3.08. The Women who Ministered to Jesus
CHAPTER VIII The Women who Ministered to Jesus —
Active Devotion THE freedom enjoyed by women among the Jews, in contrast to the degradation and miserable servitude that is their lot in most Eastern countries, evident throughout Bible history, is most conspicuous in the gospel narratives. This is not only the case with the poor among whom our Lord generally lived — for whom necessity breaks many of the bands of social restraint. Ladies of wealth and position are found in the group of His most constant followers, and it was by means of their gifts that His temporal wants were supplied. No scandal appears to have been raised on this account as on the ground that Jesus ate and drank with publicans and sinners; and therefore it is reasonable to conclude that it was not regarded as unseemly or unusual, and the liberty thus manifested must be set down to Jewish custom, not to the innovations of Christianity. But the spirit of the new era introduced by Jesus Christ elevated and enlarged this custom. Not the least of the blessings of the gospel consists in its bringing justice to womanhood. In Christ’s action and teaching there is nothing but what agrees with the social, moral, and religious equality of man and woman. Our Lord’s relations with the women who attended Him are distinct from His relations with the men disciples in one very remarkable particular. He ministered to the men; but the women ministered to Him. In their case Jesus consented to receive gifts and service. Thus theirs was the higher honour among His followers. The first instance of the ministry of woman after Jesus had commenced His public work is of the simplest kind, and it affords a glimpse into the happy relations in which He lived with humble folk.^ He had been teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum on a Sabbath day, and there He had healed a demoniac. Then St. Peter took Him to his own home, where it was discovered that the fisherman’s wife’s mother, who apparently had been left in charge of the house, had been taken with a fever, no doubt just such a malarious attack as would be common in the hot, steaming valley by the shores of Genesaret. No mention is made of the daughter, St. Peter’s wife. Possibly she had been at the synagogue service. It may be, however, that she was no longer living. If that should be the case it would not help the argument for a celibate priesthood in the Christian Church; because we learn from St. Paul that some years later St. Peter had a wife who was in the habit of accompanying him on his travels.^ If, therefore, the apostle was a widower when Jesus went to his house, he must have married a second time later in his life, a still more glaring offence in the eyes of the Hildebrand school than that of having retained the wife of his youth. Take it how you will, there is no escape from the plain inference that rises out of the New Testament statements and points to the fact that the apostle to whom the Church of Rome looks up as its head and founder was a married man.
Clement of Alexandria, writing at the end of the second century, says that Peter’s wife helped him in ministering to women — as the missionary’s wife so often becomes thus a second missionary. He also states that Peter had children.’
It would seem then that the older woman was an energetic person who actively concerned herself with her daughter’s household affairs. We may even venture on the conjecture that anxiety to do her very best for her Guest, and the labour thus incurred in the heat of the day, helped to bring on the fever. For a woman, perhaps somewhat advanced in life and readily fatigued, to be working with unusual assiduity at mid-day in that hot, damp climate, was likely enough to bring her into a condition especially liable to succumb to the local malaria.
If this were the case how doubly distressed she must have been when laid aside at such an inopportune moment.
What woman of an active disposition, intent on hospitality, but wovdd have considered the untimely collapse as most “aggravating”? Thus the circumstances of her illness would tend to increase the severity of its symptoms. St. Luke, with the exactness of a physician, tells us that it was a “ great fever “ from which she was sufiFering,^ perhaps alluding to the technical division of fevers into two classes, the “ great “ and the “ slight,” which he had learnt from his text-book, Galen. Apart from any conjectures as to the source of the fever, we may be sure that such a person as this woman seems to be, on the evidence of her conduct directly after she was healed, must have been greatly vexed with herself for falling ill just when she would like to have been at her very best to do honour to the Prophet to whom her son-in-law had devoted his life.
Like most active people she would probably suppose that nobody else could take her place. What was to become of the meal she had been preparing? And what would Peter say? Was it not provoking? And so the poor woman lies and frets herself into a worse fever. For lie she must.
