April 2022

In John’s gospel Jesus encounters a woman by a well ( John 4:4-3, 39-42). This woman has a storied past. She has had five husbands and is currently residing with a sixth man who is not her husband. Some interpreters have speculated that this means that she has loose morals. A kinder and, therefore, more Christian reading would be that life has been very hard on this woman. In the 1st Century, a woman who was not married was subject to severe social and economic vulnerability. No woman would willingly subject herself to the privations and dangers of that condition unless she were in dire circumstances.

“My God is an oath; my God is abundance.” I am sure these words were hard for Elizabeth to understand--words that are the meaning of her name. When I was thinking of the women in the Bible, the name Elizabeth came immediately to mind.

Of the many mothers of determination, courage, and faith in the Bible, my favorite is Moses’ mother, Jochebed. Moses was born when the Pharaoh of Egypt had ordered all male Hebrew babies to be thrown into the Nile River. Jochebed, showing tremendous determination and courage, hid Moses from the authorities for three months and eventually floated him down the Nile in a watertight basket, displaying incredible faith. Moses’s sister Miriam followed him down the river, and when Pharaoh’s daughter found him, Miriam offered Jochebed’s assistance in raising the child (Exodus 1:15- 2:10).