When the Apostle Peter met Christ after the resurrection, the question Jesus asked him was: “do you love me?” There’s a group of people in the Gospels whose love for Christ was so strong, so constant and so utterly fearless that the question: “do you love me?” would be unimaginable. These are the people who in my tradition we call the “Myrrhbearers”, the people who looked after Jesus’ body when it was taken down from the cross. They brought sweet spices and myrrh, (hence myrrh-bearers) to anoint Jesus’ body at burial, according to the Jewish custom of the time.
In my tradition the list of Myrrhbearers includes Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, but when we think and talk about them and depict them in icons it is most often the women who came to the tomb early on Easter morning to continue the anointing process. These women are named as Mary Magdalen, Mary the wife of Cleopas, Joanna, Salome the mother of the sons of Zebedee, and Susanna. In the Gospel accounts there are quite a lot of Marys, and many people think that one of them must have been Mary, the mother of Jesus himself. The list is not exclusive, there must have been others whose names we don’t know.
Easter morning is not the first time we meet these women. During Jesus’ ministry there was a group of women who travelled with him and contributed in important ways to that ministry, as well as the twelve disciples: And the Twelve were with Him, and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities—Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons, 3 and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for Him out of their means.[1]
Again, we find these women at the cross: Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome. In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there.[2]
Being at the Cross must have been an utterly grim experience. Going in the dark to tend to the body of someone who had been executed as a criminal wasn’t a “normal” thing to do. Neither was setting off knowing there was an insuperable obstacle, (the rock sealing the tomb) between you and your goal - and not having the faintest idea how you were going to deal with it. The love of these women was absolutely unstoppable. Their courage and determination were almost incredible.
But as well as reading about them in a scene of the past, I think we also see something which we recognise from our own experience. Love does things like this! I can think of countless examples that I saw as a hospital chaplain – parents sitting night after night gazing into an incubator, an elderly gentleman making an arduous journey on several buses every single day to sit by the bedside of his equally elderly unconscious wife. Again, love does things like this.
There is another thing we recognise. We all know the difference someone makes who is well-organised, compassionate and determined. Whatever the context, people with these gifts can make an unbearable situation completely transformed. As I said earlier, the list of Myrrhbearers in the Gospels is not exhaustive. The presence of un-named Myrrhbearers goes on up to the present day.
But let’s return to the place where we most often think about the Myrrhbearers: at Christ’s tomb on Easter morning. They are the first to know about the resurrection. They are charged with telling the Apostles. They are the Apostles to the Apostles. Would anyone in the first century make this up? Crucial witnesses to the pivotal event of a new religious movement were women????!!!! Although, according to the requirements for witnesses at the time, the Evangelists are careful to say that there was more than one of them, and to give names, it is still a totally unlikely beginning to the declaration of a hero’s victory.
But the point is that it isn’t a hero’s victory in the conventional sense (roaring crowds, displays of triumphant power). The resurrection is announced in gentle and sometimes puzzling ways. Was there still a lot of learning to do about what Jesus’ resurrection was like? Is this the reason for Jesus’ words to Mary Magdalen, don’t cling to me[3] i.e. “don’t try to hold on to what was before, but get to know what is present now”?
Why is the account of the encounter between the risen Christ and Mary Magdalen so moving? Among many other things in this wonderful passage, it is surely because of the moment when he calls her by name – and in this name she recognises him instantly. Her unstoppable love for him encounters his love for her as God, someone who knows exactly who she is. Here is something that is at the root of the new life which the resurrection brings. Jesus, in his continued relation with us, today, now, is the person who calls us by our true name. It is in meeting him in prayer, in fellowship and in Holy Communion that we become who we really are, and we discover God’s unstoppable love for us.
Mother Sarah
[1] Luke 8:1 - 3
[2] Mark 15:40-41
[3] John 20:17
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