Every single one of us has heard the story – some of us probably hundreds of times. We know what’s going to happen by the end of the story, so we don’t think about it much anymore. The mystery has faded, and the excitement at the mystery of the incarnation – the death and resurrection – seems to have dried up as well.
Because of this, it’s hard to put ourselves into the minds of these women in the Gospel – the two Marys.
This is the tension that Paul lived in – between the creation of the world, between our own creation at our birth, and the New creation that comes with a life in Christ, and the creation of a new heaven and new earth that is made real by the return of Christ in all his glory. For Paul this reality of Christ’s return was so real that he anticipated the coming of Christ in everyday life.
And again, it is this anticipation that Advent tries to instill in us by setting the stage with these texts. The stage is set so that we can understand – even just a little bit – how people in Jesus’ time were anticipating the arrival of the Christ, the Messiah.
And so, Paul is admonishing believers in Corinth for living with the same mindset: “This life is all we have, so let’s live a little! We aren’t going to be resurrected, so let’s make this life all that it should be!” And, because of this mindset, they were spending time with those of “bad company,” which was clearly corrupting their morals. The rend result was that the witness of their faith in Christ was indistinguishable from those with whom they were spending time.