Homily on the Third Sunday After Pascha: The Holy Myrrhbearing Women
By Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov
(Delivered in 1964)
By Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov
(Delivered in 1964)
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!
Christ is Risen!
Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, today in all corners of the Orthodox world the Holy Church with love, gratitude and for the edification of all Christians remembers those holy women who are known in sacred history under the name of Myrrhbearers.
Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Salome the mother of the sons of Zebedee, Joanna, Susanna, and maybe a few others whose names haven’t come down to us. Burning with holy love for the great Teacher, in Whom they saw with the pure eye of faith the Divine Messenger even at the very outset of His public service, these women, like the Apostles, followed Him and listened with heartfelt tenderness to His lofty and saving teaching. Some of them served the Savior with their possessions, providing Him and His disciples with everything necessary for life.
And later, when their Divine Teacher was condemned to death on the cross, they did not abandon Him, like the Apostles, who fled in fear and confusion, seeing the Shepherd stricken, but accompanied Him with bitter tears to Golgotha: their faith and love for Him not only did not waver, but grew even more and became stronger, as all subsequent events show. No one and nothing could remove them from the Divine Sufferer.
The sun is fading, and the earth is shaking, but the holy women, weak in body and strong in love, together with the sorrowful and grief-stricken Mother of Jesus and the beloved disciple of the Lord, stand at Golgotha, near the Cross: they do not feel tired, they are not afraid to be subjected to oppression from their fellow citizens, insults from rude soldiers for their obvious sympathy for the condemned King of the Jews.
But now the Lamb of God, having endured the greatest sufferings, prepared for slaughter from the foundation of the world, gives up His spirit to His Heavenly Father. However, even after the death of the God-man, the holy women do not dare to leave Golgotha. Finally, after a considerable time, the noble Joseph and Nicodemos come to take the most pure body of the Lord from the Cross; the women help them and together with them take part in the burial of the Divine Dead One.
When Joseph and Nicodemos piously committed the body of the Lord to the earth, they, sitting near the tomb, watched where the Savior was laid in the tomb. It could not be hidden from the gaze of their love that due to haste not all the funeral rites were performed. On the occasion of the Old Testament Passover, they sorrowfully depart from the tomb with a firm determination to then certainly bring the fragrant myrrh to the deceased Teacher and anoint His body with it.
And as soon as the dawn of the new Sacred Pascha appeared, the fervent, impatient love of the holy women, tormented by the pangs of compassion at the foot of the Golgotha Cross, led them to the tomb of the flesh of the God-man who had fallen asleep.
Carrying with them fragrant myrrh and knowing nothing about the guard, they joyfully made their sad journey in the darkness of the night, asking one another: "Who will roll away the stone from the door of the sepulchre" (Mark 16:3)? But the circumstance that was troubling them soon resolved itself, for the Angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, rolled away the stone that was blocking the entrance. When they approached the sepulchre, they saw him, the Heavenly Messenger in white clothing, who commanded them to return to the Apostles and tell them, especially the Apostle Peter, that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead and was going before them into Galilee (see: Matt. 27:7; Mark 16:7). In confusion and horror from what they saw and heard, they hasten to return, but they do not tell anyone about it except the disciples, for all their feelings from fear and horror, surprise and joy were mixed, and they could not give a detailed account of what happened either to themselves or to others.
But this joyful and at the same time agonizing uncertainty for loving hearts did not last long. To one of them, namely Mary Magdalene, who loved Jesus Christ more than anyone else, the Risen Savior Himself appeared, whom she at first mistook for a gardener. Soon after, the Lord appeared to other Myrrhbearers and said to them: "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go into Galilee, and there they will see me" (Matt. 28:10). Thus, as a reward for their ardent love, the holy women were honored with the great honor of becoming the first proclaimers of the most important and most joyful truth in the world: "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the tombs bestowing life!"
Dear brothers and sisters! Years and millennia will pass, but the Church of God will not cease to remember with reverence the names and deeds of the Holy Myrrhbearing Women and the secret disciples of Christ – Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemos, who showed such ardent love for the Lord, both during His earthly life and – especially – during His burial.
In celebrating the Holy Myrrhbearing Women, let us imitate, dear ones, the example of their love and zeal for Jesus Christ, Who is no longer in the tomb, but on the Throne of glory with the Father and the Spirit. Let us bring Him not myrrh and fragrances, as to the buried, but deeds that serve to glorify His name, deeds of mercy to the poor brethren and the departed, as well as zealous zeal for church worship and the splendor of His temples. Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
