Myrrhbearing Women Sunday - 2020 Fr. Lawrence Margitich

Christ is risen. Yes, brothers and sisters, please

come closer. I ask your forgiveness and your

patience. Normally, each week, one of the other

priests will alternate with me and you will hear

edifying and inspiring sermons from them. But

instead, you have me every week, every Sunday.

And that means that I am liable to say, not only

to repeat myself, but to say something that might

offend you and might stir something up unwittingly

that I've done. So that's why I ask your forgiveness.

And so I also ask your prayers that the Lord

would. enlighten my mind so that I could preach

the word of God. Now think for a moment how that

gospel ended. The angels said to the women, why

do you seek the living among the dead? He is

not here. Go, tell his disciples and Peter, remember

Peter had betrayed the Lord and he was probably

feeling... less than that big and not worthy

to be called a disciple. And the angel said,

go to them and tell them. And what did the women

do? They ran away and they told no one. I'm intrigued

and I'm amazed and I'm comforted that the church

gives us such realistic accounts, not a made

-up fictional account of the gospel. but a realistic

account as the one we had today in Mark. What

an ending! And we saw the same on Pascha, the

Gospel on Pascha, not at the liturgy, but later

in the day. Thomas said, unless I see you will

not believe, end of the Gospel reading that day.

And last week we heard the conclusion of that.

So we're encountering the disciples. Of the Lord.

In their doubts and their fears. And their uncertainty.

That's where we are sometimes. So the church

has specifically set for us. Through these readings.

Our return. Our return to the experience of Joseph

and the Myrrh bearers. After they had lost all

hope. The church brings us back to the worst

place. in the story. We get stuck there too,

don't we? In our own faith. Because we share

those same feelings. Sometimes even in the best

of times. And perhaps we let the so -called best

of times mask our fears and our doubts and uncertainties

and the weakness of our faith. We cover it up.

The gospel doesn't let us do that. It doesn't

sugarcoat anything. The Savior calls to us, are

you willing to follow? Take up your cross. This

is no opiate for the masses. Take up your cross.

Follow me. And if we say yes, we break through

that uncertainty. If we say yes, then we say,

not Christ, but we say, my Christ. Not Savior,

but my Savior. Not the Lord, but my Lord, Jesus

Christ. So the Gospel begins with Joseph and

ends with the women. Joseph bold, the women frightened

and shaken. Told to announce the good news, but

they kept silence. On the one hand, we hear that

account of the righteous Joseph of Arimathea,

an honorable counselor, as we sing the noble

Joseph. And he goes courageously to the Roman

governor, Pontius Pilate, who would just as soon

crucify anybody as look at them, to ask for the

body of Jesus. Incredible. So he could bury him,

yes, and so that the holy body of Jesus would

not be thrown into the mass pit. The mass rave

of bodies of executed criminals, yes. But mostly

because he, Joseph, loved Jesus. He believed

that Jesus, and he still believed that Jesus,

in his imperfect way, however it might have been,

that Jesus was the Messiah of God. And faith

remained in that man. I'm moved by that. I'm

inspired by that. While the disciples hid in

fear, and it was reasonable for them to hide

in fear because they thought that they would

be next to be arrested and crucified. Joseph

goes to Pilate. What a dangerous thing to do

for a follower of an executed criminal. And the

account ends, as I said, and as you heard, with

the angel telling the women, eight of these righteous

women, and if we look... On the north wall, we

see the women at the tomb, and on the right -hand

side, the angel saying to them, Why are you seeking

in this place the life of all? Don't you know

he is not here? And the guards were struck as

if asleep. This is a beautiful, beautiful image

for us right now. The women went out, though,

and quickly fled from the sepulcher, for they

trembled and were amazed. Neither said they anything

to anyone, for they were afraid. The women may

have fled in trembling, but they went to the

tomb out of love, in the darkness, with their

uncertainty, with their fear. knowing that they

could not do what they went to do, which was

anoint the body, because the stone was in front

of the tomb. What tremendous grief they had.

They could not have imagined two days prior that

they would be in that position. Their life had

changed completely, utterly. They had darkness

of heart. But they went. They went. They had

expectations of Jesus all along. and even that

day, but they couldn't imagine what God had planned

for them. This is our first lesson today. No

matter what expectations, let's also add uncertainties,

seeming impossibilities of our faith, of our

life, of the events in our life, whatever darkness,

despair, loss of hope, loss of joy. Remember,

the women came in that state to anoint the Lord.

