I have a confession to make, and it’s not Lutheran. It’s not even particularly Christian. I’m a voracious reader, and I am always reading at least one book and sometimes more than one simultaneously. I get very attached to the main characters in the books I read. I become emotionally invested in the welfare of fictional people, but this is not what I’m confessing. Sometimes, when the suspense is intense and I have no idea where the story is going, I skip ahead. Yes, I said that. I will read ahead enough to know who lives, who gets married, the killer’s real identity, or even the carefully and subtly foreshadowed plot twist that I likely could have predicted if I had just stayed present in the story. I read enough to soothe my anxiety and I can relax because I know what’s coming.
There is gold that you mine in the moment-ness of the myrrh-bearers, who have packed up their myrrh and spices to anoint what they thought would be Jesus' lifeless body. Except for John the Beloved, there were no men who "...watched this man...die a horrible death." There were no (cis-) men among the myrrh-bearers in the western accounts. Instead, there were variably two to three Marys and Salome.
Eastern tradition--not the canonical texts-- has it that the group included seven women: the three Marys with an added Mary (Cleopas' wife--the Cleopas of Emmaus) to make four Marys, along with Salome, Susanna, and the wife of Herod Antipas' steward (Chuza), Joanna. But, somewhat surprisingly, Joseph of Arimathea is also included among the myrrh-bearers due to him having gifted the tomb he owned for Jesus' burial place. Also, Nicodemus the Pharisee, who aided Joseph of Arimathea in removing Jesus from the cross, rounds out the total of named myrrh-bearers to nine. Joseph and Nicodemus in removing the body for burial would have participated in the burial anointing ritual, too.
But there were more myrrh-bearers; their names were not recorded. So, we might say there were nine, et al.
Is your name or mine among the unrecorded names of Jesus' myrrh-bearers? Maybe.
Myrrh's 'nom de plume' makes me suspect hers is one of those unrecorded. Little or no recognition, certainly less fame, has been associated with acts of mercy like the ritual cleansing and preparation of the body postmortem in anticipation of Christian burial. In contemporary practices of developed countries, such tasks have been delegated to the mortician and staff.
Therefore, few people will remember the names of the funeral staff members with whom they were in contact for a brief time because these relatively hidden caregivers are no longer integrated in the continuum of caring for the living. Their labor is specialized, so much so that all too few people are conscious of why they must sell the farm to buy the gem of what funeral staff members accomplish that the living would pay not to touch. Small wonder that it costs a lot to hire a mercenary to fight the battle of fear for you. What will you or I pay to have someone serve as proxy for us on the frontlines?
If the process of burying the dead today has been hitched to a mercantile burial industry, which provides us mercenaries, what would we call anyone of yesteryear or today who, in Christian service, follows the Lord's instruction to bury the dead, obeying him in thanks for his abundant mercy? I suggest a close but not exact use of the term, un-mercenary. The exact use refers to healers who accept no stipend for their labor. Examples have been un-mercenaries like Cosmas and Damianos, Panteleimon, Amma Syncletica of Scetis, and the nine forenamed myrrh-bearers along with unidentified others.
I would advance my point about un-mercenary one step further. Anyone's name can be considered as among the unrecorded myrrh-bearers. Similar to the reformer Dr. Martin Luther's description of personal anguish, which he described as grueling uncertainty or spiritual doubt, we have the testimonies and teachings of the Desert Mothers and Fathers about 'accidie' (the so-called demon of noonday). Their advice from the 4th and 5th centuries AD was to talk back to the evil of despair by repeating, in trust, the Holy One's words of promise. They knew the Shepherd and followed his voice of promise, as Luther later discovered and practiced.
The Greek word for the phrase 'talk-back' is (transliterated) 'antirrhetikon.' The Desert Mothers and Fathers learned it by trusting in Jesus' own 'antirrhetikon' in a desert dialogue with the evil one. The evil one was then and remains to our day an expert cherry picker, twisting words of Scripture out of context. Our sources for Jesus' temptation are both canonical and pseudepigraphal, but the thread of 'antirretikon' runs blood red and deep in Christ's cross and the ebullient light of witness from Mary's mouth, "He is risen!"
When we face the temptation to despair when grieving, we might use one of the following when talking back to the evil one. For example, "I go to prepare a place for you; I will return to take you to be with me that you may also be where I am" (John 14: 3-10); "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Gen. 28:15; Deut. 31:6; Joshua 1: 5; 1 Kings 8: 57; Hebrews 13: 5), and "Your sins are forgiven you" (Matt 9: 5; Luke 7: 48-50).
In other words, count all of us myrrh-bearers and un-mercenaries among those who have been empowered to bury the dead and break liturgical rubrics by singing 'Alleluia' during Lent as well as Easter, Advent as well as Nativity, for we know there's no mountain high enough, no valley low enough to keep the risen Christ from us. We can be assured of that.
