A Sermon for the Feast of the Myrrhbearers
Sermon: Sts. Joanna, Mary, and Salome, Myrrhbearers – 2025
3 August 2025
Text: Mark 16:1-8 (Exodus 30:1-10, Titus 2:1-5)
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
Saints Joanna (the wife of Chuza), Mary (the mother of James the son of Alphaeus), and Salome (the mother of James and John) – along with Mary Magdalene – are known as the faithful women, (or as the myrrhbearers). They were at the cross and at the tomb. They were the first to find the tomb empty, as they came to the tomb of Jesus “very early on the first day of the week.” As soon as “the sun had risen,” they discovered that the Son of God had risen.
They were there because they had “bought spices.” For this was the continuation of an interrupted funeral. Little did they know that the funeral was not just delayed, but had been cancelled. They came bearing spices, including myrrh to anoint the body of the Anointed One.
Myrrh is not something we use much today. It has some health benefits and natural healing properties, but it is mainly used for church incense, for worship, as God commanded Moses to make use of it to worship Him 3,500 years ago. God likes it. It appears in the Bible twenty times. And it is a reminder of Jesus and His cancelled funeral.
In our Old Testament reading, God tells Moses to provide a special altar for incense. It was magnificent, covered in pure gold. And Aaron, the high priest, was instructed to “burn incense on it.” And the recipe for the incense includes both frankincense and myrrh. So we see gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and this is where the high priest came “once in the year” to “make atonement” with “the blood of the sin offering.”
Of course, Jesus is the High Priest to end all high priests. He is the Atonement to end all atonements. His blood is shed “once for all,” and His body and blood are given to us “for the forgiveness of sins.” There is no more temple, but now we have holy places and altars all around the world – as Jesus comes to us according to His Word. And it is fitting, that gold and frankincense and myrrh remind us of our Lord, our Priest, our Atonement.
Of all the senses: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting, the one most closely associated with our memory is smelling. Aromas transport us mentally, and make us call to mind things that we associate with those smells. God was making a point to Moses and Aaron – though at the time, they did not understand it. They just obeyed.
1,500 years later, God revealed to the Magi to bring gold, myrrh, and frankincense to the child Jesus, whom they worshiped as God – even He is also Prophet, Priest, and King. We smell the aroma of myrrh – whether it is in the oil we use to anoint the sick, placed on our foreheads mixed with ashes for Ash Wednesday, or burned as incense – and we remember Jesus: His prophetic Christmas and Epiphany Incarnation, His priestly Good Friday death and Easter Resurrection, and also His kingly rule over us for all eternity – as incense appears in the heavenly eternal worship of the Lamb again and again in the book of Revelation.
The vast majority of all Christians use God-pleasing incense in their worship. The words “incense” and “frankincense” appear 118 times in the scriptures. God likes it, and He intended it to be used in worship, so that we would remember and call to mind the work of Jesus.
One of the Marys anointed Jesus’ feet with such an expensive and sweet-smelling perfume during Holy Week. And when the disciples, led by Judas, complained about it, our Lord rebuked them, saying, “In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”
And so here we are back to Easter Sunday morning, back to the faithful women and their spices, back to the lady myrrhbearers and their love and service to Jesus and the church. They don’t complain and grouse that they would rather do the work of the men. Instead, they rejoice in the office and calling that God had given them. And Jesus rewarded them by being the first recipients of the Good News, the very first to hear the Gospel from an angel: “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!” And they would carry this message not into pulpits, but to the ones who would proclaim this message from the pulpits.
Our culture today mocks their work and holds it in contempt. But Jesus doesn’t. And nor should the church. We need women, both in the church and in society. We need their loving service as myrrhbearers and bearers of mercy. For without women, not only would nobody exist in the flesh (including Jesus), but much would be overlooked and undone – the bearing of the myrrh: the providing of hospitality, the ruling of the home, the nurturing of the children, and making it possible for all other work to be done.
St. Paul, who had the help of many women as he carried out his work of preaching, wrote to St. Titus: “Older women… are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the Word of God may not be reviled.”
The work of faithful women saints throughout history rises like incense as a thank offering to the Lord, a sacrifice of praise, a living sacrifice to the Lord and giver of life from the life-bearers. Indeed, the Blessed Virgin Mary is called by the Greek title “Theotokos,” the “God-bearer.” For she bore the Anointed One in her flesh. She gave birth to the Prophet, Priest, and King. She and her husband Joseph received the gifts of the Magi for her divine Son: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And the God-bearer and the myrrhbearers are examples for all cross-bearers, all of us who bear the Gospel in our lives. We smell the perfume of the myrrh and we are reminded of the beauty of womanhood, of saintly women who serve their families and God, who serve Jesus by their acts of love and beauty and mercy and service. We see the smoke of the frankincense and myrrh rise to heaven as the prayers of the saints, as a “pleasing aroma” and a thank offering to the Lord. We are reminded of Jesus, of the atonement, of His incarnation, death, and resurrection, and we are reminded of the saintly work of women in the life of Jesus, from womb to tomb, and even unto eternity.
To God in heaven,
All praise be given!
Come let us offer
And gladly proffer
To the Creator the gifts He doth prize.
He well receiveth a heart that believeth;
Hymns that adore Him
Are precious before Him
And to His throne like sweet incense arise.
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.