Mark 16:1-8

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome, went and bought spices so they might anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, after the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will help us to roll back the stone from the entrance to the tomb?” But when they looked up, they saw the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. When they entered the tomb, they saw a young man there, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right-hand side, and they were alarmed.

But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised. He is not here. Look at the place where they laid him. But go and tell his disciples, and Peter, that he is going ahead of you, to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” So the women got up and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

I’ve always thought about the Easter story – no matter which Gospel it comes from – to be the first, greatest, hands-down, no-argument-necessary, evidence and support for the Truth that women could and should be just as welcome as men to be Pastors and Priests and leaders in the church. And I still think that’s True, with a capital T. And since Easter’s early enough to be celebrated on the last day of National Women’s Month, this time around, it seems appropriate to lift that up, first thing this morning.

The evidence of it all is in what we just heard from Mark’s Gospel, where two Marys and Salome bought the spices and showed up at the tomb and were the first to hear the good news of Jesus’ resurrection. According to Matthew’s version of the story, it was just the two Maries. They not only get the news first, but are then the first ones to actually meet Jesus as they run off to tell the disciples. In Luke’s Gospel the group seems to be a bit bigger, but still all women – the Marys, a Joanna this time, and (quote) “the other women with them,” who go un-named – but who are all blessed with the Easter news before anybody else, and who are charged with the task of relaying it to the disciples. And finally, in John’s Gospel, it’s just Mary Magdalene, all by herself, who’s there to find the tomb empty. She thinks something’s wrong and sends the men to investigate, but later she’s the first one to actually meet Jesus, in the garden, and to be told from his very lips, to go and tell the disciples the good news.

So, it’s ridiculous to argue against the notion that women can and should and deserve to be proclaimers and preachers and pastors and priests of God’s good news.

But I think it’s always worth wondering “Why them?” “Why these?” “Why the Marys and Joanna and Salome and ‘the other women with them,’ however it may have gone down?”

And the answer to that seems just as obvious and True, to me: that Jesus’ appearance – first to the women – like so much of the rest of his life and ministry, was just another example of his care and his concern and his love for those the world had little, or less, or no regard for in so many ways.

You know, “the last will be first and the first will be last,” and “just as you did it to one of the least of these,” and all of that?

See, I think Jesus showed up to the women first, not only because they were capable and worthy and up-to-the-task, but because they were among those who needed his resurrection the most. They were, in his day and age, among “the least” in the world – like the lepers and the lame and the blind and the deaf that Jesus was so fond of helping and healing and loving when no one else would. They were, in his day and age, the ones without power, without privilege, without means for justice, without so much that the world around them took for granted and used against them at every turn.

So, I think we’re called to be curious and courageous about who this news is for in our day and age. Who in our world… who in your circle of influence… who in your life… needs this good news about second chances, about forgiveness, about abundance, about new life, in a special, surprising, maybe even desperate kind of way these days?

Don’t get me wrong. It’s for all of us – and we’re going to get to that later this morning with all of the pomp and circumstance that waits for us. But here? Early in the morning? On the first day of the week, as the sun is rising, who is it that’s feeling left out? Who is lost? Who is particularly in need of this first round of blessing, good news, and hope?

I’m thinking of the people in places like Gaza and Haiti and Ukraine, of course. I think of the people for whom no one is praying, today. I think of the prisoner and the houseless and the addicted and the abused. And I think of people closer to home, too. I’m thinking of Anne Janelsins and Tom Bancroft and Frank, and others, who are spending their first Easter after losing a loved one. I’m thinking of Alice Christle who’s been in and out of the hospital, and in and out of the operating room, the last week or so. I’m thinking of Bob and Ruth Boyer as Bob spends his first Easter away from home in Morristown Manor.

To me, it’s a meaningful thing to imagine who – in our lives and in this world – Easter’s good news might find its way to, first… to those who need it most precisely because they need it most.