It is perfectly impossible to fight against one of these fierce attacks of malaria. The collapse is total. In an hour it flings the strongest person into the most helpless condition, perhaps into raging delirium. This woman had to learn the hardest lesson set for the energetic, that “ They also serve who only stand and wait.” Not even standing, hut helplessly prostrate, she was to be the means of helping the work of Christ most wonderfully.
It is something to discover that we cannot only follow Christ as His servants, offering Him the homage of our hearts and the sacrifice of our work. Primarily He is not the Master; He is the Saviour. Would we be always serving? May not this mean a little unconscious pride?
We must be brought low into a state of absolute helplessness, where, while we can do nothing for Christ, we may discover that Christ can do everything for us. When the family party returned from the synagog\ie they discovered the untoward event, the illness of the good woman who had been left in charge of the house. In our oldest account we simply read that they told Jesus of it, apparently with an apologetic purpose to account for the sufferer’s absence, and to explain the unfortunate delay it must have occasioned in the preparation of the evening meal, and from this narrative it would appear that our Lord’s action in healing the woman was entirely of His own initiative. St. Luke, however, says that they besought Him to help them in their trouble. That they definitely expected a miracle thus early in His ministry is not very probable, though the cure of the demoniac in the synagogue just before may have raised some vague hopes that He might do something. It is St. Luke again who tells us that Jesus rebuked the fever as though it were an evil spirit. This is according to that evangelist’s style. The action of Jesus is narrated more simply in St. Mark’s more primitive account, as also it is in St. Matthew’s, where we read that Jesus took the woman by the hand and raised her up. But all accounts are agreed in making it clear that the fever left her, and that the cure was both immediate and complete. This is Christ’s first miracle of healing disease. It is very characteristic in its simple majestyThere is no agony of invocation, no evidence of great strain or effort, but a consciousness of absolute mnstery, a serene assurance that what is desired will be accomplished, that is to say, perfect faith on Christ’s side. Yet we must not suppose that a miracle cost Him nothing. It cost Him much in sympathy, for we often read of the motive behind one that “He was moved with compassion.” It also cost Him not a little in the exercise of will power. That “I will “ of His of which we read on one occasion ^ meant an expenditure of energy. He was giving Himself in His cures and bearing the infirmities of the sufferers as His own burden. Some such sacrifice we may believe He made on this first occasion, at the cure of Peter’s wife’s mother.
He gave Himself, in profound sympathy and the exercise of strong will power, for the healing of her. And the result was a perfect cure.
Then the evangelists add the interesting touch from which we glean all we really know about the chai’acter of this woman. She rose and ministered to Jesus and His friends. This is often commented on as a proof of the completeness of the cure. And of course it is that. Fever is a peculiarly exhausting condition; and when it is over it leaves the patient in a state of utter prostration, the pulse, which had been bounding at a fierce pace, sometimes sinking dangerously low, the heart being much enfeebled by the strain that has been put upon it. For a woman just recovered from a severe attack of malarial fever to get up in a moment and go about her household duties as though nothing had happened was simply marvellous.
Yery likely this is why the evangelists record the fact.
Nevertheless for us, in our study of its subject, it has also other suggestions. Some people would have claimed the privileges of the invalid. Convalescence may be a very pleasant time when everybody is expected to be considerate, and all sorts of nice little favours may be exacted. Have we not known the sentimental convalescent, not altogether exempt from selfishness, and perhaps a trifle hypocritical —for whom it will not do to seem to be getting well too fast?
Such a person may become not a little trying to the patience of friends who were willing to give the most assiduous nursing quite ungrudgingly in the crisis of real danger.
