Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women

Christ is Risen!

The first to know about the Resurrection of the Lord was “Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles” (Luke 24:10), a group of women who “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb” (Luke 24:1).

They became, as St. John Chrysostom put it, “Apostles to the Apostles”, those who first announced the good news that Christ rose from the tomb, as He foretold. In the Gospel there are no insignificant details at all, and the fact that women were the first to learn about the Resurrection was not merely chance.

In apostolic times the testimony of women was not given merit. Even the Apostles themselves perceived the witness of the Myrrh-bearing women with obvious distrust: “But they (apostles) did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense” (Luke 24:11). In that era, women were considered clearly unsuitable witnesses for an event of such importance.

A reason that God honored women to be the first witnesses of the Resurrection consists in the fact that God confounded human pride, selecting those who society were inclined to consider as inferior. This is reminiscent of the words of the Apostle Paul from the Epistle to the Corinthians:

“Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him” (1 Corinthians 1: 26-29).

God exalts the lowly and downtrodden!

It is also noteworthy that the women go to Jesus not at the moment when He is surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd doing miracles, nor when people expect His accession, but when He seems to have lost completely and is humbled, destroyed, killed, and buried. They are faithful to the Lord at a time when His defeat seemed certain. That’s why they were granted the grace to be the first to learn of His Resurrection. Truly He is Risen!

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