how these realities free you today on ​God Hears Her.

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Elisa: ​Welcome to ​God Hears Her.​ I’m Elisa Morgan.

Eryn:​ And I’m Eryn Eddy. And today we are going to do something special, because, well, it’s a special week. It’s Easter week. And instead of interviewing a guest about when they have felt or not felt seen and heard by God, we are going to go back in time and consider what the female disciples, who walked with Jesus, would have felt when He was killed on a cross. This is ​God Hears Her.​

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Elisa:​ So, Eryn, this is a heavy question, but I know you can go there. You always go where…with me, and I…I need you. So…

Eryn:​ Okay.
Elisa:​ Can you share a time when you, like, literally felt unseen and unheard?

Eryn:​ Oh. Yes, I can. I remember helping a friend at an event. And I was watching their kids. And I was helping with their kids; I was also, like, when of her best friends. So it was kind of like I was there to more like supporting her, just in what she was doing. But then I also…the… You know, I love her children, so I was playing with her kids. And this random person, stranger, comes up to me and she goes…with my friend there, “Is she your help for the weekend?”

Elisa:​ Oh, your help?

Eryn:​ And my friend… Yes, your help. Yep.

Elisa:​ Okay.

Eryn:​ My friend goes, “Yeah,” and then, like, turned away and, like, walked off.

Elisa:​ Didn’t introduce you.

Eryn:​ And… Didn’t introduce me. Didn’t say, “Hey, this is one of my best friends. This is Eryn. She’s coming to support me, and she’s also helping me with the kids.”

Elisa:​ Oh, man.

Eryn:​ None of that. She just was like, “Yeah, she is,” and just walked away. And I was just like, “Yeah.” I…it was like I was exhausted leading up to that weekend. And I was just like, “Did that just happen?” And so I…I said to this woman, I said, “Hi. My name’s Eryn. Yeah, I’m…I’m one of her best friends, and I’m here.” And I was…it was a moment where I just felt so just overlooked. And I was there to…to help and serve and so it just felt…just made me feel weird.

Elisa:​ That’s painful, yeah. And she didn’t correct the impression. She didn’t call you out for who you were. She left you there, being misunderstood, being unseen. Gosh, I…I can…

Eryn:​ Yeah.

Elisa:​ …totally relate to that. I mean I…I can give you a…nine million instances of feeling unseen and unheard by my kids. You know, they don’t come when I call or they don’t do what I ask them to do or whatever. But, you know, more serious ones… Let me…let me give you two. One is I remember when we had a guest, a male guest, a very renowned male guest on ​Discover the Word​. And he completely ignored me. He only paid attention to the other male co-hosts, and he ignored me. Totally. Never looked at me. Never asked me a q… Until all the other male co-hosts began to ask me questions. And then he was like, “Oh, whoops. You…I guess she’s somebody I need to talk to.” It was just…I was like, “Hmmm.”

Eryn:​ Wow.
Elisa:​ Yeah. Yeah. But probably the most painful… 

Eryn:​ Wow.

Elisa:​ And this is truly painful. And I want listeners to know I have processed this a lot with considerable therapy. And even with the person where it happened. But when I was 16 years old, as y’all know, my parents were divorced. And my mom raised me. My dad would just come, like, maybe once a year to see us. And I remember in this kind of a heated moment. We rarely had any kind of moments, but he said, “Elisa, I will never love you until you are financially independent of me.” And I just thought, “What the heck am I supposed to do about that?” I…I can barely…

Eryn:​ Sixteen.
Elisa:​ …yeah…earn money for my gas. And what a slap that was.

Eryn:​ That had to have felt just… I would imagine you kinda felt abandoned. Would that be the word? Abandoned.

Elisa:​ Rejected.
Eryn:​ To hear that… Rejected.

