First Witnesses

To care for the departed, for the dead seems such a normal human thing to do. When we love someone it seems natural for us to care for them because our love does not die with them. Throughout the time of the Old Testament Patriarchs, we see that it mattered where their loved ones were laid to rest. But what about those who we don’t love, or who we don’t know? In the book of Tobit, we are given Tobit as an example of a charitable man. In the second chapter as Tobit sits down to eat, he is informed of a fellow jew who had been strangled and disposed of like trash. And so he went and found the man’s body and took care of it. After purifying himself and eating dinner, he went out at night and dug a grave and buried the man. Tobit made himself unclean in order to minister --  not to a beloved relative -- but to a stranger who had died . 

Today we celebrate the memory of the Myrrhbearing Women, along with Saint Joseph of Arimathea and Saint Nicodemus. In many respects these people are like us. They loved the Lord and of course wanted to show their love for him in their care for his body after death. They hurried to take Him down from the cross, anoint His body with sweet smelling spices and wrap Him in a linen cloth to bury Him in the tomb that Joseph of Arimathea had purchased for himself. 

But they were also like Tobit. Listen to the words we sang on Holy Friday evening:

Come let us bless Joseph of everlasting memory, who came by night to

Pilate and begged for the Life of all: ‘ Give me this stranger,

who has no place to lay His head. Give me this stranger, whom His

evil disciple delivered to death. Give me this stranger, whom His

Mother saw hanging on the Cross, and with a mother’s sorrow she

cried weeping: “Woe is me, my Child! Woe is me, Light of mine

eyes and beloved fruit of my womb! For what Simeon foretold in the temple

is come to pass today: a sword pierces my heart, but do Thou change my

grief to gladness by Thy Resurrection.

We venerate Thy Passion, O Christ.

We venerate Thy Passion, O Christ.

We venerate Thy Passion, O Christ, and Thy Holy Resurrection.

The Myrrhbearers loved Christ, but Christ was executed as an enemy of His people and an enemy of the state. He had died in an accursed manner and so the safest thing to do would be to pretend not to know Him and to have nothing more to do with Him. They did what countless Christians after them have done. They risked their own lives and their own safety to minister to the Lord. Later generations would care for the bodies of martyrs in the same way. 

In their care for the Lord the women waited until the sabbath day had ended and rushed to the tomb in order to finish what could not be completed because of lack of time. Arriving at the tomb early, they became the first to encounter the Risen Lord. The disciples who had scattered and fled when the Lord was arrested had to wait to see Him after the women were rewarded for their faithfulness.

The women were accounted worthy to be the first to see Christ, and the first to proclaim His resurrection from the dead. But they were an unusual choice. Women at this time were not able to serve as witnesses. In fact this is what we see when they told the disciples the Lord had risen. It seemed them as idle tales and they believed them not, as Saint Luke tells us. Why would the Lord reveal Himself to them when it proved nothing to society at the time? Because they were the ones that were there, because they above all had proved faithful to Him throughout his trial, crucifixion, and burial. 

This, then, is the message that we all need to hear. Be faithful. Sometimes it is easy to be faithful. Sometimes we are so filled with love and zeal for God that we will do whatever He has asked us to do. Other times, we are moved by more base passions. Maybe we are filled with avarice like Judas, or filled with fear like the disciples. Maybe we are simply lazy, gluttonous, or lustful and our attention is diverted from serving the Lord. But very often we just don’t know what we should do. 

We have a general idea. Don’t sin. But so often our hearts are clouded and our consciences are compromised and we don’t see sin in ourselves. We know murder, and adultery, and stealing are wrong, but we wonder how close we can get to sin before we are really in trouble. We know that we should pray, but when we pray we’re not certain that we’re doing it right. We’re distracted much of the time, we get bored, we want to skip ahead and get started with our day or get to bed. We know that we should fast, but we worry about our health, our energy level, or hitting our macros. We fast from food and devour our neighbor because in the absence of prayer we’re simply hangry all the time. We know that we should give alms but we worry about what we won’t have money for if we do. We worry that someone who is acting in a self-destructive way will only get worse if we try to help them. 

So we know what we should do in general, but not in specific. But the truth is that we are not trying to fulfill a list of rules or requirements. We are trying to encounter God. God tells us if you love me, you will keep my commandments. The keeping of God’s commandments is the way that we love God. So when we turn away from sin, when we repent, we are not simply turning away from a bad thing, we are turning to face God. Keep turning until you find Him there. If you are praying, don’t just say words like a magic spell, try to find Him in stillness and in silence and then when you find Him speak to Him. When you fast, the hunger is meant for you to seek your strength from Him instead of from food. When you give alms you are giving them to Him, not to a good person or a bad person, and He will reward you as though you did it for Him.

The Myrrhbearers followed Christ, they listened to His words, they gave everything they had to follow Him, and when He was taken from them, they set aside their fears and concerns and ministered to Him. He was their focus, and He should be our focus too. Don’t live as though all you are doing is for a distant God who only wants conformity. Live with Him working in and through you. Receive Him through the sacramental life of the Church, and show your love for Him by keeping His commandments, and living according to His will.