Easter Sunday
Isaiah 25:6-9, Mark 16:1-8
When faced with disaster, with the death of your dreams and – more importantly – with the death of a real, live person whom you loved, whose warm hand you had just held days before – the first step is to bury the dead. Properly, and with love. This is what the three women know, Mary Magdalene, Mary and Salome, the ones who go to Jesus’ tomb early on the first Easter. You awake before dawn and carry pounds of expensive oils, spices and herbs a mile or more to the tomb. You go, despite the fact that you have no idea how you are going to roll back the stone, weighing tons, that sits in front of the tomb carved from rock. You’ll figure that out when you get there.
The important thing is to bury your dead. To unwrap the body – in this case, the bloodied and bruised body – and rub oils mixed with the perfume of herbs and spices all over it, caressing this body that is already stiff, loving for the last time this flesh, making the body smell sweet and fragrant again, giving the dead man back the dignity that he gave you in life. The important thing is to love bodies, to honor them even when you can no longer protect them from death.
Afterwards, the women will figure out what the next important thing is to do. Perhaps it will be to make breakfast for their grieving friends. Perhaps it will be to hold each other while they weep. Perhaps it will be to tell the story of how he died – sharing the horror they each witnessed. For these women were the only ones who stayed with Jesus while he died. It was excruciating to watch. Perhaps that was why his male disciples fled – or maybe they did so because it was too dangerous for them to be there. The Roman authorities didn’t expect women to be subversives as readily as men. In any event, the women were the only ones who kept vigil at the cross while he died. Most likely, they simply wanted this man, their beloved friend, to know that he was not going to die alone. The important thing is to know that you are not alone.
They were ordinary people doing the important work that needs to be done, that always needs to be done, even amid violence, confusion and chaos. They are so ordinary their three names are not mentioned in any other place in the Gospels save for at the crucifixion and on Easter morning. (Magdalene) And yet, these three ordinary women are one of two icons of the Resurrection found in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. You should all have this icon – it was in your order of worship. It’s called “The Holy Women at the Tomb,” although its more traditional title is “The Spice Bearers.”
The Orthodox tradition believes that icons can be as revelatory of spiritual truths as words are. Maybe moreso. Because of that, there’s lots of icons in the Orthodox tradition – except for icons about the Resurrection, the main event in Christianity. This is because the Orthodox faith sees the Resurrection as a deep Mystery, one that cannot be captured in word or picture.
Which means the two icons of the Resurrection they do have must be pretty important, pretty significant. They have to carry a lot of mystery, a lot of meaning. I shared the other one with you last Easter, the one called “The Descent into Hell,” which depicts Christ riding into the darkness of hell on the cross and bringing the Divine Light even there. You have in your hands the other icon of the Resurrection from this tradition: The spice bearers. Three ordinary women doing the important work of loving: Bringing the spice of their presence, the ointment of their love to the tombs of life.
We know these people. They rarely make the news. But they know the important thing to do, and they do it. They clean up after disasters. They soothe the scared child who wakes up from a nightmare in the middle of the night. They counsel the drug addict they know will use again. They invite a grieving friend over for dinner. They counsel students and employees in distress, even though that isn’t part of their job description. They plan vigils at the gates of San Quentin and Lawrence Livermore labs. They set up clinics in rural Indonesia. They bring the spice of their presence, the ointment of their love to the tombs of life.
When I was in Louisville, Kentucky recently, attending a workshop for ministers who had gotten sabbatical grants, one of the presenters mentioned a recent trip he had taken to Burundi, where he had the chance to meet a remarkable woman named Maggy Barinkitse. Maggy had encountered the tombs of death in a way I pray none of us ever will. In 1993, she tried in vain to protect her co-workers and friends from a band of murdering Tutsis who came to the Catholic bishops’ residence where she worked. Her punishment for trying to do so was to be tied up and forced to watch while 72 of her Hutu friends and co-workers were killed. Faced with violence and death beyond imagining, Maggy found herself in a tomb wider than the world. But I’ll let Maggy tell her own story. This a video made by the Opus Prize for Faith-Based Entrepreneurship, a prize sponsored by Catholic universities and a prize Maggy won last year. (Video can be found at http://www.opusprize.org/winners/08_Barankitse.cfm.)
Finding herself in a tomb wider than the world, Maggy did the first important thing: She buried her dead. Like Mary, Mary Magdalene and Salome, she risked her life to care for bodies, even those she could no longer protect from death. And then, Maggy did the next important thing in her power to do: She scrounged up enough money to pay the Tutsi killers a ransom for 25 children belonging to friends they had just killed. She began to raise these children as her own, along with 7 other orphans – four Hutu and three Tutsis – she was already raising.
Maggy kept on doing the next important thing. She kept on bringing her presence and her love to Burundi’s tombs and -- years later – she has helped 30,000 orphans, giving them families and homes and jobs, a cinema, a swimming pool, a hospital. I’m sure Maggy could have imagined none of this in the devastating days and weeks following the massacre. Like the women walking to Jesus’ tomb, she had no idea how she was going to roll back the stone of death.
But she kept on showing up at the tombs of death – and, miraculously, she found that God was there. She found that the stones guarding the tombs of death kept getting rolled away, beyond her knowing how, beyond her ability make it happen. She found that Christ’s light could penetrate any darkness, including her own. She found that evil and death could never ever have the last word. She found resurrection. And she has become an icon of the resurrection. An icon of the light of Christ that can be found in the darkest places of death.
You know, this icon of the resurrection you have in your hands isn’t called “The Empty Tomb,” although the empty tomb is shown there. It would seem to make a great name for one of two icons of the resurrection. It would underscore the main point of Easter, right – that the body isn’t there?
Instead, the icon is called “The Holy Women at the Tomb,” or “The Spice Bearers.” The empty tomb is important, but maybe it’s not the only important thing. Maybe, just as important, is the three spice bearers, the three holy women doing what was in their power to do. Doing the next important thing. Loving bodies, caring for them. Bringing their spices, their presence, their love to the tombs of death. By doing so, they also found that evil and death can never have the last word. They found resurrection. And they became icons of the resurrections.
Look at these women. And see in their faces, your own face. For you are an icon of the resurrection, just as surely as Mary Magdalene, Mary and Salome. You are an icon of the resurrection, just as surely as Maggy Barinkitse. Christ descended into the darkness of death and brought to it the light that will always, always outshine the darkness. And now, we are the icons of that light. We are the ones who bring to the tombs in our lives the spice of our presence, the ointment of our love. We are the ones who – as Maggy says -- say no to violence and death, and yes to the love, yes to the life. We are the spice-bearers. We are icons of the resurrection. Amen. Alleluia.