Loading...It’s been hard for me to focus on anything but the weather this week. I come from a place where tornadoes are a relatively common weather event, but when the sirens were going off for what seemed like over an hour in the early Thursday morning hours, we knew something big was going on.
We know how lucky we are, living just about 2 miles from where the probable tornado hit businesses near Blankenbaker Parkway. I’m oddly relieved that we went through this in the middle of the night, since many of those businesses would have been staffed if it had been during the day. While many businesses have losses, no one, it appears, and thank the Lord, was injured. As they say, “timing is everything.”
Then, the rain. I watched, as our lovely meandering Fox Creek began to rise with every inch of rain. Fed by all the run-off from the rivulets and storm sewers pouring into it, the waters flooded the banks of the little creek behind our house. By Friday afternoon, the water began to recede. It was high again on Saturday, and has receded again this morning. When I added it up before we left, we’ve emptied about 9 ½” of rain from our rain gauge.
When we told each other “See you next week!” I didn’t realize how true it would be when anyone responded: “Good Lord willing, and the creek don’t rise.”
The Good Lord must have willed it, even though the creeks, ponds and rivers rose. I am thankful you are here, or if you are watching from home, you heeded the rising waters, because, as we hear over and over in these kinds of weather events, you knew to “Turn around, don’t drown.”
If there is one thing for which we can thank the pandemic shutdown, it is the ability to watch our worship services from wherever we are, live or later. Always remember, safety first.
These next couple of weeks are going to rush past us, a little like the flood waters. The stories from Jesus’s last week as a human being are filled with moments worthy of our attention. The details are many. The stories may be found in all four Gospels, but some details of the stories are different, the focus may intentionally reflect the listeners, and the storytellers, and even the location, people involved, and the timing within Jesus’s ministry.
Today’s story is one of four versions of Jesus being anointed by a woman. In three of the Gospels, it takes place in Bethany; in Luke, it takes place in Galilee. In three Gospels, they are at the house of Simon, but two are in the house of Simon the Leper and one is thought to be in the house of Simon the Pharisee. In today’s Gospel, they are in the home of Lazarus, Mary and Martha.
Each one has a smelly ointment or oil, but in two, it is Jesus’s head, and in two it is his feet that are anointed. Two do not mention how the ointment was dried, but both times the feet are anointed, hair is used, and one of those includes tears.
All of them say it is a woman, but one says it is a “sinful woman,” and only today’s story from John says it is Mary, the sister of Lazarus and Martha. It is important to remember this, because today’s Mary is a dear, beloved friend of Jesus. She cannot be conflated with the unnamed “sinful woman.”
It is only in today’s Gospel that it is Judas who objects to what he calls the waste of the expensive ointment. In the others, it is the disciples, or “some people,” or the host, Simon, the Pharisee.
All but Luke’s version say this anointing is in preparation for Jesus’s soon to happen burial.
Today’s story happens in the home of the recently raised-from-the-dead Lazarus, which makes this version a bit more poignant. Today’s story happens in a place of refreshment and mutual appreciation, of respect and deep love, a place where Jesus can simply “be.” If you have a place or people that bring you a deep sense of security, this story is in a place like that.
Remember, chronologically speaking, it hasn’t been all that long since Lazarus died, when his sisters had anointed his body with oils and perfumes and wrapped him in burial linens. You may recall that both Mary and Martha scolded Jesus for delaying his arrival, which meant Lazarus died. It was this story when Jesus wept and then called to his beloved friend to come out from the tomb.
They had only a few weeks to remove the stench of death before Jesus and his entourage returned from their time in the wilderness.
And today they returned for a celebratory dinner, prepared, of course, by Martha. They would honor the new life of Lazarus and give thanks to Jesus for this miracle before Jesus and his followers would go to Jerusalem, about two miles away, for the Passover celebration.
Hold on tight. The floodwaters of this story are rushing, and each of the details of these last days matter. Jesus has much teaching and preparing to do before he leaves his ministry in the hands of his followers. But first, he will recline and dine in the home of some of his closest friends before he has to say goodbye one last time.
It’s hard to know why Mary did what she did that night. You might have a few questions. I know I do.
First, why did she even have the nard? This was not a common item. It was very expensive because it was imported from Nepal, India, or China because it comes from a flowering herb from the honeysuckle family that is native to the Himalayan regions.
