“People to meet in heaven: Joanna, wife of Chuza”
Luke 8:1-3
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Let me start today with a question—what do Tom Hanks, Alice Cooper, Pierce Brosnan, Jeff Gordon, Chuck Norris, Martin Sheen, Nick Jonas, Will Smith, and Denzel Washington all have in common?
If you said, they’re famous, you’d be right. But that’s not the answer I’m looking for. The answer I am looking for is that they’re Christian! All of them!
For example, actor Will Smith once said, “You don’t have to be Jewish to be a friend of Steven Spielberg. You don’t have to be Muslim to be a friend of Mohammad Ali. And you don’t have to be a Scientologist to be a friend of Tom Cruise. I am a Christian.”
Father of five and former “James Bond” actor Pierce Brosnan once said, “Prayer helped me with the loss of my wife to cancer. Now prayer helps me to be a father, to be an actor, and to be a man.”
And Martin Sheen once said, “I have long since returned to my church. I have never forgotten that even though I turned my back on God, in my time of greatest need, He came to find me.”
And there are more. Lots more. Patricia Heaton of “Everybody loves Raymond,” said, “You try to be a model of kindness and love and forgiveness to all those around you, because you have received kindness and love and forgiveness from God through Christ. That’s what Christianity is.”
Sylvester Stallone once said, “The more I go to church and the more I turn myself over to the process of believing in Jesus and listening to His Word and having Him guide my hand, I feel the pressure is off me now.”
And Tyler Perry once said, “Did you know that you can’t say ‘Jesus’ in a sitcom? They told me that and I was like…’If you don’t want my God here, then you don’t want me here either.”
Christians come in all ages, races, shapes and sizes, and are found almost anywhere--in schools, in government, and even in Hollywood.
So it is in the words of our text. If you would, please turn with me in your Bibles to page 1099 as I read the words of Luke chapter 8. I’ll start at verse 1: “Soon afterward He went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with Him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.”
Jesus’ ministry had only just begun. Just as soon as He called His disciples in Luke chapter 5, He went on to cleanse a leper, and to heal a man who was paralyzed and a man with a withered hand.
And in chapter 6, in His sermon on the mount, He taught the people saying, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,” and “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of Me! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven.”
Now here in chapter 8, Luke writes, “Soon afterward He went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with Him.”
Now what comes next should come to you as a surprise. You see, Luke could have easily skipped verses 2 and 3 without bothering to mention it and moved on. He could have said in verse 1, “And the twelve were with Him,” then went on, in verse 4, to tell the parable of a sower who went out to sow his seed. We would never have been the wiser.
But he didn’t. Instead, he stopped his inspired gospel narrative to tell us something rather profound.
Look at verse 2: “And also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities.”
Also some women? Some women followed Jesus? You bet they did! In fact, His ministry would hardly have been complete without them!
Think about it! From the very beginning of His ministry to its end, women were always there.
Who was the very first person to know that Jesus, the Messiah, had come? It was a woman—His mother, Mary. Who was the first to profess their faith in Him? It was a woman named Elizabeth. She said to His mother Mary, “When I heard the sound of your greeting, the baby in my womb leaped for joy!” And who was the first to proclaim Him to the world? It was another woman named Anna. Just as soon as she met Him, the Bible says she gave thanks to God and spoke of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.
And there are more. Lots more. The longest recorded conversation between Jesus and anyone, was with a woman—the woman of Samaria. Even more, she was the very first one to whom He made Himself known. When she said, “I know that Messiah is coming,” He answered, “I who speak to you am He.”
It was a woman who was the first to anoint Him and to be healed by touch by Him. Another woman named Martha opened her home to Him and she, along with her sister Mary, were two of His very best friends.
Women were there to witness His crucifixion and, when men laid His body to rest in the tomb, women were there too.
And who was the first to hear the news that He was risen from the dead? It wasn’t men. They were hiding behind locked doors in fear of the Jews. Instead, it was women who were privileged to hear the angels say, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen as He said!”
So it’s no surprise that as Jesus lived and worked among us, women were there at His side. As Luke writes in verse 2: “Women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.”
Now Mary Magdalene we know. She’s the one from whom seven demons came out. But Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, is one we don’t know. And that’s why we want to meet her in heaven.
Notice first of all that she’s married. She’s the wife of a man named Chuza. Even more, Luke tells us what her husband did for a living—he was Herod’s household manager. In Greek, he was his “epitropos,” a word that means his “steward,” “guardian,” “overseer,” “financial advisor,” and even, “inspector general.”
And that’s a big deal. You see, next to Herod himself, he was the big gun, the head honcho, the chief, the boss. No one did anything unless they first asked him. He was the king’s right-hand man.
But which Herod? After all, there were a lot of them.
This Herod was Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, (who killed the babies of Bethlehem). He’s the one who divorced his first wife, Phasaelis, to marry his brother’s wife, Herodias, and the one for whom Salome danced. He’s the one who shouted from his drunken stupor, “I’ll give you whatever you want, up to half my kingdom!” and who commanded his soldiers to bring him the head of John the Baptist. And in three short years, he’ll be the one who will mock Jesus and drape over His shoulders, a purple robe.
So you see, Joanna wasn’t just any woman who followed Jesus. She was a powerful woman, a connected woman. Her husband was the king’s right-hand man.
Which not only surprises us—it shocks us! Right under Herod’s nose was a woman, the wife of his right-hand man, who believed in Jesus. She heard Him speak. She saw Him heal. And she believed. Even more, not only did she believe in Him, Luke writes that she provided for Him out of her means. Sure, she was part of the Jewish upper crust, was socially prominent and was probably rather wealthy. But instead of mixing and mingling with the rich, the powerful, and the elite, she cast her lot among the poor, the persecuted and the oppressed, and became a passionate believer in Jesus Christ.
Though we don’t know a lot about Joanna, there is so much we can learn from her. And it’s found in this--it doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor or somewhere in between, and it doesn’t matter who you are, what you do or where you live. You can be the poorest of the poor or even the crustiest of the upper crust. Whoever you are and whatever you do, just like Joanna, you too can be a witness for Jesus.
Out of all the creatures that God has made, one of the most amazing is a fish we call the salmon.
Now the life of a salmon is very interesting. You see, they’re born in fresh water, but as they grow older, they head downstream to live in salt water. Finally, years later, when the salmon is fully mature, it returns to its fresh water spawning grounds.
But it isn’t easy. In fact, it’s one of the hardest things a fish will ever do. It’ll swim upstream through dangers, traps and obstacles of all kinds, even as far as a thousand miles, just to get back to its spawning grounds. And no matter how difficult, it’ll keep swimming, until it finds its way back home.
And that’s what our Savior calls us to do—to swim against the current, to stand for Christ where we work and where we live. That is, after all, what Peter wrote in his first epistle: “Don’t be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. Instead, set your hope fully on the grace of Jesus Christ.’” Joanna did. You must to.
This isn’t the last time we hear of her, for in the book of Luke chapter 24, we hear of her once more. For just as soon as those women met the angels and heard the news that Jesus was risen from the dead, Luke writes: “When they returned from the tomb, they reported all these things to the eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the disciples.”
Faithful woman. Faithful witness. May each of us be like her too.
We thank You, dear Jesus, for Joanna and for all those whom You called to follow You. Help us, even in our time and place, to faithfully follow You. In Your name we pray. Amen