Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.
In the Gospel of Saint John the drama of Jesus's Passion begins with the first words of chapter twelve:
Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.
But there is a preliminary scene in the eleventh chapter, almost as dramatic, and that is the formal dinner given in Jesus's honor with his disciples and friends. Everything stopped -- the conversations, the banter, the music -- when Mary anointed his feet with a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard. John accentuates the drama with his remark, "...the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil."
The nard, of course, was customarily used during funerals, to prepare a corpse for the obsequies and burial. Given the circumstances of a dinner for an honored guest, Mary's gesture and the pungent stench of death are disturbing, to put it mildly. The meekest guest in the room might say, "What the hell is going on?" We should not be surprised if the shifty, suspicious Judas erupted with his objection. His weakness is money and a liter of nard, even for a prophetic gesture, seems like a colossal waste.
Mary's demonstration resembles Jesus's washing the disciples' feet in the next chapter. Mary was not a servant or slave who would wash the feet of guests as they arrived for dinner. We may not know how the family of Lazarus, Martha and Mary ranked in local society but they were not poor. Rather, her gesture presages Nicodemus's burial of the Lord's ruined body at his own expense, with "a mixture of myrrh and aloes weighing about one hundred pounds." That too, was an exorbitant amount of oil
Finally, Mary's sacrifice of a huge expense, her silence, and her humility as she anointed his feet and wiped them with her hair, invite you and me to worship the Lord with quiet devotion., Our silence may be the only adequate response in the distracting cacophony of our noisy world. Like Mary, we know where this trip to Jerusalem will take Jesus, and where it must take us. A lot of busy and very loud people might object as Judas objected, but we know where we belong and what we must do.
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I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.