Empathy and Easter: The power of story




The story of Mary really came together for me this year. Last Christmas, I really thought a lot about what it must have been like for such a young girl (as we think Mary was, probably 14 to 16 years old, though some sources suggest as young as 12) to go through what she did leading up to the birth of Jesus. By the time the ministry of Jesus comes along, Joseph is no longer in the picture. The canonical gospels never tell us his age, but the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James paints Joseph as an old man at the time of his charitable marriage to Mary, chosen by lot, with children from an earlier marriage (possibly explaining the brothers and sister of Jesus).

In any case, it appears Mary is a widow, now watching her son (and perhaps her only son) dying in a way most horrible, witnessing it with her own eyes, and unable to do anything about it. Before the Sabbath began, He was put in the tomb. What must the evening have been like for her? What must the “day of rest” have meant to her?

When you face those times that St. John of the Cross called the dark night of the soul (and we all have them), is waiting it out often the hardest part? It is for me. I have trouble even watching movies sometimes; I want the problem to get fixed immediately. But that’s not how good stories work, and that’s not how life works.

Sometimes, it takes awhile to go through Hell. It’s apparently a big place.

Here is the insight you can use in your own communication: the power of story. Christianity, as well as other major religions, didn’t become major because of philosophical brilliance or theological perspicacity. It was the power of the story–the extended, overarching story, and the hundreds of embedded stories.

I will admit I wrestle with theological questions, attempting to understand thing that, by their nature, cannot be fully understood. But those are not the things that draw me spiritually. Jim Cathcart and Mark Sanborn have both made the point that people don’t make decisions based on logic. They make decisions based on emotion; they justify decisions based on logic. I think what I believe is reasonable, based on evidence, but that’s not what really moves me.

What moves me is vicarious experiences like that of Mary, watching the son an angel told her would occupy the throne of David and be called the Son of the Most High die nailed to a tree, and then trying to get through Saturday.

Share this, please!

Author: Donn King
