1 Corinthians 5.6-8 & Mark 16.1-8
Grace to you and peace from God and Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome go to Jesus’ tomb early on the day after the Sabbath—spices in hand—because they have work to do. On Friday afternoon after Jesus’ crucifixion, Joseph and Nicodemus had bound Jesus’ body in strips of linen with a mixture of myrrh and aloes, as was the custom of the Jews. These women—women who had followed Jesus and ministered to Him when He was in Galilee (Mark 15:41)—want to anoint Jesus’ body with spices as well, in one final act of devotion and service to their Lord. Because preparing a body for burial is work, they could not have done it on the Sabbath, Friday evening through sundown on Saturday, and it couldn’t be done after Sunday, So, on the first day after the Sabbath, Sunday morning, they go to the tomb to get to work.
When they arrive, they find things different than the way they left them on Friday afternoon. When they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away — for it was very large. The enter the tomb and see a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. Of course they were alarmed. People don’t just sit in tombs, especially tombs that should have a corpse laying in it. The young man clothed in a long white robe isn’t alarmed by the situation, however, or by seeing the women enter the tomb. He speaks to them as if He had been expecting them. “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him.” These women see with their own eyes that Jesus is not there. Their ears hear the angel’s words, “He is risen.” In seeing where Christ should have laid, and hearing the angel’s words, the risen Lord bestows upon these women the honor of being the first witnesses of His resurrection from the dead. The angel goes on, “But go, tell His disciples — and Peter — that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said to you.”
The women went to the tomb originally because there was work to be done. There is work, but not the work they imagined. The odor of interment isn’t there. There is no person to perfume, no corpse to cover over in spices. Jesus lives! David prophesied of Him in the forty-fifth psalm, “All Your garments are scented with myrrh and aloes and cassia, Out of the ivory palaces, by which they have made You glad.” Solomon’s bride—the church—said of Him, “His cheeks are like a bed of spices, Banks of scented herbs. His lips are lilies, Dripping liquid myrrh” (Song 5:13). There is no body to prepare for burial because Jesus is risen from the dead. He is alive, never to die again. Christ has no need of their spices, for He smells like life because He is the resurrection and the life.
The spices in their hands are now worthless, at least for the task they originally planned. Now they have a different task. Instead of preparing a dead body for burial in the grave, they will proclaim that the one who was dead now lives! Instead of anointing Jesus’ body with aromatic spices, their task is to diffuse the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ’s resurrection to the disciples. To Peter—who had wept bitterly over his public denial of Christ—these women were to be the aroma of life leading to life (2 Cor. 2:16), for they had the privilege of telling Peter that His Lord was alive to raise Peter to new life through the forgiveness of his sins. The women flee the tomb, trembling and astonished, saying nothing to anyone on their way to the disciples. For Christ is risen and there is work to be done. The sweet-smelling fragrance of His life and victory over death must be diffused throughout the world beginning with the downcast disciples and penitent Peter.
That diffusion—the work the angel gave the women to do—continues to this very day. The women’s testimony which they received from the angel, fills your ears once again. Christ sent His apostles into the world to teach the gospel that “Christ has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma” as Paul calls it in Ephesians 5:2. He offered Himself upon the altar of the cross as the once-for-all sacrifice for all mankind, making propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world (1 Jn 2:2), so that “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life,” the life to which Jesus was raised on the third day, while “He who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (Jn 3:36).
And as this gospel is preached—as the work of the ministry continues—the fragrance of life continues to waft through this sinful world, some smelling it for what it is, others turning up their noses at it. St. Paul told the Corinthians, “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life.” (2 Cor. 2:14-16). Paul’s ministry gives off an aroma, figuratively speaking. To those who believe the gospel, his ministry is aroma of life because the gospel gives life to those dead in trespasses and sins. His ministry is the aroma of death, however, to those who do not believe, because through it Christ wants to put our sinful natures to death through repentance so that He might raise us to new life—His life—which is a life dead to sin and world’s ways of thinking, but alive to God and His will.
It isn’t just faithful ministry that is the fragrance of Christ. It is believers. Having Christ’s righteousness and innocence imputed to them by faith, believers smell like Christ to God the Father. We smell like life because Christ—the risen One—dwells in us by faith. Not only do we smell like Christ to God the Father, so do our good works. Works of love done for God and neighbor are a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God (Phil 4:18). Our works please Him because they are the fruits of our faith in Christ which believes His gospel and trusts that for His sake we have a merciful God. Pursuing good works, being zealous for them, pleases God and also helps tamp down the Old Adam—our sinful nature with its lusts—each day. The Corinthians had not done this. In fact, they celebrated sin in their midst. They gloried in one parishioner’s public sexual immorality, which is why the epistle for Easter Day opens with the word, “Your glorying is not good.” Sin is like yeast. It never stops at its starting point. This immorality would grow in the man, but it would also spread throughout the congregation, with others following his example, as his sin is accepted and even praised, as we sadly see happen in so many churches in our day. The yeast of malice and wickedness, if allowed to spread, becomes stale and sours the lump, killing the life Christ gives by pushing Christ from the heart.
Paul tells the Corinthians in today’s epistle, “Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened.” Don’t let sin reign in you and among you. Sin brings spiritual death and its decay. Purge it, remove it from among you as the Jews were to remove leaven during the Feast of Unleavened Bread which followed Passover. “For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.” And if our Passover lamb has been sacrificed—and if we enjoy the benefits of His sacrifice like the forgiveness of sins, the promise of everlasting life, and His living in our hearts by faith—then purge the leaven of sin from you, individually and corporately. Keep the feast—Christ’s Passover—not with the old leaven of Judaism, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Purge out the old leaven of sin as often as you discover any of it in your heart. Do not give it opportunity to spread into your thoughts, words, and actions. Purge it lest it sour your faith into bitterness and spoil the aroma of life that is yours by faith in Christ.
To women who had followed Jesus and ministered to Him when He was in Galilee, He gave the work—and honor—of being the first witnesses of His resurrection, and they faithfully diffused the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ’s resurrection to the disciples and, through the apostles’ writing, all the world. To you, He gives the work of purging the old leaven of sin from the home of your heart, since that is where Christ dwells by faith. This is your work of loving devotion to your Lord, who gives His innocence, His righteousness, His blessedness, and His sweet-smelling aroma before God the Father, so that you may be the aroma of life leading to life (2 Cor. 2:16). Smelling like Christ and His life by faith in the gospel, live in such a way that you confess with your lips and your deeds that Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for our sins, and that He lives to reign, to justify and sanctify all who believe in Him. Amen.
May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
