DYNAMIS!
A publication of St. George Orthodox Christian Cathedral
Wichita, KS

St. Mark 15:43-16:8   (5/11)   Gospel for 3rd Sunday of Pascha: The Myrrh-Bearing Women

 

Unbounded Goodness: St. Mark 15:43-16:8, especially vs. 6: “...You seek Jesus of Nazareth, Who was crucified.  He is risen!  He is not here.  See the place where they laid Him.”  In the burial service, St. John of Damascus asks, “What earthly sweetness remaineth unmixed with grief?  What glory standeth immutable on earth?”  And he answers, “All things are but feeble shadows, all things are most deluding dreams: yet one moment only, and Death shall supplant them all.”  Death, our common lot, is the great question thrown against all human meaning.  Orthodox Christians know the message of the Angel: “He is risen!  He is not here.”

            God became man, reversed the evil of death by rising from the dead, and endowed us with life, because your sin and mine invert the good order of God, and with mankind we call “evil good and good evil” (Is. 5:20).  The account of the Myrrh-Bearers commands us, as disciples, to give thanks to our Lord Who trampled down death, the tyrant of all.  The Almighty lifts up us feeble ones.  The Master brings Life, the improbable remedy.  Listen to Him: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him?” (Mt. 7:11).  Having led death captive, God manifests His ineffable goodness toward all mankind, and in a multitude of ways:

The goodness of God moved Joseph, a member of the Council that had brought about Jesus’ death-sentence, to ask for the Lord’s mangled body for burial (vss. 15:43,46).

Though the disciples of the Lord Jesus were scattered and cowering, God filled His women followers with godly courage and devotion to anoint His body for burial (vs. 16:1).

God sent an angel to roll away a stone from the Sepulcher, because the Myrrhbearers were not able to do so (vss. 3,5).

By the Lord’s rising from the dead and leaving the tomb empty, God created circumstances that prepared the peoples of earth to hear the Resurrection Message (vs. 4).

God provided the radiant angel who told the women the news of the Lord’s Resurrection, a fact that human understanding could not imagine, expect, invent, or explain (vs. 5).

When the angel declared the good news, he did so in specific words linking the wonder of Resurrection to our existence: “You seek Jesus of Nazareth, Who was crucified” (vs. 6).

In a cultural and social setting in which women were not allowed to testify, God selected women as the first to learn and proclaim the incalculable Good News (vss. 5-7).

Peter, who in fear had denied knowing Jesus, was personally named by the angel revealing the great merciful love of God and the assurance of His forgiveness (vs. 7).

The disciples, who had known the goodness of God Incarnate, were directed to go to a certain place where they would once again taste and see how truly good the Lord is (vs. 7).

Galilee, where the Good News of the Kingdom of God first was preached and received, was once more made the first region to hear the proclamation of God’s Great Mercy (vs. 7).

What Christ our God foretold and guaranteed to the disciples before He suffered, He faithfully fulfilled, thereby showing that He keeps His promises (vs. 7).

The initial grieving devotion that brought the women, altered by news of unimaginable and awesome proportion, stirred their hearts with fear, amazement and joy (vs. 8 and Mt. 28:8).

“When Thou didst submit Thyself unto death, O Thou deathless and immortal One, then Thou didst destroy Hell with Thy Godly power, and when Thou didst raise the dead from beneath the earth, all the powers of heaven did cry aloud unto Thee, O Christ, Thou Giver of Life, glory to Thee!”  (Troparion of the Resurrection: Tone Two)

Return to the May Calendar