So when I put it this way, it might seem hard to imagine that this Easter news has anything to do with me, right? Things are pretty good for me, these days. Maybe that’s true for you, too. Most of us aren’t “the least of these” by the rest of the world’s estimation. We’re the ones with the means and the resources and the full bellies and the full plates and with more than our share and with plenty to spare, if we’re honest. But this is still our good news – make no mistake about it.

Maybe you need it most and more urgently than someone else this time around. If that’s the case, I’m glad you’re here early. Please hear and receive the fullness of this love, hope and mercy, right here and right now. If not, please receive the fullness of this love, hope and mercy, just the same, in a way that sends you running to share it with someone who could use it.

Before the big party starts later this morning – with all of its pomp and circumstance and noise and celebration – let’s be compelled by the humility and need of those first women … and let’s be changed by their terror and amazement that this could be True and for them … and let’s be sent into the world to share what belongs to us all, really, but especially with those who are hungry or thirsty, or grieving or afraid, or doubting or denying or dying, even, to know that it’s for them, first and foremost.

Amen

Mark 14:1-9

It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; for they said, ‘Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.’

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, ‘Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.’ And they scolded her.

But Jesus said, ‘Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.’

I promise, I’m almost done inviting you to listen to Anderson Cooper’s All There Is podcast. So much of our midweek Lenten series on “grieving well” was inspired by the interviews, conversations, and insights from that show. I can’t recommend it enough.

And one of the ways of grief we didn’t cover on Wednesday nights over the course of the last five weeks seems so appropriate for today, I just couldn’t resist. It’s called “anticipatory grief” and it’s something I never really wondered much about until hearing Anderson’s interview with a film-maker named Kirsten Johnson, who actually made a movie about her dad’s dementia, as he was suffering, declining, and very literally preparing to die, long before he ever found himself in hospital bed or nursing home, even. More on that in a moment … but keep the notion of “anticipatory grief” in mind, if you could. In some ways it speaks for itself.

Today, this Palm Sunday, is a day full of symbols and story and looking ahead, because it’s all about what is to come in the days that follow Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. In many churches on Palm Sunday – and at Cross of Grace, many years – we simply hear the Passion narrative of Jesus’ last days and hours, leading up to his crucifixion and death. But there will be time for that, later this week. Particularly, on Good Friday, we’ll gather to hear about his last steps and last words, and last breath, even, on the cross.

So today, we’re just getting started – with the parade into Jerusalem before the big holiday for the Jews and now, even closer to the Passover, we find Jesus having dinner and being anointed with oil by this woman who seems to anticipate something others have missed … something Jesus understands … which is that his death looms. It is right around the corner and coming soon.

And, who knows why she understands and anticipates what others don’t? Maybe she was paying attention at that parade, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on that donkey and those palm branches and cloaks were laid out before him.

Maybe she knew that he’d gotten the attention of the powers that be, that his challenge to the Empire would be his undoing.

Maybe she knew her scripture enough to recognize, in those shouts of “Hosanna,” that here was, indeed, this one who had come in the name of the Lord.

Maybe, as John’s Gospel tells it, this was Jesus’ good friend, Mary, Martha’s sister and the sister of Lazarus. And maybe she came with the oil because Jesus had told her; given her the inside scoop. Maybe she had a plan to show the others something they hadn’t been able to catch onto yet. I wonder, if maybe Jesus had even asked her to do just that. Or maybe her moment of anointing was a surprise – even to Jesus – that set his final days on a new course, in a way that surprised even him.

Whatever the case, the point is clear. Jesus was about to die. This woman knew it. Jesus knew it. And, I think, it was time for the rest of the crew to finally get with the program, and to understand the fullness of what was coming.

But that’s hard news to hear, right – that the end is near for those we care about? that death is coming for those we love? It’s easy stuff to deny, isn’t it? We’re inclined to pretend and to live otherwise, as much and for as long as we’re able, a lot of the time. We are hangers on, “tooth and nail” kind of people, most of the time, when it comes to death and dying.