And they heard a word from the angel. Never stop

praying, brothers and sisters. Never stop asking

the Theotokos to stand with you, to uphold you,

to intercede for you. Always come to Christ.

Never think that God doesn't love you. Banish

the thought. Instead think, do I love Christ?

Do I love Christ? Because he is risen from the

dead, and so all our attitudes, our words, our

thoughts, our actions, our ideas can be shaped

by the fact that Christ is risen. As it says

at the end of the Gospel of Mark, the very, very

end, you didn't hear this today, this part, the

Lord... working and confirming the word through

the accompanying signs. St. Gregory Palamas says

that those signs for us are not great ones, not

spectacular epic ones, but they're good ones.

They're simple ones. They're our faith lived

out in action. The resurrection as the center

of our life. If someone asks us or someone asks

our acquaintance, someone close to us, what is

he or she like? Are they going to say, oh, he's

wrapped up in this. Oh, she's completely obsessed

with that. Oh, she doesn't really care. Oh, he

is into all kinds of things. Or are those closest

to us going to say, that's a lover of God. We

have to show our expressions for God. Like the

women, we may think we're bringing something

to do for Christ. They came to anoint. They couldn't

anoint. But it turns out that God does something

for them. The Lord ends up anointing us. That

is, he sends us grace to cleanse our hearts.

We pray to him, even in our distraction and our

troubles. And by coming close to Christ, even

a little bit, he reaches out to us. He draws

himself to us. He and grace is drawn down to

us. But beyond that, and those are important

points, and I could end there. And some of you

probably thinking, well, he should end there.

But here's why we keep the day. Here's why we

keep this date. And we not just dedicate today,

but this whole week is dedicated to the Myrbaran

women. The entire week, all the hymns, all week

long, are dedicated to them, Joseph and Nicodemus,

the eight women and the two men. We keep it because

everything changed on that Friday and Saturday

and Sunday. And it isn't just those witnesses

to the crucifixion, death, and burial who experienced

the spiritual earthquake and the rolling away

of the stone and the good news. Because right

then and there, everything about this world,

about creation, about history itself, was revealed

in the cross and the death and the resurrection

of Christ. So powerful. Listen to these words

of Fr. George Causio. As he recalls his time

in prison, in a Romanian prison. During Pasca

of 1981, I was in the prison of Ayud. Early that

morning, when the guards were changing shifts,

I broke every diabolical rule of the prison by

saying to the guard, one of the cruelest, Christ

is risen. Christos anviat. He hesitated for a

few moments in which, like lightning, I saw passing

on his face the innocence of his childhood. When

his mama or grandma led him by the hand to the

church and when he heard the angelic voice of

the priest saying, Christ is risen. After this

moment of hesitation, he softly answered me.

Adeverat. In truth, he is risen. It was for me

the most assuring proof that I was never misled

in this regard. The one who was torturing me

was confirming the resurrection of the Lord.

I cried in silence with tears of joy. Christ

has risen in your heart even before I or someone

else could tell you and you knew this fact and

confirmed it, Father George says. The same as

my guard, when you cried from the deepest, unarguable

conviction, in truth he is risen, Christos unviat,

adeverat unviat. It appeared that the cross,

and it would seem so to Father George in his

desperate place in 1981 in that horrible prison,

it would appear that the cross of Christ was

a human tragedy. Pilate, sure, take the body.

But no. as Christ silently moves towards the

cross and the end of his life, as that human

tragedy reaches its climax, his triumph, his

victory over evil, his glorification becomes

more and more obvious. Since sin and evil have

not disappeared, on the contrary, they still

constitute the basic law of this world and our

life. Bad things still will happen. Terrible

and hideous events will continue to happen. Yesterday

and today, but not forever. Listen to this hymn

from Holy Saturday. Hades is king over mortal

men. The grave is king over mortal men, but not

forever. Laid in the sepulcher, mighty Lord,

with thy life -giving hand thou hast burst asunder

the bars of death. To those from every age who

slept in the tombs, thou hast proclaimed true

deliverance, O Savior, who art become the firstborn

of the dead. Pascha was not only then, it is

now. The Mary and women and Joseph and Nicodemus

continue in us in our care for the church. Pascha

is the victory over everything that wars against

us. And it shows us that all authority as the

Lord says, has been given unto Christ in heaven

and on earth. Christ is risen.