In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Christ is risen
Today, we are remembering that time when those women, called the “Myrrh-bearers”, came to the tomb early in the morning and found the stone already rolled away.
An angel is sitting there and telling them that Christ is risen from the dead. These women were women who had been accompanying Jesus everywhere. They were helping Him and serving Him, and they are called “women disciples”. That means women followers, women imitators of Jesus Christ. These women also went on to bring about the conversion of other people, just as the men did. By their serving, these women ministered to the Lord in extremely important ways. I think that they set some sort of a precedent for how the service of women is really the foundation of Church life throughout the centuries.
That is why most of the sisterhoods in our Church are called “Myrrh-bearing Women”. I mean parish sisterhoods and not monastic sisters. The sisters of this particular parish are called the Myrrh-bearers and all the women of the parish are part of it. Their responsibility above all is to serve Jesus Christ. Of course, men also are supposed to serve Him, as Joseph of Arimathea served Him, and as the holy Archdeacon Stephen served Him. The manner of service of men and women, although they are sometimes different in the Church, are sometimes the same. All the modes of service of men and women together in the Church perform the same function. All are for serving Jesus Christ and for exercising the gifts that He has given to us. The purpose of all these gifts is to build up and strengthen those who are believers first of all, and secondly and most importantly, to testify to Jesus Christ, to bring Him to where we live so that other people may see Him, and believe.
Other people see Jesus Christ in you and in me, and that is how they come to know Him. That is how we also came to know Jesus Christ in the first place. We were touched by the example of others who knew Him and live in Him. It is the same with our spiritual fathers and mothers. We can only have one set of biological parents : one mother and one father physically ; but in the course of our life we can have many fathers and mothers spiritually. Their responsibility as mothers and fathers is to bear Christ, to carry Christ themselves and to introduce Him to us, and us to Him. Once they have introduced Jesus Christ to us, they help us grow in Jesus Christ, if we will. No-one forces us to believe in Jesus Christ. No-one forces us to serve Jesus Christ, just as no-one forces me to be friends with anyone. Vera can introduce me to Stefan as many times as she likes, but if I do not want to be friends with Stefan, I will never do it. If Stefan introduced me to Vera, it is the same thing. He could introduce me to Vera a million times, but if I do not wish to be friends with Vera, it will not happen. It would be too bad (but thank God I choose to be friends with both in this case). The principle is the same as bringing Jesus Christ to each other. Our responsibility is to introduce. Other people’s responsibility is to accept the introduction and to become friends with Him, as we are, although we have become more than just friends with Jesus Christ. We have become His brothers and sisters. We have become the adopted children of God, the Father. We have become princes and princesses of the Kingdom.
In the Acts this morning, we heard about how much work there was for the apostles to do in the early days. There was so much work to be done by these apostles that people began to criticise, because some of the widows were being neglected in the distribution of food. In those days, there was no such thing as pensions, welfare or insurance. Therefore, if the husband died, the widow was left without any way to get an income unless she had children who were old enough to support her. Once in a while she could survive if she had a business sense and had some money to get going. She could survive if perhaps her father had money. However, when their husband died, very many widows were left completely out in the cold and they had to beg. The early Christians behaved very differently from society which left the women alone and did not pay much attention to them. Even the Jewish society which was supposed to look after widows, did not bother too much. Thus, our ancestors in the Early Church and afterwards were very careful to look after the widows, orphans, and other people who were in need. The Church supplied them with food, housing, clothes and looked after them in general so that they did not suffer from need. That is how they shared everything in those days.
It seems to me that one way in which we can apply the life of those days to this day is as follows. Nowadays, we have a reasonable amount of welfare. Nowadays, we have a reasonable amount of pension money. Nowadays, we also have all sorts of institutions to look after people. When a person gets old, often the person goes to a nursing home. Once the person goes to a nursing home, the person is forgotten, like Mrs. n, for instance. I talk about her all the time because she is an example of this. She is in the nursing home and she is far away. Not very many people go to see her because she is far away. If these were the old days, the days of the Apostles Peter and Paul, Philip and Bartholomew and all the apostles, Mrs. n would not be living there. If she were not living with her family, then she would be living in some sort of a house that the rest of the parish would provide for such old people who cannot live by themselves. They would look after her in every way.
We do not need to do that nowadays, but we do need to visit because our old people who cannot get out get very lonely. Mrs. n gets lonely. Even though she lives at home and has someone to look after her, she gets lonely. She has the phone, but the phone is not like having tea with someone. It is not the same. There is also Mr. n and so many others who do not see very many faces from their spiritual families here. Most often these people do not get out as often as they would like to. I am saying that, as Myrrh-bearers, it is our responsibility to take care and to remember who is sick. There are many people like this and it is our responsibility to pay attention to their needs.
We are very busy but we should discipline ourselves once a month to go and see someone. Our sisterhood has appointed one person already to make certain that people (especially sick people in the hospital) are visited sometimes. However, it is not that person’s responsibility to do all the visiting because we are all the brothers and sisters of these people who are too old or too sick to come to church as often as they want to. It is the responsibility of us all to phone, or once in a while (perhaps once a month) to go and visit them, have a cup of tea, share a few words, bring an orange or something and say, as it were : “You are my brother, you are my sister. I care about you and I am interested in you”. That is what our responsibility is supposed to be like, I think. That is the most practical way in which we can apply today’s Gospel. Let us remember how those deacons were chosen to look after the people who were in need. Let us remember that our responsibility is like their responsibility. Although each of us has different gifts, we are each of us called to look after each other with the love of brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.
That is how we demonstrate that we love. It is no good simply to say : “I love you”. By showing up and having a cup of tea with Mrs. n, for instance, or by trying to surprise someone else, we show that we care. Perhaps some day when we are driving on our way somewhere, we could just drop in for twenty minutes for a cup of tea and say : “How are you ?” That is all that is necessary. People really sense the love of Jesus when we do that. They really understand how the love of Jesus works when we do little things like that. A telephone call, a little visit, a cup of tea is not much, but it is everything, on the other hand.
This morning, as we come to receive Him, and as He gives Himself to us, let us ask the Lord to help us put His love more into practice. Let us ask Him to open our eyes, our minds and our ears (but most particularly our minds together with our hearts), and to remind us what we could and should do. Let us ask Him to remind us whom to visit, whom we can go and see, who needs to hear a word of care or a word of love from a brother or sister. Let us then listen for Him to speak to us. Some day when we are in the car, perhaps we will drop in to visit Mrs. n and surprise her. We could have a quick cup of tea and say : “How are you ?” and “Christ is risen”. By doing this, we will truly glorify the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.