Homily Offered by Dcn. Michael on the Sunday of the Myrrhbearing Women
Christ is risen!
Today, on the third Sunday of Pascha, we remember the faith and love of the of the group of the female disciples of Christ who we know as the “Myrrhbearing Women.” Tradition tells us that there were eight women who were part of this group of Jesus’ followers. The women represented different ages and social-economic backgrounds, with five of the eight the women being wealthy enough to help financially support Jesus’ ministry. Those who we recognize as the Myrrhbearing Women are Mary Magdalene; Mary the Theotokos; Joanna; Solame; Mary the wife of Cleopas; Susanne; and Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus.
We find that the Gospel accounts are not all in agreement as to who exactly among the women were at the tomb on the morning of Christ’s resurrection. In our reading from St. Mark, three women were named as being at the tomb: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome. St. Matthew’s account only mentions Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary.” But in St. Luke’s Gospel we read that there were several women with Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James as the three mentioned by name. St. John only names one woman at Christ’s tomb on Resurrection Sunday: Mary Magdalene. And although the Gospels do not agree exactly as to who was at the Christ’s tomb, the one name that does appear in all four accounts is that of the patroness and protectress of our parish: St. Mary Magdalene. Because of her faithful witness in the belief of the Resurrection, she is known as the “Apostle to the Apostles,” being the first person to bring the Good News to Christ’s followers, and thus to the rest of the world: The news that “Christ is risen!”
The Resurrection has always been at the center of Church’s preaching and teaching since the first century. We find the evidence of the importance of the event in St. Paul’s first letters to the Corinthians. These writings pre-date the Gospel accounts, so we can understand that St. Paul was simply restating the faith that had been passed on through the oral tradition down from the Apostles, which summarized the significance of the Resurrection: “And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty, and your faith is also empty” (1 Cor. 15:14). St. Paul makes a direct link between the risen Christ and the fulfilment of the Christian faith. Christ’s resurrection was the same message that St. Paul spread throughout the Roman Empire during his missionary journeys. Whether speaking to the Jews in the synagogue at Antioch (Acts 13:14-30) or to the philosophers at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17:22-34), message remained the same.
So important was the Resurrection to the first century Christian message that it was even the central focus of the first Holy Spirit-inspired message that was preached by St. Peter on the day of Pentecost. Speaking to the crowd, St. Peter recounted the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus: “Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it” (Acts 2: 23, 24). St. Peter preached the crucified and risen Christ, and as a result 3,000 new converts were added to God’s Kingdom (v. 41).
With all the emphasis by the ancient Church, it is surprising today that there are Christian traditions that do not make the Resurrection a focal point of their faith and preaching. Rather than being the One “whom God raised up,” Jesus becomes more of a prophet of good feelings; a charismatic teacher whose focus was social justice. When Christ is reduced to nothing more than a philosopher or social activist, then it is easy to see how the message of the Resurrection is lost on many people today. Any discussion of the Resurrection is confined to the church building and only during the Easter Sunday service. This short recognition of the greatest event in human history does not reflect the belief and preaching of the first century Christians.
Why has the glory of Jesus resurrection been lost—or more accurately, “misplaced”—in many Churches today? Certainly, after two thousand years of history, nearly everyone in the world should be familiar with the account of the Resurrection. So why is it not such an important religious observation as it once was? Why has the Resurrection lost its importance in the lives of Christians?
It would be easy to simply blame “society” for the loss of faith in general, and the Resurrection in particular, but that would be giving too much credit to forces outside of the Christian faith. The blame must be placed, unfortunately, on the those who are appointed to be the teachers and keepers of the faith. In an effort to avoid discussion so doctrine and dogma, many of the so-called Christian traditions have neglected the foundational understandings of the faith. I say “so-called,” since acceptance of those doctrines and dogmas are what defines us as Christians in the first place. The Resurrection of both Christ and the faithful is so fundamental that they are both expressed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, which is proclaimed in its original form at all Orthodox Divine Liturgies. Too many of the thousands of traditions never use the Creed, the primary symbol of faith, and thus deprive their congregants of ever hearing, let alone understanding, the importance of the Resurrection to our salvation. The Creed points to not only the resurrection of Christ but to the personal resurrection as well of the faithful. It was these two critical factors that gave Christians the promise and hope for their future.
The loss of the understanding of the importance of the Resurrection to the Christian faith can certainly be attributed to the cynicism of our modern society. We have ceased to people who expect miracles and instead expect answers. Science has taken over the simple wonder and fascination in God’s natural kingdom that humanity once held. Things do not happen by the will of God but rather by the forces of science and technology. Unless something can be empirically proven, it cannot be accepted as fact. This is where the Resurrection finds its constant battleground for the minds and hearts. We all know that the dead stay dead. That is a proven fact of science and therefore to say that anyone was somehow raised from the dead requires the dismissal of all that we can understand. Science has been able to resuscitate someone whose heart has stopped beating, but it has not been able to find a way to bring back to life a corpse that has been dead for three days. Therefore, the whole Resurrection needs to be dismissed as either ignorance or simply a myth.
This attitude of disbelief is not something that is unique to the 21st century. We find throughout the New Testament that Christ’s Resurrection was not universally accepted. When the women ran to tell the disciples of the glorious news that Christ is risen, many of Jesus’ longest and most trusted followers refused to believe. St. Thomas sums up the attitude of many today with the words he uttered two thousand years ago: “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). Without the empirical proof, we will not leave the comfort of science to risk being ridiculed.
It does take a great amount of courage to be able proclaim something purely by faith. To risk the ridicule of others for simply swimming against the tide of conventional wisdom. But this is exactly what the Myrrhbearing Women did. They wanted to be with their crucified Lord, and neither heavy rocks nor armed soldiers would prevent them from their appointed task. This Jesus was crucified as a criminal and if the women did not take the time to rise early in the morning and go to His tomb to perform the act of love in the preparation of His dead body for a proper Jewish funeral, I am sure no one would have faulted them. But the love and courage that they displayed put to shame the men who should have been there to assist and protect them. The Myrrhbearing Women went to the tomb to prepare a dead body for burial but what they found instead changed the course of world. As St. John Chrysostom wrote in his homily on the Myrrhbearing Women: “Do you see the women’s courage? Do you see their affection?... Let the men imitate the women.”[1]
Each of us who proclaims the Christian faith have a responsibility for handing on the truth of the Resurrected Christ. We have the responsibility to proclaim Christ Resurrection not only during the Paschal season but throughout the year. Our Orthodox faith and traditions ensure that we have the opportunity to learn this important truth but is also up to each of us to live as people who believe and trust in the Resurrection, for as St. Paul wrote to the Church in Corinth, “if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty” (1 Cor. 15:14) And since for the past two thousand years thousands of Holy Martyrs believed and died proclaiming the risen Lord, we can say without reservation that their preaching and faith was not empty.
So, let us be like the Myrrhbearing Women, faithfully seeking out the body of Christ and then proclaim to the world that He is risen! Their act of love and devotion led to the bold proclamation that was quickly spread throughout the world. The Resurrection means that we will not be slaves to death or any of the other unnatural things of this world. The Resurrection means the freedom to live in the fullness of life that God wants for all His people. May we never grow weary of making that same joyous cry that the women made on Resurrection Sunday: Christ is risen!
[1] St. John Chrysostom, Homily LXXXVIII on Matthew XXVII, 1, B#54, p. 522.