Elisa:​ And then years later, like 20, he actually apologized for money being more important than we were…

Eryn:​ Oh, wow.
Elisa:​ …in his life. And then I had to really pause and receive that apology, ’cause it’s easy to kinda brush that off the table and say, “Oh, no big deal. No big deal.” 

Eryn:​ Yeah.

Elisa:​ But it killed me when he said it to me. And so the Lord really helped me pause to receive back that apology and…and to move towards forgiveness and healing there. Okay, when we’ve been unseen and unheard… And I’m going deep like this because this is an…

Eryn:​ Yeah.

Elisa:​ …unusual conversation for us at ​God Hears Her​. We haven’t actually taken this turn that we’re going to take today. This is a bit of a special episode, because this is the episode that we’re going to air first off…and I’m sure we’ll hear it again in…in the future, but we’re going…we’re going to air on the week before Easter. And it’s a week when I just feel we are wooed to God’s heart in a very unique way to enter into what God did to convince us that He sees and He hears us.

Eryn:​ Yes. Yes.
Elisa:​ And so we’re gonna look at how radically Jesus saw and heard women in Scripture, the women of Easter. And the difference that it made in their lives and the difference it can make in ours. Okay? 

Eryn:​ I like this.
Elisa:​ So this is a little bit like a Bible study, Eryn.
Eryn:​ Hey, I’m ready to learn.

Elisa:​ Me too.
Eryn:​ I’m ready to ask questions. And I’m ready to share… Elisa:​ Yeah.
Eryn:​ …anything.
Elisa:​ Good.
Eryn:​ Let’s go. Let’s do this.
Elisa:​ Good. Let’s go. Let’s go.

Eryn:​ I like that this is different.

Elisa:​ Good, good. Okay, you know, let’s…let’s like…let’s get it started and just kinda popcorn here. Think about any women that come to your mind in the New Testament, where Jesus interacted with her and something was changed in her life. Just wha…who comes to mind? Just think about that quickly.

Eryn:​ I immediately think of John 8. Elisa:​ Okay.
Eryn:​ The adulteress woman… Elisa:​ Oooohhh.

Eryn:​ …that’s thrown by the Pharisees. And oh, man, how He gets on His knees and writes in the sand, in the dust. And He makes her feel so seen in those moments, where, like, her worst nightmare is she’s exposed and thrown in front to be judged. And the Lord just gets down…Jesus just gets down on His knees and makes her feel, like, supported.

Elisa:​ Yeah.
Eryn:​ I would imagine she would’ve have felt scared, supported, seen, being defended. That’s a…my

immediate when you say New Testament.

Elisa:​ That’s a great illustration. She’s pulled forward by the religious leaders, and they want to stone her for adultery. The man who was in the…

Eryn:​ Yeah.

Elisa:​ …situation with her is not there. And Jesus basically writes on the ground. We don’t know what He wrote, but it’s pretty much, “If any of you guys are perfect, okay, no worries. Pick up a stone and go ahead.” But they all go away, and Jesus lifts her up. That’s a great one. And I think about maybe the woman at the well in John chapter 4, who’s rejected by all of society, ’cause she’s had, like, five husbands. So she has to go at noon to the well, when it’s hot, and there’ll be nobody there. Or I think about the woman with the bleeding for 12 years and how she’s so desperate. She’s been to all the experts, and nobody’s been able to heal her. This is in Mark chapter 5. And she just touches the…the edge of Jesus’ robe, and He can feel the power’s gone from Him. And He turns around, and He calls her out in the crowd. And she would have been unclean and, therefore, rejected. But Jesus sees her.

Elisa:​ Yeah.

Elisa:​ And…and He…He hears her. And He knows her, and He heals her. There’re a zillion of these. And what’s so radical, I mean we need to look at each one of these and see that Jesus heard her, and Jesus saw her.

Eryn:​ Yeah.