What does nard smell like? According to a Google A-I overview it “has a strong, distinctive, and …earthy, woody, and musky aroma, with hints of spice.”[1]
Then, I wonder, had she and Martha purchased such a large amount of it to anoint Lazarus, and eventually each other, when they died? That makes sense to me.
And what made her retrieve it from safe keeping and lavishly pour it over Jesus’s feet? There are a few possibilities:
Some say she had purchased it to thank Jesus for bringing her brother back to life. Maybe she believed she needed to do this with something rare and expensive.
Others say she understood that this would be the last time they would be together before Jesus died, and she wanted to anoint his body in advance, just in case she could not be there when he was dead.
It could also have been practical. The pungent smell of nard would have filled the air and would have permeated the walls and fabrics. Was she trying to overwhelm the past and future stench of death?
Perhaps it was the difference between Mary and Martha and the way they individually expressed their faith. Martha’s love language was in the hospitality of preparing healthy, tasty food. Since Mary apparently wasn’t proficient in preparing succulent meals and was, instead, a vessel for knowledge and discernment, could this have been Mary’s love language: her way of expressing the depth of her trust in God?
Or it could have been the only way she could show Jesus just how abundantly she loved him.
Any or all of these make sense. But it might be the last one that makes the most sense. Why?
Because when she was done pouring every – last - drop of this fragrant, expensive offering on his tired, worn, feet, she did something radical. She removed her traditional head covering, publicly revealing her long hair, untied it, and, I imagine, both massaged and dried his feet with her hair, co-mingling the ointment between them. The intimacy of this moment would have embarrassed everyone in the room.
Consider what happens next.
The scene takes a giant turn when Judas rains on, practically floods, this moment of adoration with his accusation of wastefulness. He may have wanted to divert attention from what made him uncomfortable. He may have been embarrassed because he could not express his own commitment to Jesus in such a public way. Or he may not have felt committed to Jesus at all. He may have truly been concerned about the cost of the nard and how those denarii could have been used in a “better” way.
He is accused of being a thief in the text, and over years of telling this story, we understand Judas to be the bad guy. But what might be most important is that in response to Judas’s outburst, Jesus defends and affirms Mary’s actions and then goes on to remind Judas and the others that we will always be expected to care for the poor and needy whether he is here or not.
We skip the next four verses of this Gospel, which is unfortunate, because they set the stage for what is to come. Because Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, both Jesus and Lazarus were being observed, were being surveilled, by the chief priests. Beginning in the 10th verse it says: “So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.” (NRSVUE) This line helps to explain why some of the religious leaders were collaborating with some of the governmental leaders to have Jesus crucified. They believed he was influencing others in ways that made their members consider what they believed. Some of their members were leaving the faith community to follow this ragtag teacher, and some of the religious leaders did not like it.
As I said earlier, these next couple of weeks are going to rush past us, a little like the flood waters. And as we have lived through these potentially perilous few days, watching and waiting for the threats from floods to diminish, we will prepare to enter Holy Week, a week that will rush through the stories of a particularly perilous few days that would transform the lives of Jesus Followers forever.
We will spend time there, next Sunday, joyfully entering Jerusalem, waving palm branches and praising Jesus.
We will spend time there, on Maundy Thursday, learning the depth of Jesus’s expectation that we serve one another because none of us is greater than the other.
We will spend time there, dining with Jesus in what will become for us, the first Holy Eucharist.
We will spend time there, if we read on our own, the story from John’s Gospel as Jesus gave the disciples directions in his “Farewell Discourse,” following his new commandment “that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (13:34)
We will spend time there, praying with Jesus and the disciples in the garden, and watch, in horror, as he is arrested, imprisoned, brought to trial, convicted, flogged, and lynched for showing the world that it is possible to live lives focused on the liberating love of God.
We will spend time there, on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, with our grief, and wonder how so much cruelty could destroy a single man for the crime of speaking the revolutionary language of love. We may be flooded with emotions too complex to identify, even knowing that at the end of that horrific Holy Week, hope and joy and love will be resurrected in three days’ time.
Love will live again.
In the meantime, we can think about what happened in the home of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary before Jesus entered Jerusalem on a young donkey. We can celebrate the new life that was bestowed upon Lazarus. We can taste the mouthwatering flavors of a feast. We can smell the odor of reckless appreciation, of overpowering love.
And we can focus our prayers with the question: How am I going to express my love for Jesus?
Amen.
[1] Google search “what does nard smell like”
