Good Intentions

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This is what we sang at church tonight:

"Hearing the joyful words
of the angels sitting in the tomb of the Word,
the women who had run there with good intentions
knew that the purpose of their group would be changed.
No longer will you carry myrrh!
Instead, you will preach to the apostles:
He who was hidden in the earth is risen from hell!
Initiate them into the mystery
of Him who became man for us."

...

And what is it about women and sadness? Maybe this is true of men, too--I just don't know--but with many women, there seems to be a primordial and generational as well as a personal sadness not far under the surface.

I thought of this the other day when we sang, "By Your resurrection, You did stop the lamentation of Eve."

The resurrection that stops the lamentation takes us out of the realm of fixing things, patching things up, resigning ourselves to things (as the myrrh-bearing women were, with all good intentions, resigned to doing the right thing as far as they knew it in preparing to honor the loss of Jesus, the apparent destruction of all their hope).

That's why tonight we sang:

"The women sprinkled spices mixed with tears on Thy grave,
but their mouths were filled with laughter
when they said: 'The Lord is risen!'"

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