Elisa:​ But I think we need to pay attention to the fact that anybody heard her and saw her was radical because women didn’t count in New Testament culture, really in Old Testament culture either. The only thing that gave women value in biblical times was if they were married and if they had children. Otherwise they were property. And Jesus, in every one of these interactions with a woman, comes against that cultural standard and sees and hears and values women for who they are – humans.

Eryn:​ Yeah.
Elisa:​ Daughters, created in the image of God, image bearers. And if we look at the women of Easter,

oh, my head just goes _____… 

Eryn:​ Right.

Elisa:​ …because what He does with women in His ministry, culminating at His death and resurrection, is stunning. Absolutely stunning.

Eryn:​ I love what you said, Elisa, in regards to, just like, how women were only valued by certain metrics, and Jesus broke down all of that and said, “Nope! They are valued because they are Mine. They don’t have to be married. They don’t have to have kids. They are not seen as property. That they’re valuable because I love them.” I just want to sit in that.

Elisa:​ I know.

Eryn:​ ’Cause that is so powerful. Because I think any woman listening, whether, you know, they feel like…maybe they feel like they’re struggling at being a mom or they’re struggling at being a wife or…or…or maybe they’re single. And… Or maybe, you know, they’re struggling in their careers to just know that the Lord sees and loves you. And your value’s not found in what society…and especially what I believe, you know, Christianity can make us sometimes feel that way. I…I have felt that way from my friends, you know, or people from my past that have placed that metric on me, that I’m only valued if these things happen. I think there’s…that can be perpetuated, but I just love the example of…of the Lord’s pursuit for women in the New Testament. Continue. Continue. Keep…keep going. I like it.

Elisa:​ Well, you know, let’s…let’s actually go to the…the Easter story, and this is the resurrection story. I’m just going to take a minute and read from Luke chapter 24. I’m just going to read up to, like, verse 1 to 11, okay? “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and they went to the tomb.” Okay, so Jesus has died on the cross, and He’s dead, and He’s been put in this tomb. “They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, and when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen! Remember what He told you, while He was still with you in Galilee: “The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.”’ And then – then they remembered His words. When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others.” Okay, here it is, “It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles.” And then verse 11, “But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.” Okay, there’s a lot here.

Eryn:​ There is a lot. Also, I want to know who Joanna is.
Elisa:​ Okay, okay. You know what? Let’s…let’s look at verse 10. Who are the women? 

Eryn:​ Yes.
Elisa:​ Read them out to me.
Eryn:​ So we got Mary, Mary Magdalene…
Elisa:​ We’ve got Mary Magdalene.
Eryn:​ Joanna…
Elisa:​ Joanna.
Eryn:​ Mary, the mother of James…
Elisa:​ Okay. And?

Eryn:​ And the others, the others with them. I’m like, how many others? Are there, like two others? Ten others? Twenty others? How many do we got here?

Elisa:​ Awesome. Awesome. Duh, duh, duh. Okay, I’m gonna have us flip over, flip back in your Bible to Luke chapter 8. And, Eryn, would you grab verses 1 through 3? And you’re gonna hear some familiar names now, okay? Luke 8 verse 1…

Eryn:​ Through 3. “After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.”

Elisa:​ What?
Eryn:​ Wow. And others. And they keep saying “many others.” Many other women.

Elisa:​ Exactly. Okay, so who’s there? I love this. Jesus travels, and the Twelve were with Him. That’s the twelve male disciples, okay. And verse 2, “…and some women.” And then Luke lists them. He lists them as Mary Magdalene. We just saw her at the empty tomb. And he…

Eryn:​ Yeah.
Elisa:​ …lists Joanna, the wife of Chuza, who’s the manager of Herod’s household. Well, we just saw her at the tomb, didn’t we? 

Eryn:​ Yeah.

Elisa:​ And Susanna. We don’t know who she is. And many others. And then what’s that last verse, that last part of verse 3? These women were doing what?

Eryn:​ They were helping to support them out of their own means. Out of their own means.

