“When the Sabbath ended, Mary of Magdalene and Mary, James’ and Salome’s mother, purchased spices so they could anoint Jesus” (Mark 16.1).
What is the Sabbath? Not Sunday, I mean. Not the tradition of church going and big lunches and afternoon naps before going to “night church.” No, I’m talking about the true Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, the one that begins at sundown Friday.
Like anything spiritual, there’s no one definition of Sabbath. It is a day of rest; because, that was when God rested from the act of creation. It’s a day, in modern times, that some don’t drive since doing so (in, at least, a non-electric car) violates the command to not make fire on the Sabbath. It’s time set apart, described by some Rabbis as a living into what a world made whole could look like—one without buying, selling, and the pursuits that leave us tired and empty.
Practically, then, it’s no surprise to find the women up early, buying spices, and going to tend to the buried body. Torah, of course, forbid such ministrations during the Sabbath. So, there’s nothing all that notable that Shabbat has passed when the story picks up after Jesus’ violent death.
That is, unless its mention is about more than showing that these women faithfully kept Torah. Purposeful, perhaps, by an author who very shortly is going to leave us hanging with an abrupt ending when these same women run off in fear and trembling.
In Genesis, God is said to have looked at all of Creation—stars, nebulae, dandelions, bumblebees, cats, and even people—and called all of it good. All good, as folks said back in the nineties. Whole. Loved. At peace. And God sanctifies this seventh day to gaze upon it, enjoy it, savor it. Because, I figure, the Divine had a really good sense that humans were about to mess it up.
Then, here, after we’ve seen just how far we humans will go to satisfy that first temptation to be as God, we fade in after the Sabbath. Following the day, in other words, when the Holy One took a step back to taste and see how good it all was. A day that dawned with all the promise and potential for goodness as did the eighth day.
It could be that we’re mean to think about that first Sabbath and what might have been, could have been. This Gospel writer, who is not shy about leaving us wondering, could be trying to get us thinking about all the possibilities if people lived as though all that happened from then until now—the violence, the pain, the death—had been overturned.
And, now, all that promise and potential was possible again.
Holy One, may I dare to live as if peace and wholeness through love were possible.