Description
Today is the last week of the Season of Lent. Jesus’ inexorable journey to Jerusalem and the Cross continues. It is just a few days before Passover. The Chief Priests and Scribes are plotting against Jesus. Judas is about to betray him. The crucifixion is less than a week away and Jesus knows it. Jesus and His disciples are at Bethany where, a few days before, he had raised Lazarus from the dead. Now Jesus, the disciples and some friends are sitting together having a meal, when a woman comes to Jesus and does a beautiful, but extravagant thing for him. John 12:1-8 tells us that the woman was Mary, (the sister of Martha and Lazarus). Mary brings a jar of very expensive nard oil. She opens the jar and pours the costly perfumed oil on Jesus’ feet, then wipes his feet with her hair.
Why did she do that? Some commentators say it was an act of gratitude in which she was thanking Jesus for raising her brother Lazarus from the dead. Some say it was an act of consecration in which she was anointing Jesus, to bless him to go and do what had to be done. Some say it was a foreshadowing, an act of preparation, in which she was anointing Jesus’ body for the death which was to come in Jerusalem a few days later. In every sense it is an act of loving generosity.
Judas said it was a waste. Judas raises the inappropriateness of such an expensive gift: ‘That perfume could have been sold, and the money given to the poor.’ Judas couldn’t see the gift given in love for Jesus. He couldn’t see that responding to Jesus sometimes meant giving and not counting the cost, giving generously out of response for what Jesus has generously given. Instead, Judas only sees the waste.
But Jesus recognised the importance of Mary’s generous gift. Mary in this act shows what she knows and believes about Jesus. Like John the Baptiser in chapter one of this Gospel, Mary – in her act of anointing – now shows and testifies that Jesus is the Son of God (John 1:34). Mary’s act of devotion anticipates a new thing that Jesus will do for all people in his extravagant, self-giving death and resurrection.