Elisa:​ Out of their own means. Women were only valuable if they were married or had children. These women had value. And they actually had money, and they were contributing it to Jesus and to the ministry and to the twelve men who had left their livelihoods in order to go with Jesus. These women are in the inside. These women are part of Jesus’ inner group of disciples. This is stunning, isn’t it?

Eryn:​ Wow. Yeah.
Elisa:​ Okay, now who are they? Mary Magdalene is the one we want to look at first. I love this. We know

a little bit about her. Where is she from? What’s that say?

Eryn:​ Oh, Magdala, yeah.

Elisa:​ She’s from a town called Magdala. And seven demons…yeah, seven demons have been cast out of her. And now she’s become a supporter. Okay, but Luke doesn’t tell the whole story. I want to flip over to John just for a second. Go to John chapter 20. And we’re not going to read this entire passage, but I…I just want us all to realize each one of the…the gospel writers tells the story of Jesus from their own point of view, right?

Eryn:​ Yeah, right. Right.

Elisa:​ So…so Luke is talking…Luke is obviously following or focusing on the women that Jesus has included in His ministry. ’Cause he…he’s the one who writes about all of these women. John focuses in on the empty tomb. And he has Mary… This is in verse 20. Mary stood outside the tomb, and she’s crying. And…and as she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white. Oh! We just saw two men in white, didn’t we, in Luke 24. They were seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and one at the foot. And they go, “Why are you crying?” She says, “They’ve taken my Lord away! And I don’t know where they’ve put Him.” And probably she’s freaking out because…

Eryn:​ Yeah.

Elisa:​ …in that time there were actually grave robbers who would steal bodies. And I think she was afraid Jesus’ body had been stolen. She said, “I don’t know where they’ve put Him.” At this she turned around, and she saw Jesus standing there, but she didn’t realize it was Him. Okay, and so then Jesus appears to her. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. You know, first she’s panicked. She’s…she’s…

Eryn:​ Yeah.

Elisa:​ …terrified. She’s grieving. She’s confused.

Eryn:​ Yeah.

Elisa:​ As a result, she thinks Jesus is a gardener. What? Because that’s the only thing that can make sense to her.

Eryn:​ Yeah.

Elisa:​ And Jesus goes, in verse 15, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you’re looking for?” Thinking it’s the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you’ve carried Him away, tell me where you put Him, and I’ll get Him.” And Jesus moves from verse 15 and saying, “Woman…” to saying in verse 16, “Mary.” Jesus sees her. Jesus hears her.

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Eryn:​ He knows…He knows her name.

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Elisa:​ He knows her name! And she turns and she says, “‘Rabboni!’ (which means ‘Teacher’).” And He goes, “Don’t hold on to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father. Go and tell my brothers. Tell them, ‘I am ascending…’” and she ran to the disciples, “I’ve seen the Lord.” Mary becomes really the first witness of the resurrection and the first evangelist of the resurrection.

[music] 

Eryn:​ Yeah.

[music]

Eryn:​ And when we come back Elisa and I look at some of the specific questions that Jesus and the angels ask the women, like, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” And we examine how these questions are questions that we should consider too. That’s coming up next on ​God Hears Her​.

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Elisa:​ Thanks for listening to this ​God Hears Her​ podcast. Eryn and I love sharing this space with you. And you know what? We want to invite you to become an even bigger part of our ​God Hears Her community, to sign up for our weekly email newsletter. We’ll keep you updated on new podcasts, encouraging blog posts, exciting new products, so much. Just go to godhearsher.org and sign up today. That’s godhearsher.org. Now back to the show.

[music]

Eryn:​ Welcome back to ​God Hears Her​. I’m Eryn Eddy. [music]

Elisa:​ And I’m Elisa Morgan. And in just a moment we’ll talk through the specific questions and thoughts that Jesus and the angels shared with the women after His resurrection and consider the implications of those questions for our lives today. But first just a quick reminder that the show notes are available in the podcast description. The show notes not only contain the talking points for todays’ episode, but they also include a link to a free resource. It’s an e-booklet, titled, ​A Rumor of Hope: The Good News of Easter.​ This free download walks us through Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection from the biblical narrative of those who were there. So just click on the link in the podcast description or visit our website at godhearsher.org, that’s godhearsher.org.