A song performed by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell comes to mind:
We need one another when the going gets rough, like when we grieve. We become un-mercenaries and myrrh-bearers by helping one another hear the Word and see the Paschal dawn through the misty shadows of death.
A spot of Easter humor for your column:
Pontius Pilate to Joseph of Arimathea: I can't understand why you would give your rich family tomb over to a criminal on the cross.
Joseph of Arimathea: It's just for the week-end.
There is gold that you mine in the moment-ness of the myrrh-bearers, who have packed up their myrrh and spices to anoint what they thought would be Jesus' lifeless body. Except for John the Beloved, there were no men who "...watched this man...die a horrible death." There were no (cis-) men among the myrrh-bearers in the western accounts. Instead, there were variably two to three Marys and Salome.
Eastern tradition--not the canonical texts-- has it that the group included seven women: the three Marys with an added Mary (Cleopas' wife--the Cleopas of Emmaus) to make four Marys, along with Salome, Susanna, and the wife of Herod Antipas' steward (Chuza), Joanna. But, somewhat surprisingly, Joseph of Arimathea is also included among the myrrh-bearers due to him having gifted the tomb he owned for Jesus' burial place. Also, Nicodemus the Pharisee, who aided Joseph of Arimathea in removing Jesus from the cross, rounds out the total of named myrrh-bearers to nine. Joseph and Nicodemus in removing the body for burial would have participated in the burial anointing ritual, too.
But there were more myrrh-bearers; their names were not recorded. So, we might say there were nine, et al.
Is your name or mine among the unrecorded names of Jesus' myrrh-bearers? Maybe.
Myrrh's 'nom de plume' makes me suspect hers is one of those unrecorded. Little or no recognition, certainly less fame, has been associated with acts of mercy like the ritual cleansing and preparation of the body postmortem in anticipation of Christian burial. In contemporary practices of developed countries, such tasks have been delegated to the mortician and staff.
Therefore, few people will remember the names of the funeral staff members with whom they were in contact for a brief time because these relatively hidden caregivers are no longer integrated in the continuum of caring for the living. Their labor is specialized, so much so that all too few people are conscious of why they must sell the farm to buy the gem of what funeral staff members accomplish that the living would pay not to touch. Small wonder that it costs a lot to hire a mercenary to fight the battle of fear for you. What will you or I pay to have someone serve as proxy for us on the frontlines?
If the process of burying the dead today has been hitched to a mercantile burial industry, which provides us mercenaries, what would we call anyone of yesteryear or today who, in Christian service, follows the Lord's instruction to bury the dead, obeying him in thanks for his abundant mercy? I suggest a close but not exact use of the term, un-mercenary. The exact use refers to healers who accept no stipend for their labor. Examples have been un-mercenaries like Cosmas and Damianos, Panteleimon, Amma Syncletica of Scetis, and the nine forenamed myrrh-bearers along with unidentified others.
I would advance my point about un-mercenary one step further. Anyone's name can be considered as among the unrecorded myrrh-bearers. Similar to the reformer Dr. Martin Luther's description of personal anguish, which he described as grueling uncertainty or spiritual doubt, we have the testimonies and teachings of the Desert Mothers and Fathers about 'accidie' (the so-called demon of noonday). Their advice from the 4th and 5th centuries AD was to talk back to the evil of despair by repeating, in trust, the Holy One's words of promise. They knew the Shepherd and followed his voice of promise, as Luther later discovered and practiced.
The Greek word for the phrase 'talk-back' is (transliterated) 'antirrhetikon.' The Desert Mothers and Fathers learned it by trusting in Jesus' own 'antirrhetikon' in a desert dialogue with the evil one. The evil one was then and remains to our day an expert cherry picker, twisting words of Scripture out of context. Our sources for Jesus' temptation are both canonical and pseudepigraphal, but the thread of 'antirretikon' runs blood red and deep in Christ's cross and the ebullient light of witness from Mary's mouth, "He is risen!"
When we face the temptation to despair when grieving, we might use one of the following when talking back to the evil one. For example, "I go to prepare a place for you; I will return to take you to be with me that you may also be where I am" (John 14: 3-10); "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Gen. 28:15; Deut. 31:6; Joshua 1: 5; 1 Kings 8: 57; Hebrews 13: 5), and "Your sins are forgiven you" (Matt 9: 5; Luke 7: 48-50).
In other words, count all of us myrrh-bearers and un-mercenaries among those who have been empowered to bury the dead and break liturgical rubrics by singing 'Alleluia' during Lent as well as Easter, Advent as well as Nativity, for we know there's no mountain high enough, no valley low enough to keep the risen Christ from us. We can be assured of that.
A song performed by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell comes to mind:
https://youtu.be/Il4FcdoQogQ
We need one another when the going gets rough, like when we grieve. We become un-mercenaries and myrrh-bearers by helping one another hear the Word and see the Paschal dawn through the misty shadows of death.
Now can somebody say, Alleluia?
Christ is risen from the dead! Alleluia!