He is risen! He is not here (Mark 15:43-47; 16:1-8)

A few years ago, I was called to read the prayers for the departure of a child with cancer. The calculations of the world and the mathematical lines of the treatment proved, on paper and on screens, that there was nothing more to be done. I climbed the stairs of the apartment building with a heavy, oppressive sadness, and I admit that I did not want to make it. I knew that I was taking the Risen One to the one who will rise. But that did not change anything from the weight of the journey.

I arrive at the apartment and see the door slammed against the wall. I said to myself, "I'm too late!" Especially since from inside I could hear a muffled commotion of voices that had no explanation. I enter the house and see my little friend - I always called him the Protagonist, and he laughed more and more tiredly - laughing his head off, surrounded by his classmates from school. I had the feeling of a miracle. And, thank God, I was not wrong. This year, he got married, 20 years after his last chemotherapy. The worst part: to a classmate I don't remember, but I discovered her in the "photograph" of that moment's remembrance.

Neither the doctors, nor the parents, nor anyone else – not even the Protagonist himself – have any other explanation than the one that accompanies the Myrrh-Bearing Women when they cross the threshold from the cold dew of the morning into the hot tear of the Dawn of the Resurrection: Christ is risen, and that makes everything possible! I learned a lot from that moment. I went through the weight of an encounter to discover the joy of a morning of a man who had freed himself, at least for a lifetime, from death.

Maybe that's why I understand the Myrrh-Bearing Women. Housewives attentive to their mission to anoint Christ – the Anointed One, after all – with the myrrh of their weeping. As a gesture of piety and ritual belonging to the lineage of David. They wanted to anoint him, strengthening his icon of God's chosen one from the line of David through a ritual gesture. They recognized through the ritual that the Lord was from his root and that in Him they had placed all their messianic hope. And they were not wrong. The stone that they had considered an obstacle had been rolled away when they were descending to the tomb. A young man in bright clothes sits on the stone, on the right side.

Perhaps it is time to remind you that this is the reason why, at Sunday Matins – always Matins of the Resurrection, in fact – the priest reads the Matins Gospel from the right of the altar table, then "brings" it out into the light, in the middle of the nave, for worship. This is to encourage you to go to Matins to worship, sitting at the end of the line that began with the worship of the Myrrh-bearing women. A direct thread of light to the tomb of the Resurrection. Like them, we gained courage. We see the brilliance of the Gospel as a glimmer of light from that morning, the endless morning of the day that never ends.

The Angel-women dialogue is not dialogue, but only discovery. The women learn that He has risen through a brief testimony: “He has risen! He is not here!” and through a simple gesture: “Behold the place where they laid Him!” A kid once told me: “That is why angels have wings, to show with their wings the place from which Christ rose!”. Can I contradict him?

A discovery, therefore, and a message to the Apostles to whom they should announce everything they saw. Not motivational speeches, not pedagogical “schemes” or opinion-forming courses. Especially since the Resurrection is neither an opinion nor an elaborate opinion, but truth. A truth that needs proof only in the mind and soul of those who hide behind the fear of loving, believing, and hoping. They were also gripped by fear, but a fear doubled by amazement. Like when you can't believe that a wonderful thing is happening to you. You, whose heart and legs trembled to face the death of your loved one, the departure of the one who cannot leave your heart.

This is the lesson of the Myrrhbearers. Through them, God shows us that He knows what we go through when our love incarnate in our loved ones fears to see their death. It's not about courage but about understanding. A taste of the mystery of courage that is not ashamed to be amazed by the resurrection. And who wouldn't be?

The mystery of this Sunday is also about the truth. Clearly, Christ the Lord shows himself to women as a gesture of gratitude. They were not invited to the Easter Supper because it was not done, according to the custom of the time, to force the note of putting together the measures of the Apostolate. Therefore, he will give the Apostles the forgiveness of sins and the means by which to grant it to the world, and to the women of this race as heralds of the Resurrection. The marathon runners of God. Those who often change morning into night and night back into day in order to be able to feed, raise children, and encourage the sad souls of men. Perhaps if we learned from the morning of their race the price of love – the wonderful emotion of finding the Risen Truth – it would be easier for the world to become the Kingdom of God again.

Father Constantin Necula