[music]

Eryn:​ Now, back to our conversation on the women of Easter. Let’s begin by thinking through what the angels meant when they asked the women, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” And then we will later attempt to put ourselves in their shoes and consider what they may have been feeling when they believed Jesus was dead in the tomb. This is ​God Hears Her​.

[music]

Elisa:​ Eryn, I want us to look at a couple of sentences here, okay?

Eryn:​ Okay.

Elisa:​ And…and read them for me. Go back to Luke chapter 24 again.

Eryn:​ K.

Elisa:​ Okay? Now read verse 5. This is what the two angels said to the women, Mary, Joanna, Mary, and the others.

Eryn:​ Yes, and the others. And the others. 

Elisa:​ The others.

Eryn:​ Yes. So it says in verse 5, “In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead?’”

Elisa:​ What is that question mean?

Eryn:​ “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

Elisa:​ Okay, and in John’s version Jesus says to Mary, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you’re looking for?” And in verse 17 He says, “Don’t hold on to me.” What is He saying? Let that kinda linger, ’cause this is a question Jesus has asked of Mary Magdalen, that had seven demons, Joanna, who was the wife of Herod’s household manager… I don’t know if he still was working for Herod after this or not…

Eryn:​ Right.

Elisa:​ …asks of another Mary, who was the mother of James and John, who was the wife of Zebedee, who actually, we know her because she asked Jesus to have her sons sit at Jesus’ right and left. He asked this question…

Eryn:​ Yeah.
Elisa:​ …“Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” to these women who had been with Him

and supported Him. What does that mean? 

Eryn:​ Oh, I… What does it mean, Elisa? 

Elisa:​ I know.
Eryn:​ Tell me.

Elisa:​ I’ve been asking God. And…and I’m…I’m thinking, you know, when you stand at the tomb of the One that you thought was gonna save you, you watched Him die on a cross, you know He’s dead, wouldn’t you look back at what had happened in your heart and wonder?

Eryn:​ Yeah.
Elisa:​ Did it really happen? Wouldn’t you think, “Are those seven demons gonna come back now?”

Eryn:​ Yeah.

Elisa:​ Wouldn’t you wonder if maybe Herod was gonna send his guards to come take me because I became a follower of Jesus, and my husband worked in Herod’s household? Wouldn’t you maybe regret the goofy question you asked Jesus, “Could you put one of my sons on Your right and one of my sons on the left when you go into the Kingdom?” Wouldn’t Jesus’ apparent death undo the fact that He had seen you and heard you when He was alive?

Eryn:​ You think that the women experienced flashbacks of, if things really did happen? And if the miracles they experienced were really miracles?

Elisa:​ Yeah. Because when we go through life… And I don’t want to just lay my experience on Scripture. But when we go through life and we have experiences where Jesus has seen us and heard us and then we move into a new experience where our faith is tried or we feel unseen and unheard or, you know, what we came to know, the ground becomes very rocky and unstable. We wonder. Was that real? Was that real?

Eryn:​ Yeah. Yeah. And we do it so quickly. We can have se…so many experiences and yet still wonder if that was real.

Elisa:​ Yeah. And so here are the women at an empty tomb in Luke chapter 24, and the angels say, “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” And what I think is being asked there, “Jesus is alive. Don’t look for Him in the death of what was.”

Eryn:​ Yeah.
Elisa:​ “He is alive.” 

Eryn:​ Yes.

