One of my least favourite aspects of how Western Christianity has kept Lent is its tendency to act as though we don’t know how the story ends, as though remembering the Resurrection somehow inhibits the spirit of penitence. This stands in contrast to how Lent has been kept in the East, which keeps the Resurrection in mind at all times, as the greatest reminder of our hope and joy in the midst of this season. After all, we don’t keep Lent to wallow in our sins, but to prepare our hearts, minds, and bodies for the joy of Easter. With this in mind, today I’d like to look at a saying from one of the rare women whose wisdom were recorded from the Desert, Amma Theodora.
Amma Theodora is believed to have been the disgraced wife of a Roman official in Egypt, who disguised herself and lived as one of the monks. So, sadly, the reason why we have a record of her sayings is that they thought she was a man when they wrote them down. As weird as it may seem — particularly in this present moment where so many Christians are becoming obsessed with rigid ideas of sex and gender — this kind of ‘holy gender bending’ was not unheard of or even all that uncommon historically. Many of the female saints lived out their holy lives while performing masculinity, whether out of some kind of queerness or out of expediency, which was most certainly the case for Amma Theodora. At any rate, while living among the monks, she grew famous for her wisdom, and many would come to her asking for advice or encouragement. And such a request for wisdom is how today’s vignette starts:
Another of the elders questioned Amma Theodora, saying: ‘At the resurrection of the dead, how shall we rise?’ She said, ‘As pledge, as example, and as prototype we have him who died for us and is risen, Christ our God.’ (Theodora 10)
This interaction is interesting from the outset, because the Desert Fathers openly discouraged this kind of theological speculation. But in this case, an unnamed monk’s curiosity got the best of him and he asked Amma Theodora what she thought the general resurrection would be like. She replies that, however it will be, we have Christ as our pledge (i.e., deposit or down payment), example, and prototype in it. He has cleared the path, shown us how to walk it, and has become the blueprint or model for what it all looks like.
This response is telling because it says everything and nothing at once. It says nothing because there is no speculation at all here and simply repeats the ways the New Testament talks about the question. But it says everything, because it points back in every way to Jesus, “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12.2). After all, we become by grace everything that he is by nature.
So let’s look at this Jesus, as he is revealed in the Gospel reading appointed for today, from John 2. It’s the famous scene of Jesus cleansing the Temple, which John places towards the start of Jesus’ ministry rather than at the end, like the other Gospels do:
The Jewish festival of Passover was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. (John 2.13-22)
This is a favourite passage of many Christians, because it shows Jesus taking agency and doing something and not just talking about hard things like loving one’s neighbour and turning the other cheek. But that reasoning makes it an easy temptation to seemingly justify violent actions to ‘cleanse’ the Church or society. So let’s be clear what Jesus is doing here: He’s going after those who would profit from religion, abuse the Law for their own gain, and take advantage of those with limited choices. A former priest of mine put it perfectly: Jesus is disrupting the Temple-Industrial Complex. Then as much as now, getting in the way of the rich becoming richer off the backs of the poor is the best way to put a target on your back, and so he is immediately questioned.
But at this point, the story goes a bit sideways. They ask him for a sign to how his authority to disrupt the functioning of the Temple. He essentially replies, “You want a sign? Destroy this temple and I’ll build it back in three days! That will be your sign!” Naturally, they assume he means the building of the Temple itself and are scandalized. But the text immediately corrects this reading, telling us (but not the people in the story) that “He was speaking of the temple of his body.” So, Jesus points to the Resurrection as the sign of his authority. And, as we saw this past Easter, that’s pretty much how the Resurrection was interpreted by the first Christians; it was God’s vindication of Jesus, his authority, words, actions, and way of life.
And this takes us back to Amma Theodora’s words. Jesus is the pledge or down payment on the resurrection of the dead. Jesus is the example of how to live a ‘resurrectional’ life — as we saw today, part of this is standing up against injustice, oppression, and predation, and keeping religious observance free from profit-seeking and abuse. And Jesus is the prototype of the resurrection, for he did build up the temple of his body again three days after the combined forces of politics and religion destroyed it, which vindicated him and his ministry. If we are being renewed in body, soul, spirit, mind, and strength, this Lent, it is for the sake of this: the renewal of the new life of faith which Jesus represents and empowers us to live out.
O Lord, our divine pledge, be for us today a true example. May we follow in your footsteps and your way, knowing you are the protototype and your path is true. Amen.
Matthew Root 