One act of love deserves another one that is much greater. The three women who cared for Jesus when he was upright and breathing, they don’t have it in them to stop caring for the Lord just because he died and was buried. His death is not a good enough reason for them to turn their backs on him for good. Which is pretty amazing. It’s in their nature to give support, to show concern, to continue to love even after he’s buried and not breathing.
Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome cared for the many needs of Jesus during much of his public ministry. You think death is going to stop such devotion for three determined women? Not in this world! So they gather up their spices, and off they go, marching to the tomb, caring for Jesus in his death. As they walk, they talk: “Who’s’ going to remove the large stone? Mary, you rock it this way, and Salome, you rock it that way, and maybe we can get it to tumble away from the entrance. We need to get at his dead body so we can at least make him smell good in death.”
Of course, they came to discover that there’s one smell that smells better than smelling good in death; it’s the smell of smelling good in life after death. Which is a little premature for the three ladies at this point. When they arrive at the tomb and realize that their stone-removing discussion was a useless chat, the stone having been removed prior to their arrival, they take the next step, entering the tomb. They still have their spices in hand, and they’re still looking for a dead body to use them on, but there’s no one to use them on. Someone must have stolen him. Where is he?
God doesn’t play tricks with us. So that the women have an understanding of what’s really taking place, God leaves behind a messenger, an angel, to ease their minds and strengthen their hearts. The angel makes it abundantly clear as to what occurred that morning. “He has been raised. He is not here. You need to find another tomb if you wish to use your spices on a dead body. And don’t try using them on me, because I’ll disappear on you.”
In Mark’s Gospel, the symbol of resurrection is the symbol of unused spices carried by the three women who love Jesus. When they received the message from the angel inside the tomb of our Lord, they probably dropped the spices on the ground, and ran to the disciples in their hideout to share the news. So there they were, spices spread on the earth, inside the tomb where Jesus was buried on Friday, moments before the Passover began.
Unused spices spread all over the ground, meant to be used on a dead man’s body, instead unopened and spread all over. What a fitting symbol for life after death.
Our dear Jewish friends recall vividly to this day the Passover of the angel of death in Egypt, which led them to freedom from slavery, eventually into a land flowing with milk and honey. Anytime an entire nation is freed from the tyranny of another people oppressing them, it’s cause for both remembrance and celebration. And this is what our Jewish brethren do at this time of year, every year. They can truly say, “God has set us free!”
But on this holy day, the Passover is transformed from not only from slavery to freedom, but from death to life. In our Lord’s resurrection, with the unused spices laying on the ground rather than Jesus laying on the ground stone-cold, we are carried by an angel from the slavery of sin, to the freedom of holiness. In our Lord’s resurrection, an entire human race, and not just one group, is freed from the tyranny of death, which St. Paul rightfully calls our greatest enemy, and carried to the joys of life everlasting.
It’s a very good thing that three holy women never got to use their spices. Because if they got to use their spices on that Sunday morning 2000 years ago, we wouldn’t be here today. And this Church wouldn’t be here. This would be another shopping mall on a hill, selling us things we don’t really need and can’t take with us. Like spices.
He died for us. Now he is raised for us. Praise God.