Lovely Warrior

What does it mean to be a lovely warrior?  We are told through research of the Vikings, that their women readily went into battle with their men in defense of their homes.  But when it came to pillaging lands of their enemies, the women stayed home to tend the home fires.  These women had stout hearts that beat bravely in the face of danger, and they walked tall with honor of their heritage.

Fiction stories over the generations have depicted Viking women in different ways, and the one that stands out the most to me is The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, who placed his world in the past with a medieval setting, where the reader is introduced to a race of people in Rohan, and Lady Eowyn is the niece of the king.

I can identify with Lady Eowyn, when in The Two Towers, she reveals that she is not afraid to fight, but then is disheartened when her Uncle the King refuses to let her fight, and commands her to stay behind and care for the women and children.  Later in The Return of the King, after Lady Eowyn learns that there is to be a great battle, and many of her kin may not return, she disguises herself as a man and joins the battalion.

On the battlefield, the enemy arrives in great force and numbers, and Lady Eowyn witnesses the fall of her Uncle the King.  As she stands guard over him, she is prepared to meet her death to stop the enemy from corrupting her Uncle’s dying body, with the help of a special friend.

Following is a clip from the scene in the movie, along with the script of what is being said in the scene.  The movie is rated PG-13, but it is still gory and may not be suitable for sensitive or younger viewers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSNPeJAgBzo#t=44

King Theodin:  “Rally to me!  To me!”The Witch King to the Nazgul:  “Feast on his flesh!”Lady Eowyn to The Witch King:  “I will kill you if you touch him!”The Witch King to Lady Eowyn:  “Do not come between the Nazgul and his prey! … You fool!  No man can kill me! ... Die now!”Lady Eowyn to The Witch King:  “I am no man!”

As a prayer warrior, this scene moves me to tears, each and every time I see it.  For as long as I can remember, I have seen the spiritual battle that needs to be fought in the Christian life, but have not been allowed to discuss it, let alone act on it because it is considered too dangerous or not my place.  But, like Lady Eowyn, I have come to find that I have a duty to perform, regardless of what others think.  If God has given me the gift of discernment and He prompts me to pray about something specific in my life or someone else’s, then I must do so.  And it is in that moment that I find God gives me great courage to meet the task, and gives me wisdom to understand the situation and deal with it accordingly.

I am honored that God chose to place me in the lineage of Viking women, even though we don’t live like that anymore.  But I am even more honored that He would call me to do spiritual battle and give me everything I need to accomplish that task (2 Peter 1:3)

So, even though I was thinking about Lady Eowyn as I working through this Bible study on The Emancipation of Woman, she is not who inspired me to study it.  Rather, it was Deborah, an Israelite judge.

We are told in Judges 4 of the role of Deborah in Israel’s history, during the time between their exodus from Egypt and their installment of their first ruler, King Saul.  God had commanded Israel to conquer the outlying lands and destroy their enemies – any who refused to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 

One General in particular, was having difficulty accepting the responsibility, and expressed his concern to Deborah, who had communicated this command to him in the Lord’s name.  Deborah told this General that she would go with him into battle, but that victory would not go to him, it would go to a woman.  Later on, when the general of the enemy army was fleeing for his life and was offered shelter in a tribal woman’s tent, she killed him in his sleep.

Returning to The Lord of the Rings, we see similar events take shape in the book, Return of the King, but because of poetic license, we see in the movie, two times where the Witch King is confronted but not defeated.  The book references that no man can defeat him.

According to the story, Aragorn whose ancestors had been corrupted by the Ring of Power, did not want to be king, and therefore hid himself within the Elves and Rangers for a time.  However, the fate of the world brought him into the picture, when Lady Arwen, the Elf Princess whom he was also romantically involved with, became ill because of the evil workings brought on by the Ringmaker's power, thus she gave him her light in the form of a pendant known as Evenstar to take with him into battle to protect him and empower him to confront his responsibility as king.  Later, Arwen's father came to Aragorn with the command for him "to become the man he was born to be", and influenced his decisions and empowered his resolve as he went forward into battle, though believing that he would not survive.

In the meantime while this was going on, we have the events written above about Lady Eowyn, and throughout the entire Trilogy, there is a group of people called the Hobbits, represented by the main character Frodo Baggins, who finds himself the Ringbearer and eventually sees the Ring destroyed.  At the end of the movie in The Return of the King, when Lady Arwen & Lady Eowyn are healed, and Aragorn is made King, the moment that the world begins to pay homage to him, he diverts the glory from himself onto the Hobbits, saying "you shall bow to no one".

Returning to the core passage of this study, we see the account of the woman who washed Jesus feet with perfume, tears and her hair.  Spiritually, she is proclaiming her homage to the Lord Jesus, anointing him in preparation for battle.  And when Jesus rose from the dead, it was she that He commanded at the empty tomb to go and proclaim the good news that He is risen.  This is a momentous occasion.  This proves that the cross accomplished emancipation for woman, and raised her to a status equal with man, as Jesus gave her a job that He would have previously given to one of his disciples.  This is glorious indeed.  What more do us women have to fear?  We must don the amour God has given us, and raise our swords and shields in Spirit and in Truth.

To God be the glory!

~ A special thanks to my husband, Dave, for helping me with the accuracy of these details.

Sherry Bowers