Ritual, Myrrhbearers, and Dealing with Insult to Injury
St. Mark 15:43-16:8
Notes (that I mostly ignored)
We have a concept: adding insult to injury. It describes how tough it is when something bad has already happened and then something happens that makes the same situation even worse.
This is what happened to the myrrhbearing women: their beloved had been killed unjustly in a ignoble and humiliating way. They were heartbroken. Then when they went to begin the time-tested rituals ? mingling myrrh with tears – that would guide them through their pain into acceptance and healing… the body was gone. They were deprived even of this comfort.
This is not part of our culture, so we don’t get this. We receive it as data: the stone is rolled away and the body is gone. But for them, it was much more. Not an invitation to explore the mystery, but an insult to injury.
Anointing the body was the way their culture had developed to help people to help them handle death and to work through all the emotions and temptations that the death of a loved one brings. It’s not just something to do ? although Lord knows “keeping busy” is useful when we are struggling with strong emotions ? it’s therapy. A group of friends and family tending to the body of their beloved. There is something useful to be done. All traditional cultures do things like this. To us, it sounds morbid; but to them our way of dealing with death is as impersonal as our American way of dealing with dinner (i.e. not spending time preparing it; not gathering around a table; just getting calories in while do other things). Impersonal. Clinical. Heartbreaking. An opportunity to do something well ? voluntarily surrendered.
The Myrrhbearers weren’t just on the way to the tomb to make sure the body was buried properly, they were participating in a cultural ritual of love. Sacrificing their time and the best that they could find to honor the life of their beloved and deepening the connection they had with him.
They had their facts wrong, but they had everything else right; and this made all the difference for them… They become the apostles to the disciples ? telling them of the Lord’s resurrection.
[I want you to note that the disciples did not believe them. Could it be that this was because they gathered behind closed doors out of fear whereas the myrrhbearers ignored their fear and allowed love to make them brave?
Are we afraid for ourselves? Are we afraid for the Lord? Can anything good come from fear?]
The Myrrhbearers thought they knew who their Lord was, and they were wrong ? He was so much more than they could have imagined. They thought that the temple of His body was dead and empty, something to be preserved; but it was alive, not needing their care, but demanding their awe and prompting them to action. They were able to make the transition from grief to joy ? from funeral dirge to alleluia (as our funeral service says) because they were there for all right reasons, even though they had the facts wrong.
We need to make that same transition, not just when it comes to death, but when it comes to our mutual life in Christ here at St. Mary’s.
There is a temptation for us to believe that there is no life in Church apart from the life we bring to it; that it is in need of our care; that we must preserve it. That it will decay unless we anoint it. We have our rituals that bring us closer together as we love this, our parish, a parish that offers the fullness of the Church, the Church being the Body of Our Beloved Lord Jesus Christ.
But that is not the kind of service that the Lord requires: He is not a corpse in need of embalming; but the Living God whose very presence here demands our awe and whose love must prompt us to serve the world He died to make whole.
We are called to emulate the women in today’s Gospel as they transitioned from myrrhbearers to apostles; like theirs, our tears have to change from tears of sorrow into tears of joy.
If we are afraid, we will miss the Good News of the Resurrection and will only live in fear ? behind closed doors. Ignoring all the news of a better way. Insult and injury will continue to pile overtop one another as we lose the never ending battle against disappointments.
Our tithes, our work in the kitchen, our music, all the efforts that we put into our parish life are no longer done to preserve a corpse ? much less a building ? but given in service of the living God who is present here and fills all things. A God who cannot die. A God who has called us to join Him as He transforms this world into a more fitting place for all his children.
Let us now continue making our transition from sorrow to joy through our ritual participation in our Lord’s death and resurrection, the holy Eucharist.
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