This
marvellous series of scripture readings could take us all night to explore and
expound. We could study them our whole lives and still find something new.
For sake
of brevity I will restrict myself to saying a few words about the Gospel.
We
should realise that the Jews had very particular burial customs and they had
learnt from the Egyptians how to wrap the dead in linen cloths and using
special ointments to preserve and mummify the body. The rich spent large sums
of money to bury their loved ones in this way.
Jesus
was poor but we remember how Nicodemus who was a rich man brought 100 pounds of
ointments to use for the burial of Jesus.
Because
of the lateness of the hour Jesus was buried hastily because the Passover began
at sunset. And nothing could be done the following day because of the feast. So
the women had to come back early in the morning the following day to finish the
burial work. That’s why there were there going to the tomb. They had surely
been up late the previous night mixing the various ointments necessary for
their work the next day.
They
find the tomb empty and the angels tell them that Jesus has risen from the
dead. In this account by Mark these events on that first day of Easter conclude
with the women running away because they were frightened out of their wits.
But we
know from the other Gospel accounts that they were the first to believe.
Faith in
Christ as the Son of God and in that key Christian doctrine of the resurrection
does not come easily to most people. And neither should it for faith, as we
know, is a gift from God.
The
leaders of the Jews spent their lives studying the scriptures but they couldn’t
see the wood for the trees and did not recognise that everything that happened
to Jesus was foretold there.
Even
Peter and the apostles who had gone around with Jesus as his faithful followers
for three years and who were privy to all his teachings did not even begin to
imagine that Jesus would rise from the dead.
But
these illiterate women were the first to understand what had happened and to
believe that Jesus had risen.
Why was
this so? They loved Jesus and they were anxious to serve him even in his death.
They were there to complete the burial rituals; to perform that one last act of
respect and reverence for his broken body. A task seemingly without any
importance or significance—something nobody would even know had been done. And
God rewards them for their loving kindness with the gift of faith in his
resurrection.
This is
the way God works in the world. He sees all things and he knows all things. And
the more we love him the more he blesses us with the gift of faith and draws us
ever closer to himself.
We now
praise and thank God for the gift of our own faith and we bless the water to be
used for Baptism in the coming year and renew the promises we made at our own
Baptism.