Acts 6: 1-7; Mark 15:43-16:8
Christ
is Risen!
We live in a time in which it is easy to think of ourselves
as isolated individuals whose purpose in life is to get whatever we happen to
want. Personal freedom is a great blessing from God, but since Adam and Eve we
have abused it by thinking and acting as though fulfilling our immediate
desires is the only thing that really matters. Our Lord Jesus Christ conquered
the corrupting consequences of that prideful, selfish attitude in His glorious
resurrection. Raising us up with him
from slavery to all the distortions of our souls that root in the fear of
death, He has restored our true identity as His beloved sons and daughters, making
us members of His own Body.
Today we celebrate those who, in
moments of great personal crisis, did not think only of themselves, but instead
ministered to the Body of our Lord with selfless love. With broken hearts and in terrible 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 tomb
of Christ in order to anoint His Body. They
had not anticipated the resurrection and expected to find Him in the grave like
anyone else who had died. By doing what
they could to show one last act of love to the Savior, the myrrh-bearing women
opened themselves to the tremendous blessing of being the first to hear from
the angel the good news of the resurrection.
Along with them, we also remember
today Joseph of Arimathea, who bravely asked Pilate for the Body of the Lord
and took Him down from the cross with his own hands. Nicodemus helped Joseph bury Him. These were both prominent Jewish leaders who
surely risked a great deal by associating themselves with One Who had been rejected
as a blasphemer and publically crucified as a traitor.
In the events of our Lord’s Passion,
none of His followers had received what they had wanted or expected. John was the only disciple to stand at the
foot the cross, for the others had run away in fear. Peter, the head disciple, had denied the
Savior three times. They were
disappointed and shocked that their Messiah had failed to satisfy them by setting
up an earthly kingdom; instead, He had been killed by His enemies. They believed that death had been the final
word on Jesus of Nazareth. And probably
out of a mixture of fear, disappointment, and the belief that He could do
nothing else for them, they simply fled.
The myrrh-bearers, along with Joseph
and Nicodemus, were surely just as grieved as the disciples. They had not
gotten what they had wanted either. But they
resisted the temptation to think only about themselves. Notice that they responded very differently from
the disciples because they still kept their focus on serving Jesus Christ as
best they could. And that meant doing
the sorrowful task of giving their departed Lord and friend a decent
burial. They probably all put themselves
in danger by identifying publically with One Who had just been crucified. They must have all struggled not to be
paralyzed by fear and pain. Still, they
found the courage and strength not to focus on themselves, but on showing love
to Christ as best they could.
Our reading today from Acts
describes something similar in the early years of the Church’s life. The
Christians in Jerusalem had shared all things in common and provided food daily
to the widows. A problem arose when the
widows of Greek cultural heritage complained that they were being neglected. We
know from Acts and many other New Testament writings that disagreements and
struggles between different groups of people have existed in the Church from
its earliest days. Instead of the
apostles attempting to solve the problem directly, they created the office of
deacon, which literally means “servant.”
The community chose seven men to fulfill the role of servants who would
directly manage such practical issues in the Church. Following their ordination and ministry of
service, we read that “the word of God increased; and the number of the
disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were
obedient to the faith.”
These first deacons have a lot in
common with the women and men we commemorate today, for they also cared for the
Body of the Lord when they served the Church.
They addressed the physical needs of the members of the Body of Christ,
directly entering into what must have been a stressful situation of conflict in
the Church. Instead of leaving the
problem to others or ignoring it, they took it on. By undertaking that ministry, they may not
have been getting what they had wanted. If
they had thought that the Church would be a place of perfect peace or that they
could devote themselves to cultivating spiritual experiences on their own
terms, they may have been surprised to find themselves organizing a fair
distribution of food to the widows. Regardless
of anything else, they accepted their new ministry and performed it faithfully
for the flourishing of the Church.
As we continue to celebrate our
Savior’s great victory over death on this Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women, it
should be clear that the new life He has brought into the world requires our
active faithfulness, regardless of whether we think that we are getting what we
want. The first Christians definitely did not get what they wanted at the
Lord’s Passion, because He had something far better in store for them. It would have been much easier to follow a
Messiah like King David who would establish a great earthly reign and give them
worldly power. It was infinitely more
difficult to take the dead Christ down from the cross, bury Him in a tomb, and
then go to anoint the Body still bearing the wounds of torture and
crucifixion. But it was through the
courageous, humble, and loving service of those actions that a certain group of
women opened themselves to receive the unbelievably good news of the
resurrection.
We should learn from their holy
example that the way to participate in the joy of the empty tomb is in serving
Our Lord in His Body. It is in putting
aside our preferences in order to love Him in the members of the His Body, the
Church. That includes addressing all the
practical challenges that any parish faces:
from cutting the grass and teaching Sunday School to chanting and caring
for the needy. And since the Savior
identified Himself with every person in need, this calling extends to every
area of our lives and every person we encounter. As the apostles knew when they ordained the
first deacons, no one can perform every ministry in the Church. No one of us has to do it all. But we must all use our gifts to do what
needs to be done for the flourishing of the Church, even if it is not what we
would prefer to do. In other words, all
of us need to get over the self-centered individualism that so easily leads to
making God in our own image and judging Him by our own standards.
Just as Joseph, Nicodemus, the
myrrh-bearing women, and the first deacons did not flee when their hopes were
dashed, we must not abandon His Body the Church when our desires go
unfulfilled, when our problems do not go away, and when God does not give us
everything we want. Like them, we will participate
more fully in the joy of eternal life by getting over ourselves and doing what
needs to be done in loving and serving our Lord in our parish, our neighbors,
and our families. Pascha is not about
fulfilling the plans and desires of individuals, but about how something far
greater, and totally unexpected, came into the world through their bitter
disappointment. If we will love and
serve Christ even in the midst of our most difficult struggles in life, then we
also will be healed of our prideful selfishness and become more fully who our
Lord has enabled us to be through His glorious resurrection. We will then be in the place where it is
possible to hear the good and completely surprising news that what He has
in store for those who love and serve Him is far better than anything we can
ever come up with on our own, for Christ is Risen!