How Can We Serve the Lord?

A Homily for the Sunday of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women and Righteous Joseph

Amen, I say to you: wherever this Gospel is preached in all the world, what she has done will also be spoken, in memory of her (Mt 26:13)

On this Sunday, beloved, our holy mother the Church commemorates the holy myrrh-bearing women and the noble Joseph, who took down the Lord’s body from the cross. How good it is to serve the Lord Almighty from the whole heart, whatever the service may be! What abundant reward awaits a person for this from our generous God! The reward is within you yourself—in your conscience; the reward is outside you—in the grateful memory of men; but what is higher and dearer than all else—the reward is in the memory, in the eternal memory of you by the Lord God Himself, and in eternal glorification from Him in heaven!

Here is an example from Gospel history. Once, when our Savior was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came up to Him with a flask of precious myrrh; she broke the vessel and poured the myrrh upon His head, and anointed His feet, which she then wiped with her hair. The whole house was filled with the fragrance of the myrrh. When the others were indignant at the waste of the precious myrrh, the Lord praised her and said: she has done a good deed for Me: in pouring this myrrh upon My body, she has thereby prepared Me for burial. Truly I say to you: wherever this Gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her[1].

This prophecy of the Savior, as you see, is being fulfilled to this day throughout the whole world, everywhere that the churches of the Lord are found; every year her praiseworthy zeal for the Lord is extolled aloud before the whole church, and it will be extolled until the end of the age. Thus, beloved, it is good to serve the Lord from the whole heart, with great love! Of you a memory will be kept for all ages, until the end of the world! Of you there is eternal memory in heaven; for you there are eternal joy and glory in heaven! And even on earth it is so pleasant for you as it is pleasant for no one among those people who do not serve the Lord from the whole heart. All the saints bear witness to this—the apostles, the prophets, the hierarchs, the martyrs, the venerable ascetics and the righteous. They served the Lord from the whole heart on earth—and from age to age they are glorified on earth; eternal glory to them also in heaven.

But let us turn to the myrrh-bearing women and to the noble Joseph. All the holy myrrh-bearing women, who came to the Savior’s tomb out of great love for Him—to anoint His buried life-giving body with fragrant spices—are also glorified in all the churches of the universe, and also by the ordinance of the Lord, who rewarded their love and zeal with an eternal memory of them among men, but especially with His own remembrance of them in His heavenly kingdom and with eternal joys in the heavens. The names of these holy women, according to the Gospel, are the following: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, Joanna, or Anna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, Salome, and certain others.

But the noble Joseph as well, who served the Lord by taking His life-giving body down from the cross, is likewise blessed with divine hymns year after year, age after age, throughout all the earth, and will be blessed to the end of the age; and, as you all see, his most honored name shines in golden letters on the Lord’s burial shroud in all the churches. How much more does he shine in heaven! How radiant will he be at the Lord’s second coming to earth! How good it is to serve the Lord! The memory of the saints who served Him in faith and love passes, and will go on passing, from age to age, and no one will ever erase it—no one will ever be able to erase their memory among men; and in heaven they have glory everlasting.

But what if we, too, beloved, were to share in the glory of the holy myrrh-bearing women and in the glory of the holy righteous Joseph—what if we, too, were to do something like what they did, if we, too, were to bring myrrh to the Lord—not such myrrh as the myrrh-bearing women brought, yet myrrh no less precious; if we, too, were to do a deed like the deed of the righteous Joseph? How glad we would be of that! For the Lord is the same yesterday and today, and the same forever[2].

Beloved, it is possible for us too—moreover, not just once or twice, but many times—to do deeds very much like the deeds of the holy Myrrh-Bearing Women and of righteous Joseph, and therefore we may expect a reward equal to theirs. In the Gospel of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ there are words—most comforting for us, priceless for us, true as yea and amen: inasmuch as you did it to one of these least brethren of Mine, you did it to Me[3]. And what can we do for the least brethren of the Lord Jesus? Feed the hungry, give the thirsty drink, clothe the naked or him who has no necessary and seemly clothing, visit the sick and help him toward recovery, visit those confined in prisons, bury those who have died in poverty[4] — that is, our love for our neighbor: there is the myrrh for the Lord’s body. Christians are His body. The Church is His body[5], says the apostle. There is our myrrh. Let us carry this myrrh, then, to Christ’s least brethren, as though to the Lord Himself, and let us go about with it so long as there is breath in our mouths; and the Lord will without fail receive this spiritual myrrh upon His supracelestial and noetic altar, as an odor of spiritual fragrance, and will reward us for it with His everlasting remembrance, and will receive us into the eternal rest and glory of His heavenly kingdom. Let each of us do good deeds according to his strength; and whoever is deprived of the opportunity to do works of mercy, let him weep over his sins, over how often you anger the Lord with them—and your tears will be myrrh for the Lord; you will truly, as it were, anoint His body with them, and the fragrance of them will spread through your soul, and the Lord Himself will come down into it and smell the fragrance of your heartfelt contrition over your sins, and will grant you the forgiveness of your sins, and will make you an heir of the kingdom of heaven, as it is written: Blessed are those who weep, for they shall be comforted[6], that is, there, in heaven. I will say one thing more—something very comforting for the devout. Those of you who bury those who have died in poverty and piety and pray for the repose of their souls—it is as though they take Christ Himself down from the cross together with Joseph, as though they bury His most pure body; and their reward will be in heaven, and the Lord will say to them: inasmuch as you did it to one of these least brothers, you did it to Me; you buried at your own expense such a poor and destitute one, or such ones: you did it to Me: come, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the founding of the world[7]. Such, beloved, is the edification and comfort that the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women and of righteous Joseph brings us! Imitate, then, the Myrrh-Bearing Women and righteous Joseph. Amen.