Peter’s wife’s mother indulges in no such nonsense. A plain, practical, matter-of-fact woman, she feels well enough to work. Then why should not she set to at once without any ado? Hers is the sort of service we may rest assured Jesus Christ most delights in. She would not dream of attempting to compose a second Magnificat — a hymn in the praise of her Healer — and yet next to His mother miffht not she have resrarded herself as the most honoured of all women, for as yet she was the only woman on whom He had exercised His marvellous powers of healing? We would not look for poetry from the fisherman’s mother-in-law, except in so far as her willing service under such circumstances as these is itself a poem. To do the commonplace thing because it is obviously desirable that it should be done, and because one is of a simple and honest heart, when abundant excuses might be found for avoiding it and posing as a person of some importance, is itself a mark of true nobility of character. Thus there may be sublimity in the commonplace, while the seizing of any excuse to escape from it is a sign of pettiness and essential vulgarity of mind.
Then it is to be considered that Peter’s wife’s mother had fresh motives for serving Christ, which she had not known before her illness. She had received in her own experience a marvellous revelation of His power. But better than that, to her at least, was the thought that she had received from Him a mark of greatest kindness.
She had thought of Him as her Guest before; now He is her Friend, her Helper, and in some sense, the full meaning of which she will learn later, her Saviour. Therefore henceforth any service she can render Him will be intelligent with some knowledge of His worth, and doubly affectionate in gratitude for His goodness. This is the secret of true Christian service. It is the service of gratitude. And just in proportion as the grace received from Christ is recognised will be the warmth of the desire to render some token of devotion to Him. This is why it is a mistake to insist absolutely on the duty of Christian service. We can never serve aright until our enthusiasm is kindled by the supremo motive for service.
Evangelical teaching is no distraction from Christian work; it is its strongest inspiration. But the converse of all this is equally true. There is nothing but the most odious ingratitude in seeking the highest favours from Christ, and forgetting to avail ourselves of any opportunities for rendering service to Him. In the case of this woman we have the normal process, the typical example, in its simplest form — deliverance by Christ immediately followed by service to Christ.
One more point may be noted in regard to the special circumstance of the incident. St. Peter had just given up his fishing, left his boats and his nets, to devote himself to the exclusive service of the new Teacher. Now if there was one person who might very naturally have blamed him for doing so, that person was his wife’s mother. His wife might have borne it out of love and dutiful submission, and in a gracious spirit of self-suppression, but for the mother to see her daughter subjected to the treatment such conduct must involve — was it not a little trying], Now, if ever, was there an excuse for a mother-in-law to interfere with a man’s arrangements and show some asperity of protest. What folly! What madness! Nay, what culpable disregard for family claims! This man had taken her daughter into his charge; then what right had he to break up his home on some plea of religious fanaticism 1 In point of fact, it does not appear that Peter’s wife was brought to want through her husband’s action at this time. But could her mother foresee a safe way out of the difficulty which apparently stared the household in the face when the head of it suddenly announced his intention to give up what had been hitherto their means of livelihood?
If such very natural thoughts had been in her mind, and Jesus had perceived them, He may have felt the more compassion for her considering that her maternal anxiety might have helped to bring on the fever. But now that she is cured she can look at the case in a different light. Having a new ground for faith in the new Teacher, she is prepared to face the future with a more cheerful countenance. And here we part company with her. She comes but once on to the page of history, there to serve a double purpose — first to be the means of showing forth the goodness and glory of Christ in this quiet homely scene at the fisherman’s cottage, and then to be the example for all time for the service of gratitude!
Hers was the simplest ministry, woman’s commonest task; yet since it was just the work that lay to her hand, it was all that could be expected from her. Happily this is a form of service in which many can follow her cheerful example. The fisherman’s hut has vanished; Capernaum is a wilderness; these simple folk are of the olden time, far back in the past; it is not for us to hear the tread of the footstep of Jesus on our threshold; He does not appear seated at our table and breaking bread in our midst. Yet the grateful task of Peter’s wife’s mother is open to be taken up by any lowly woman to-day, for has not the Master said, “Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye did it unto Me?” The other cases in connection with which we read of women ministering to Jesus are of a different character.