Elisa:​ And then you move on to see Mary, and you see Him saying, “What is it you’re looking for? Who is it you’re looking for?” “Don’t hold on to Me. My life is beyond this life.” And bottom line I think it’s this: Is it… And that’s why I want…I want us to focus on this in this week before Easter. I think we kinda round up to…to Easter, and we maybe in a holy way, in a sacred way, consider Jesus’ act of going to the cross for us, and we’re undone all over again at how much God loves us, that He gave His son to die on a cross for us. And on Resurrection Sunday we’re like, “Whoa! Cool!” But on Monday after Easter…

Eryn:​ Yeah.

Elisa:​ …we’re pretty much back to looking for the living among the dead. You know, if Jesus is alive, let’s not go back to our past crazy patterns and look for Him as if He’s in a tomb.

Eryn:​ Yes.

Elisa:​ Let’s live like He’s alive. Let’s look like Easter really changed us. Let’s look like…

Eryn:​ Yes.

Elisa:​ …what He did to see us and hear us… We really are seen. We really are heard.

Eryn:​ Yeah.

Elisa:​ What would it mean for you, for me, Eryn, for all of us, to live like Jesus is alive? To not look for the living Jesus among the dead of the tombs in our lives?

Eryn:​ Oh, I think about the things that I need to surrender to Him. And living out of that space that He is Who He says He is. He will…He will do what He set out to do for my life. And His promises and what Scripture says, I think I would actually live with that belief, but I struggle with being double-minded sometimes.

Elisa:​ Oooh, good way to put it.

Eryn:​ You know? In Scripture talks about that in James being double-minded. And I…I am double-minded sometimes, especially around Easter. It’s like the day that is to be honored for what Christ has done. And yet I will go back on Monday and I will have the same fears, the same things that I have my…my…my tight fists on and go into, “I’m going to control my circumstance,” and forget that I can surrender control to Him. I have been just recently in that…that Scripture of praying over and over, “Lord, reveal to me when I have a double mind.” And I think that’s what we’re talking about here, is talking about being double-minded.

Elisa:​ Yeah.
Eryn:​ And not shame, but to acknowledge and go, “I do that.” I do sometimes think that Jesus is a gardener instead of Who He is. You know, I… 

Elisa:​ Yes.

Eryn:​ What’s so interesting about that is that she wasn’t expectant that that was Him. Elisa:​ Right.

Eryn:​ She was thinking He was a gardener. She wasn’t expecting that this is Jesus. This is a gardener. How many times have I not been expectant that He will show up? Instead I have been doubtful of Who He is. And I think that’s just… I love how you’ve pieced all of that together in all of the different Scriptures to just show us that, man, all of these women were valued and still struggled with seeing Him.

Elisa:​ Yeah. Isn’t that funny? And when we can’t see Him, we can’t see that He sees us. So here Mary is, in the John 20 telling, she’s freaked out. She’s panicked. She’s afraid. She’s grieving. She…she’s just stunned. And she misses Jesus. And we do too. You know, when we get pulled into our double-mindedness, into the, “Well, maybe it never really happened. Maybe I wasn’t really ever freed from this habit,” or “I really haven’t been healed from this relationship,” or…or…or, “Maybe that moment of rejection does pronounce who I am,” and we get pulled into that. And when we can only see through that, you know, we’re…we’re in the dead. You know, whereas when we move into the living place that He’s brought us into, into the new life, into the place of being seen and heard, then we can recognize He is there still, in us, with us. And He makes an enormous difference. And…and so just…if you could pull up in your life right now, everybody is listening, you and me, Eryn. What’s that moment you thought of when we started our conversation, where you can go, “Oh, I really felt unseen, unheard.” And we put our finger on it. And I shared about jokingly my kids ignoring me or I shared about not being noticed in a professional setting, in the radio program. And I shared about the very painful overlooking of my father. And when…and…and Eryn, you shared about a friend calling you the “help” and not correcting who you were to another acquaintance. If we sit with those unseen, unheard moments, we’re believing lies, aren’t we?

Eryn:​ Yeah.