But, whether he was ready for it or not, I think that’s the blessing Jesus received from this woman who anoints him today. I think she reminded him – and anyone who was really able to hear it, that his death was pending … on the way … imminent. And her anointing becomes a blessing – a teachable moment – Jesus, himself, uses to prepare his people for the truth and fullness of what was to come.

See, in all of that grumbling about the perfume and about how much it cost and about how much it could have done for the poor, Jesus seems to be unfussed. Because, back in Jesus’ day, this kind of anointing with perfume was done when someone died. They anointed the body with oils as a ritual sort of cleansing, as a spiritual sort of preparation for the afterlife, and, quite practically, I imagine, to keep the smell to a minimum once the bodies were left to decompose in those family tombs that got used from one funeral to the next.

All of that is why Jesus doesn’t bother with the others when they pretend to care that the money from that perfume could have been used to help the poor. He tells them to back off, to leave the woman alone, and to let her do with her perfume whatever she wants to do with her perfume. “You’ll always have the poor with you,” he promises. “You will not always have me,” he warns. “You will not always have me.”

Kirsten Johnson, the filmmaker Anderson Cooper interviews about this thing called “anticipatory grief” – the one who made a movie about her own father’s decline into dementia, dying, and death – hosted a funeral service for her dad, while he was alive and still well and able to experience it, himself.

In the family’s church, with all of their loved ones gathered, people who had known him throughout his entire life came and spoke and said what they would want to say at his actual funeral, when the time came. Only, he was able to watch it, hear it, experience it, on this side of heaven. What a gift.

What if, in that moment with Jesus over dinner, that woman was giving her version of a eulogy? Offering him the gift of her anticipatory grief … sharing the depth of her love for him … anointing him as cosmic royalty in the eyes of the creator of the universe … showing whoever was paying attention that nothing was or is or could be more valuable than the kind of love he came to share – not her perfume or her paycheck or her pretending that everything was just fine.

At that funeral that wasn’t really a funeral, for the man with dementia who wasn’t dead yet, a woman stood up and said, “as long as my memory lives, the memory of him will live in me.”

And I wonder if our lesson for today, if our invitation as we enter into yet another Holy Week, is to anticipate the grief that’s on the way in the days to come. And I don’t mean in a long-suffering, masochistic, self-flagellating kind of way. I mean, in a worshipful, awe-inspiring, reverent, hope-filled kind of way that might change our lives – and change our way in this world – if we let that kind of grief have its way with us more often than we’re inclined, so much of the time.

I mean, if we lived every day like Jesus’ sacrifice was just around the corner, instead of just one Holy Week out of 52 in every year… wouldn’t things be different for us, as his followers? And then maybe the world could be different, too?

Would we be more grateful for what we already have and stop coveting the green grass on the other side of every fence?

Would we give more generously, out of our abundance, as Jesus commanded? Or would we keep giving from what we have leftover or saving and striving for a day that may never come?

Would the extent of our social activism be limited to our social media feed? Or might we get out and do more with our hands and with our feet and with our voices and with our votes?

Would we save our greatest expressions of love and devotion for the funeral, or would we say more of those things face to face with words and actions, instead?

Would we ask for forgiveness and offer it more often and with more integrity?

Because the reason we can be honest and real and even embrace the grief that has or will come to us all, is because of the good news we share as children of God, as followers of Jesus, as the baptized in Christ, headed into this Holy Week.

See, this grief we anticipate – ours, Christ’s, that woman who made the movie, or the one with the perfume – none of this grief wins the day. It doesn’t last forever. It invites us to anticipate, too, the new life that follows. Our grief is evidence of the deep, abiding love God has for us all. And it calls us to more of the love, joy, grace, guts and faith with which we’re called to live on this side of heaven and for the sake of the world, our God so loves.

Amen

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