St. Luke tells us that in addition to the Twelve, Jesus was accompanied on His travels by certain “ women which had been healed of evil spii-its and infirmities, Mary that was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto Him of their substance.” ^ Towards the end of his gospel St. Mark also refers to certain women “ who when He was in Galilee followed Him, and ministered unto Him,” distinguishing these from others who were simply disciples — “ the many other women which came up with Him unto Jerusalem.”
St. Matthew also in the same connection refers to “ many women... which had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto Him.”^ Taken together, these three passages imply that Jesus was especially cared for by a number of women, that it was women who provided for the temporal wants both of Himself and of His apostles.
Here then we see a considerable number of persons of means contributing to the common fund out of which the simple wants of Jesus and His disciples were supplied.
We leam from Jerome that it was customary for Jewish women to contribute to the support of rabbis.* Our Lord had no fixed place of abode; plainly Ho was feeling the pain of homelessness when He said to one who was overhasty in oflPering to follow Him wherever He went, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.” We know that He often spent the night out among the mountains. Still there is no reason to think that He ever sufifered from actual want. He had no sure income; but He who taught His disciples not to be anxious for the morrow had no such anxiety, knowing His Father would provide. And yet it is a mark of His humiliation that His livelihood was obtained in the precarious way of contributions to a common bag. But He was not above accepting such ofiferings. It was reasonable and right that they should be made. He gave infinitely more than the wealthiest of His disciples could ever return to Him.
Jesus made no charge for His cures. His healing was free, and so was His teaching. Even the thank-offerings of devout disciples were never conceived of in the sordid spirit of barter. If such had been the case He would not have taken them. They were just gifts of love, expressions of devotion. At the same time they had a practical character. They were of a different order from Mary’s costly ointment. That represented the poetry of devotion; these offerings, its prose; and devotion must have its prosaic side. It is the disregard of this that often makes religion an unreal thing of empty sentiment. People must learn to consider practical necessities even in their most sacred relations with Jesus Christ.
Moreover, this was in accordance with Jewish custom.
Self-respecting rabbis made no charge to their pupils.
Later, in the Alexandrian School, Clement and Origen would not have any fees for attendance at their lectures. To make a charge was looked upon as a sign of the charlatanry of a sophist. And yet, of course, the teacher was provided for — he trusted himself to freewill offerings. And here we see Jesus dependent on the same source of income. But now the point of interest before us is that this support all came from women. We might have supposed a rich disciple, such as Joseph of Arimathea, would not have reserved his generosity for costly oblations at the tomb of the Lord whom He secretly believed in. Zacchseus was probably a wealthy publican; but he only met Jesus a week or so before the end of His life on earth.
Besides, he may have shrunk from offering Him any of his doubtfully acquired riches. At all events, the fact remains that we have no recorded instance of any gift being made to our Lord and His disciples by a man. The travelling community appears to have been wholly dependent on the sifts of women.
It is not easy to explain this fact. Was it that the claims of Christ were recognised by women more thoroughly than by men? That is scarcely a position which can be maintained with any security. The twelve whom Jesus appointed to carry on His work after His own ministry on earth was over were all men. We never find women taking a leadiug part in the affairs of the apostolic church as must have been the case if the claims of Christ had been chiefly admitted by women, if in fact primitive Chi-istianity had been primarily a woman’s movement. We cannot imagine any rivalry between the devotion of John and Mary of Bethany, of Peter and Mary Magdalene.
We must look in another direction for the explanation of the singular fact that Jesus and His apostles were supported by women. This may be found perhaps in the different social position of the majority of the male disciples from that of, at all events, some of His women disciples. We know that the influence of Jesus was felt for the most part among the humbler sections of society.
Most revivals of religion come up from these despised ranks. There were a few, but only a few, of the middle and upper classes in the following of the Carpenter Prophet. But of these few it would seem most were women. That is to say, when the cause of Christ made any way at all in these less familiar regions it was chiefly among the wealthy women.
