Out of my distress I called on the Lord;
the Lord answered me
and set me in a broad place.
Ps 118, 5
The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?He is not here but has risen. Remember how he told yo, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale.
Lk 24, 5-11
I love the phrase from the Psalm: “…the Lord answered me and set me in a broad place.” When I read it, my breaths are deeper, the air is electric with promise, and my eyes are ready to see what they have not seen before.
I once had friends, Dave and Jeanette, who lived on land perched high on a ridge. When visiting them, I stood a long while outside beside the single outbuilding and gazed over the hills that braided themselves below as far as I could see. My eyes felt good, like they were meant to look far and not have their vision stopped short by rows of buildings as is was in the city where I lived.
My eyes felt healthy and alive. Like a runner’s muscles stretched and ready to leave miles of road behind, my eyes took in the vista and opened my soul to what lay beyond.
I have the same feeling when I read that the Lord has set me in a broad place. God has placed me in a Divine milieu where I can see far, see what I could not see from my own place. God’s vision bestows an openness that allows the unimaginable to be true. From the “broad place” anything is possible. Standing in it is exhilarating.
The women in the gospel found themselves in a “broad place” on that early morning. They were standing in the same physical place, but suddenly they were seeing it with God’s eyes. What had seemed impossible was true. Everything in their lives changed in that moment. The eyes of their souls looked far.
As anyone who experiences such a moment and tries to share it with another person knows, such reality is met with disbelief. I am sure the fact that those who had the experience were women didn’t help. Today many still dismiss women’s intuition or experiences as “emotional,” as if that alone were enough to make their words inconsequential. Peter had to see for himself, not believing the “idle tale.”
The women knew. They had been put in a broad place and were transformed.
© 2010 Mary van Balen
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