“Before the dawn Mary and the women came and found the stone rolled away from the tomb. They heard the angelic voice: ‘Why do you seek among the dead as a man the one who is everlasting light? Behold the clothes in the grave! Go and proclaim to the world: The Lord is risen! He has slain death, as He is the Son of God, saving the race of men.” (Hours of Pascha)
The myrrhbearing women do not find Christ or Christ’s body in the tomb – the tomb is empty. By itself it proves nothing – the women assume grave robbers have stolen the corpse of Jesus.
The women are not told to return to the tomb and make it a shrine – there are no relics there. They are to tell the disciples to find Jesus, but not at the tomb, but rather in Gallilee. The Apostles are told to go into all the world with the message of the resurrection – they aren’t told that meditating at the tomb of Jesus will make them holy. They weren’t to turn the resurrection into religion, rather they were to show the world how they were transformed by the news of Christ’s resurrection. Christ is eternal light not a resuscitated corpse that we can parade about in religious ceremony. Our goal as Christians is not to make a pilgrimage to the holy sepulcher – we are given no such commandment. Nor is the goal set annually to Pascha night. Our goal is to live the resurrection so that everyone will come to embrace Christ our Savior. The myrrhbearing women may have had to go to the tomb to learn of the resurrection, but they are told they’ve come to the wrong place if they are looking for Christ. He is not at the holy sepulcher, He is Lord of the Sabbath and of the universe. He is known in the proclamation of the Scriptures and in the eating of the Eucharist. He is Lord of the Sabbath and the universe.
Fraternized 