Elisa:​ But if we bring those unseen, unheard moments into Who Jesus is and what He’s done in our lives, through the act of Easter, how can we hold onto the resurrected hope? How can we look for the living among the living? How can we not live as if the lie is true? How can we move into the fact that Jesus really does see us and heard us? What do we tell ourselves in each one of those situations?

Eryn:​ I think… I know this might sound flowery or we’ve heard this before. So maybe you can help me reshape this. But I think we have to have our eyes on Him and what He has done for us over what people have done things to us or have said things over us.

Elisa:​ Really good. I don’t think that’s flowery at all. If you look at…if you look at John again, chapter 20 verse 16, Jesus said, “Mary, Eryn, Elisa, Sheila, Desirae, Yolanda…” “Mary,” He said. And she turns towards Him. Get that. She turned toward Him. So there’s Jesus speaking her name. There’s Mary, turning toward. So you’re right, Eryn. We hear Him and we turn toward Him. And that helps us see ourselves the way He sees us, hear ourselves the way He hears us, love ourselves the way He loves us, live in the resurrection truth, instead of the before-Easter death of a cross. You know, I think that’s so much it. He sees us. He knows us the way He saw and He knew and He loved the women of Easter.

[music]

Eryn:​ Jesus is alive. Don’t look for Him among the dead. Let’s live knowing Jesus is alive. He hears us. He sees us, and He cares for us. And in that way, we are all the women of Easter. You’re listening to ​God Hears Her​. And before we close out today’s episode, just a quick reminder that the show notes are available in the podcast description. The show notes not only contain the talking points for today’s episode, but they also include a link to a free resource. It’s an e-booklet titled ​A Rumor of Hope: The Good News of Easter​. This free download walks us through Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection from the perspective of those who were there. So just click on the link in the podcast description or visit our website at godhearsher.org. That’s godhearsher.org.

[music]

Elisa:​ Not only will you find a link to this free digital download, but the show notes also contain a link to sign up for the ​God Hears Her​ newsletter, featuring helpful articles and stories from women, just like you, who are discovering what it means to be seen and heard by God. And you can also find links to connect with Eryn and me on social. We’d love to hear how this show is impacting you and even answer any questions that you might have after listening. So, again, you can find these links in the show notes or by visiting our website at godhearsher.org. That’s godhearsher.org.

[music]

Eryn:​ Thank you for joining us. And don’t forget: God hears you; He sees you, and He loves you because you are His.

Elisa:​ Today’s episode was engineered by Ann Stevens and produced by Mary Jo Clark and Daniel Ryan Day. And today we also want to recognize Peggy and Dave for their help in creating and promoting the ​God Hears Her​ podcast. Thank you both.

[music]

Eryn: God Hears Her​ is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries.

Show Notes

  • “He turns around and calls her out in the crowd—and she would have been seen as unclean and rejected—but Jesus sees her, and He heals her.”

  • “Women didn’t count in New Testament culture or Old Testament culture either. The only thing that gave women value in biblical times was if they were married and if they had children.”

  • “Jesus comes against that cultural standard and sees and hears and values women for who they are: humans.”

  • “The Lord sees and loves you. Your value is not found in what society or what Christianity sees in you that way.”

  •  The women of Easter: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them.

  • “Jesus goes from calling her woman to calling her Mary. He sees her, He knows her. He knows her name.”

  • “We do it so quickly. We can have so many experiences and yet still wonder if that [God experience] was real.”

  • “On the Monday after Easter, we’re pretty much back to looking for the living among the dead. If Jesus is alive, let’s not go back to our past crazy patterns and look for Him as if He’s in a tomb. Let’s act like He’s alive.”

  • “What would it mean for all of us to live like Jesus is alive?”

  • “How many times have I not been expectant that He would show up; instead I have been doubtful of who He is.”

Links Mentioned

Verses Mentioned:

  • John 8 – The adulterous woman

About the Guest(s)

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