Homily for the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women, Pious Joseph of Arimathaea & Righteous Nicodemus in the Orthodox Church

 

Acts 6:1-7; Mark 15: 43-16:8

           Christ is Risen! Indeed, He is Risen!

             As we continue to celebrate our Lord’s glorious resurrection on the third day and victory over Hades and the tomb, we should admit that all too often we live as though death still reigned. We do so especially when we somehow convince ourselves that fear, anger, and resentment of those we perceive as our enemies are somehow Christian virtues.  Had Christ not risen and death still reigned, it would be inevitable that we would distract ourselves from despair over the meaninglessness of our existence by inflaming our passions against our neighbors.  We would then always be on the prowl to prove our superiority against this or that person or group as a diversion from facing our own weakness as those with no higher calling than to return to the dust of the earth.  That is nothing but the misery of living in slavery to the fear of death and it has no place at all in the Christian life.  As in every generation, there is tragically no lack of such depravity in today’s world.  If we are truly entering into the joy of Pascha, however, our lives and character will become completely different as we radiate the divine mercy that shines brightly even from the grave. As we chant in Orthros for Pascha, “It is the day of Resurrection; let us be radiant for the festival, and let us embrace one another. Let us say, O brethren, even to those that hate us: Let us forgive all things on the Resurrection.”  

 

Today we commemorate people who refused to live as individuals dominated by the passions of fear, hatred, or revenge in the midst of terrible sorrow, but who instead became persons united to Christ in a communion of love and selfless service. With broken hearts and in deep shock and grief, the Theotokos, Mary Magdalen, two other Mary’s, Johanna, Salome, Martha, Susanna, and others whose names we do not know went early in the morning to the Lord’s tomb in order to anoint Him for burial.  They had seen Him die a horrific public death and expected to find His disfigured body lying in the grave.  By somehow acquiring the strength not to become paralyzed by fear, anger, or grief, they did what they could to perform one last act of selfless loving service for the Savior.  That is how the Myrrh-Bearing Women became the first witnesses of the empty tomb as they received the good news of His resurrection from the angel. 

 

            We also remember today Joseph of Arimathea, who bravely asked Pilate for the dead body of the Lord and took Him down from the Cross with his own hands.  Imagine how difficult that must have been for him.  Nicodemus, the Pharisee who had previously not understood Christ at all, helped Joseph bury Him.  These were both prominent Jewish men who risked a great deal by associating themselves with One Who had been rejected by their own religious leaders as a blasphemer and crucified by the Romans as a traitor. Like the women, they refused to allow inflamed passions of any kind to prevent them from showing self-emptying love for the Savior in the only ways still available to them.   

 

In contrast, the disciples acted more like cowards in this moment of crisis.  Peter, the head disciple, had denied Christ three times.  John was the only one of the twelve to stand at the foot the Cross, for the others had run away in fear.  They were more focused on saving their own skins than on faithfully serving their Lord. The Myrrh-Bearing Women, along with Sts. Joseph and Nicodemus, certainly knew bitter grief and disappointment every bit as much as the disciples.  They all saw the Lord’s crucifixion as a complete disaster and their hopes for Him, and for whatever they had hoped to gain through Him, were completely destroyed.  Nonetheless, how they acted during this terrible tragedy revealed that they had already become persons united to Christ in self-emptying love. They transcended the anxieties and fears of individuals concerned only with preserving their lives and status in this world in order to do the difficult and dangerous tasks necessary to give their departed Lord and friend a decent burial, which was the only way left for them to love and serve Him.  That is how they accepted the grave risks of being identified even further with One Who had just been condemned as a blasphemer by corrupt religious leaders  and crucified as a traitor by the ruthless Roman Empire.    

 

What they did was not the result of calculation about what was in it for them or how to seek vengeance against those who had killed their Lord.  Had they not, even before His resurrection, already begun to unite themselves to Christ in selfless devotion, the women would not have had the spiritual strength to be in the position to see the Lord’s empty tomb and to hear from the angel the good news of His resurrection.  That news was shocking to the point of absurdity, as shown by their reaction, for “they went out quickly and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”  To see and hear what they did was not to receive confirmation that they had somehow been right all along, for they had no expectation of His resurrection and went to the tomb in order to anoint a dead body.  To see and hear what they did was not a result of using religion to build themselves up over their neighbors or to achieve any earthly goal.  Their eyes were opened to behold the joy of the resurrection because they were so closely united to Christ in love that they had overcome the fear of death that so easily turns people away from following a Lord Who calls His disciples to take up their crosses, love their enemies, turn the other cheek, and go the extra mile. To see and hear what they did was to encounter God from the depths of their souls in a way that called their deepest assumptions about life, death, and themselves into question.  Even when all seemed lost and there was literally nothing left to do but anoint His dead body, the Myrrh-Bearing Women acted not as insecure individuals driven by passions of any kind but as persons radiant with Christ’s selfless love, for that is who they had become.     

 

The devotion of the Myrrh-Bearers, Joseph, and Nicodemus shows us what true faith looks like, and it has nothing to do with trying to use religion or morality to serve our agendas in a pathetic attempt to distract ourselves from slavery to the fear of death. Instead, their example calls us to unite ourselves to Christ in self-emptying love so that we may acquire the spiritual strength to embrace the good news of His resurrection from the depths of our souls.  That is the only way to enter into the joy of Pascha as persons who find their life in Him together as members of His Body, the Church, with all of the struggles and difficulties that doing so entails.  Today’s reading from Acts describes how the Church flourished when the first deacons, or servants, took on the task of meeting the practical needs of distributing food to widows in a context of ethnic division.    

        By offering our time and energy to attend to the mundane matters necessary for the wellbeing of the Church, which includes the flourishing of all her members, we grow in love for Christ in His Body as we serve one another, even as He has served us.  We grow out of our illusions of self-sufficiency and self-importance when we embrace the calling to serve even in the unremarkable ways that are necessary for the wellbeing of our small parish.  No opportunity for serving our Lord and the members of His Body is beneath any of us. By embracing the most humble forms of service we become more like the Savior who came not to be served, but to serve. As the Lord taught, “he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.  And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”  (Matt. 23:11)    

 

 Like the Myrrh-Bearing Women and Sts. Joseph and Nicodemus, we will not enter into the joy of the Lord’s resurrection by carefully calculating what is in it for us when we do this or that for the Body of the Savior.  Instead, we must simply do what needs to be done out of selfless love, no matter how hard we find that to be.   That is how those blessed and righteous women put themselves in the uniquely glorious position to hear the unbelievably good news of the angel.  And that is how, by the grace of the One Who conquered death through His glorious resurrection on the third day, we too may embrace and become radiant with the wonderful news of this season, which destroys the fear of the grave that is at the root of so much of our insecurity, anger, and resentment, for “Christ is Risen!”