Now, this is what we know to have been the case with the proselytising progress of Judaism in the pagan aristocracy of Rome. We learn from the satirists that there were ladies of rank in the imperial city who “Sabbatised” in imitation of the Jewish custom. It is possible to regard this as but a passing phase of fashion adopted by people in search of something new. But we must be on our guard against taking the satirists’ view of every fact they allude to. It is quite likely that there was an earnest seeking after a religion that should be better than the dead formalism of the pagan worship on the part of some of these Roman grand dames. In Nero’s time even the Empress Poppaea was said to have become a Jewess.
Nearly all the ladies of position at Damascus had gone over to Judaism. If that feeling prevailed among pagan women so as to lead them to what was for them the more spiritual faith of Israel, may we not imagine that a corresponding feeling was found among Jewish women of rank, who knew only too well how little real sap was left in the dry wood of the old tree of their fathers’ faith I These women would be ready to turn to some new and more promising teaching. The interesting point, then, that seems to emerge here is not that among the Jews generally women were more ready to accept the claims of Jesus than men, but that in the wealthier circles of the Jews it was the women who were most open to the new gospel.
Then, like the Countess of Huntingdon in the eighteenth century, these ladies used their property for the promotion of the cause that had won their faith and devotion. When we come to consider the position of these ministering women more in detail, we have the interesting fact that all of them had been suffering from grievous complaints till they had been set free by the wonderful healing grace of Jesus. Even if wealthy in some cases, yet they were all most miserable in the state in which He had first met them. Earthly riches could not buy them health, and could do but little to relieve the misery of their condition. They might well have envied any peasant woman whom they had seen tripping blithely to the well. But now a wonder never hoped for is theirs, — they have been cured! And the consequence is a lifelong devotion to their Deliverer. The most interesting of these women is Mary Magdalene.
She is so interesting that it would not suffice merely to glance at her near the end of a chapter. We must reserve the study of this remarkable person for another occasion, when she again appears on the page of the gospel story.
Next we have Joanna. She was the wife of Herod’s steward, a man named Chusa. We have no reason to suppose that her husband was united with her in the new faith. His name is given because of his position; possibly he was well known as one in an important public office.
Now the question rises, How could a person in such a position as this of Joanna’s have come under the influence of Jesus? As she is mentioned among the sufferers whom He had cured, we may suppose that it was her dire necessity that drove this court lady to seek help from the peasant Prophet. Her husband’s royal master was desirous of the amusement of seeing Jesus perform a miracle; it would have been better than the smartest conjuring trick with which the jugglers entertained the dissolute monarch in the idle hours after dinner. Herod was doomed to be disappointed in his trivial wish. But the thing denied to the king was done for his servant’s wife; for hers was a real need. Possibly it was the knowledge of this fact that whetted Herod’s curiosity. We can easily understand why Joanna should have sought the assistance of the great Healer. Perhaps like Jeroboam’s wife, she consulted this new Prophet in disguise; perhaps like Nicodemus, she came to Him at night. But whether the first approach was open or secret, after being healed Joanna does not attempt to hide her faith. She gives her offerings for the support of Jesus and His disciples. And she goes further. She joins the sort of sisterhood which travels in the company of the disciples.
It seems strange that a married woman should have left her home duties for this service. Perhaps her husband was dead; but it is not said she was a widow. It may be the Herod named here was Antipas, the man who had some curiosity to see Jesus, and the office of his steward would be that of managing the royal household affairs, and perhaps also the king’s estates. he had cast her out; but of that we have no hint. The whole situation was abnormal. We know too little to understand it fully. Behind all lies the great truth that the claims of Christ are paramount, even above the claims of home. Of Susanna nothing more is known than that she was one of the ministering sisterhood. We have not even the names of the other women; we can honour the humility that permitted them to be obscure.