3rd Sunday of Pascha/ The Sunday of the Holy Myrrh-bearing Women 

Homily: Fr. Thomas Frazer

“Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for He is risen, as He said.” (Matthew 28:5–6)

Christ is Risen!

Beloved brothers and sisters in the Risen Lord,

We stand yet again in the radiant light of Holy Pascha, and the Church in her wisdom does not permit us to pass hastily from the glory of the Empty Tomb. She bids us linger, to behold once more that sacred morning — not merely in memory, as one recalls a distant event — but in living participation, for the Resurrection of our Lord is not past. It is eternal. It fills all of time. And today, in her infinite maternal tenderness, the Holy Church sets before us not the Apostles, not the great hierarchs, but a small company of women carrying spices in the darkness before dawn.

Who were these women? The Holy Evangelists name them for us: Mary Magdalene, out of whom the Lord had cast seven devils; Mary the mother of James; Salome; Joanna; and others besides. They were not the powerful. They were not the learned. The great men, the fishermen-apostles who had confessed Christ as the Son of the Living God, were behind locked doors, trembling with fear. But these women — these myrrh-bearers — rose before the sun, gathered their spices, and went to the tomb.

What drove them? It was love. Simple, pure, undying love. They did not go to the tomb because they expected a resurrection. They went because they could not stay away from Him whom they loved. The tomb held their Lord — or so they believed — and where He lay, there their hearts compelled them to be. They went to perform the last service that love could render to a dead body: to anoint Him with fragrant myrrh, to weep over Him, to be near Him.

This is the first great lesson that the Church places before us today: love does not calculate. The myrrh-bearers did not ask whether their errand was rational. As they walked in the darkness, one said to another, “Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?” (Mark 16:3) — for the stone was exceeding great. They knew they could not move it. They went anyway. Love does not first demand a guarantee of success before it gives itself. Love goes forward in the darkness, carrying its fragrant offering, trusting that God will provide what love cannot accomplish by its own strength.

And so He did. When they looked up, the stone was already rolled away. An angel clothed in white sat upon it, and his countenance was like lightning. And the angel said to them what I have taken for our text this morning: “Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for He is risen, as He said.”

He is risen, as He said. These words shake the foundations of death itself. Three days before, that stone had been rolled into place by the hands of soldiers and sealed with the authority of the Roman Empire. The chief priests and Pharisees had gone to Pilate and secured a guard, saying, “Make it as sure as ye can” (Matthew 27:65). All the power of the world — imperial, religious, military — had conspired to keep that tomb sealed. And it was as though they had conspired to contain the ocean with a handful of sand.

He is not here: for He is risen. This is the proclamation that has echoed for two thousand years and will echo until the last trump. The tomb is empty. Not because the disciples stole the body — the guards, bribed to spread that lie, could not even maintain it convincingly. The tomb is empty because He Who is Life Itself cannot be held by death. As our Holy Father Patriarch Tikhon wrote in his Paschal message from prison, surrounded by those Bolsheviks who sought his destruction: “Christos Voskrese! — Christ is Risen — and no earthly power can unsay it or undo it.”

Now, the Church commemorates alongside the Myrrh-bearing Women two men: the holy Joseph of Arimathea and the righteous Nicodemus. Here is a great mystery of divine grace. Joseph was a rich man, a member of the Sanhedrin — the very council that had condemned our Lord to death. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews, who had once come to Jesus by night, secretly, for fear of the Jews (John 3:1–2). These two men had been secret disciples, hidden disciples, disciples who had not yet found the courage of open confession.

But at the moment when all seemed lost — at the moment when the eleven had fled and the cause of Christ appeared utterly destroyed — it was then that Joseph and Nicodemus stepped forward. Joseph went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus (Mark 15:43). He used his wealth, his social standing, his very life — for to request the body of an executed criminal was no small risk — and he purchased a linen shroud and laid the Lord in his own new tomb. Nicodemus came bearing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight (John 19:39).

Why does the Church place these two men before us alongside the Myrrh-bearing Women? Because the Resurrection transforms and reveals. In the hour of apparent defeat, hidden faith becomes manifest courage. The cross of Christ, which the world called shame, became for Joseph and Nicodemus the moment when they could no longer be silent. They did not yet know of the Resurrection — they came to bury a dead man — but their love for Christ overcame their fear of men. And the Church has glorified them as saints, as righteous men, as holy servants of the Lord.

Brothers and sisters, this speaks to each one of us. How many of us are Josephs? How many of us are hidden disciples — those who believe in our hearts, who love Christ in the quiet of our prayers, but who have not yet found the courage to confess Him openly before the world, before our colleagues, before our families? The hour will come — and perhaps it has already come — when the world will demand that we be silent about Christ, when confession will cost us something real. In that hour, let us remember holy Joseph, who went in boldly unto Pilate. The Risen Christ gives courage to the fearful, boldness to the hidden, and light to those who have been walking in the darkness of fear.

There is one more mystery hidden in this feast which I cannot pass over in silence.

The angel says to the Myrrh-bearers: “Go quickly, and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead; and, behold, He goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see Him” (Matthew 28:7). And Saint Mark adds: “Go your way, tell His disciples and Peter” (Mark 16:7).

Tell His disciples — and Peter. Why is Peter named separately? Because Peter had denied his Lord. Three times, in the courtyard of the High Priest, with oaths and cursings, Peter had said: I know not the man. And Peter had gone out and wept bitterly. Now the Risen Lord, through the voice of the angel, calls Peter by name. Not to condemn. Not to say, “Tell the disciples — but not Peter, for he is cast off.” But rather: tell His disciples and Peter. Peter, I know what you did. Peter, I remember your tears. Peter, I am calling you back by name.

This is the very heart of the Gospel of the Resurrection. The Risen Christ does not come back to judge. He comes back to heal. He comes back to restore. He comes back to say to every Peter among us — and we are all Peter, each of us, in our own denials and betrayals and failures — I know thy name. I have not forgotten thee. Come.

The myrrh that those holy women carried to the tomb was the myrrh of love-in-grief. But the myrrh of the Resurrection is different. It is the myrrh of joy — that same joy which the angel announces: “I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people”; the joy that the Myrrh-bearers received when they clasped the feet of the Risen Lord and worshipped Him (Matthew 28:9). And this joy, says the Lord, “no man taketh from you” (John 16:22).

Brothers and sisters, let us go forth from this temple as myrrh-bearers.

The world is full of sealed tombs — hearts sealed by grief, by despair, by sin, by the fear of death. We carry the myrrh of the Resurrection: the Good News that death is defeated, that sin is forgiven, that the stone has been rolled away, that the tomb is empty. We carry it not because we are strong, not because we have calculated that our mission will succeed, but because we love Him Who has called us by name.

“Fear not ye,” says the angel. These words are addressed to us. The world will frighten you. The principalities and powers of this age will roll great stones across the paths of your witness and say: Who shall remove these things? Go forward. Love does not wait for the stone to be removed. When you look up, you will find it is already gone.

For He is not here. He is risen — as He said.

To Whom be glory, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Indeed He is Risen!