The Myrrhbearers and the Stones We Still Carry

Christ is risen.

Each year during the Paschal season, the Church remembers the Holy Myrrhbearers, the faithful women who rose early and made their way to the tomb of Jesus carrying spices and ointments. They came expecting to care for the dead. Instead, they became the first witnesses of the risen Christ.

It is a familiar story, but one that still speaks with force if we are willing to hear it.

These women did not go to the tomb because they expected a miracle. They believed, as anyone would, that the story had ended. Jesus had been crucified. Hope seemed buried. The powers of religion and empire appeared to have won. Yet love still moved their feet before sunrise.

That matters because many of us know what it means to keep moving while carrying something heavy.

Some carry grief. Some carry financial pressure. Some carry loneliness. Some carry anxiety. Some carry family burdens. Some carry disappointment with institutions that promised more than they delivered. Some carry wounds no one else can see.

The Myrrhbearers remind us that faith is not always certainty. Faith is often simple faithfulness. It is getting up and taking the next step when life does not yet make sense.

The First Witnesses Were Women

One truth from this feast should never lose its power: the first witnesses of the resurrection were women.

In the ancient world, women were often marginalized. Their voices were discounted. Their labor was expected while their dignity was too often denied. Yet when the greatest news in human history was ready to be proclaimed, God entrusted it first to women carrying myrrh.

That is no small detail. It reveals something essential about the Kingdom of God.

The world rewards status. God looks for faithfulness.

The world rewards influence. God looks for love.

The world rewards those already centered in power. God often speaks through those society has overlooked.

The Church has not always lived up to that vision. Too often women have carried the real weight of ministry while others held titles and recognition. Too often women have organized, taught, served, prayed, and sustained communities while being treated as secondary.

The feast of the Myrrhbearers calls the Church back to repentance and clarity.

What Begins With Women Often Extends to Others

The treatment of women often reveals how a culture treats anyone seen as expendable.

Whenever a society becomes comfortable dismissing one group, it becomes easier to dismiss others. We see this with racial minorities, immigrants, disabled persons, the poor, and anyone turned into a convenient target for fear or resentment.

Christ consistently moved in the opposite direction.

He spoke with the Samaritan woman. He touched lepers. He praised foreigners. He ate with sinners. He restored the publicly shamed. He honored the witness of women at the tomb.

If our religion keeps moving away from the people Christ moved toward, something has gone wrong.

Arizona Knows What Heavy Things Feel Like

This message is not abstract. It lands in real places, including Arizona.

Families across the Valley feel the pressure of rising housing costs. Teachers are asked to do more with less. Nurses and caregivers are exhausted. Grandparents help raise grandchildren. Summer utility bills stretch already thin budgets. Immigrant labor sustains industries while immigrants are often spoken of with contempt. Native communities still carry the legacy of neglect and broken promises.

These are not political talking points. They are human realities.

The Gospel must speak in real life or it becomes decoration.

Who Will Roll Away the Stone?

On their way to the tomb, the women asked a question many of us know well:

“Who will roll away the stone for us?”

That may be one of the most human questions in Scripture.

How do I rebuild after loss?

How do I survive this season?

How do I forgive what happened?

How do I keep going when everything costs more?

How do I trust again?

How do I carry responsibilities that feel larger than me?

The grace of the story is this: they kept walking before they had the answer.

They did not wait until every obstacle was solved. They did not stay home until certainty arrived. They moved first in love and faithfulness.

When they arrived, the stone had already been moved.

Many times God is already at work on what we fear most.

Before the healing is visible, God is at work. Before the opportunity appears, God is at work. Before the future becomes clear, God is at work.

That does not mean life becomes easy. It means despair does not tell the whole story.

Becoming a Myrrhbearing Church

The Church today is called to become what these women modeled.

A church that shows up in hard places.

A church that tells the truth.

A church that protects the vulnerable.

A church that honors women fully.

A church that receives the gifts of those once pushed aside.

A church that values holiness more than hierarchy.

A church that proves resurrection not only by hymns, but by how people are treated.

The world has heard enough church talk.

What people are hungry for now is church witness.

Keep Walking

The Myrrhbearers did not know how the stone would move.

They went anyway.

They were grieving.

They went anyway.

They were tired.

They went anyway.

They did not know what waited for them.

They went anyway.

And because they went, they became the first witnesses of resurrection.

So keep walking.

Keep loving.

Keep praying.

Keep telling the truth.

Keep showing up.

And do not be surprised when, somewhere along the road, you discover the stone has already been moved.

Christ is risen.