Text: John 12:1-8 (RSV)
Mary Anoints Jesus
12 Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Laz′arus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 There they made him a supper; Martha served, and Laz′arus was one of those at table with him. 3 Mary took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was to betray him), said, 5 “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii[a] and given to the poor?” 6 This he said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box he used to take what was put into it. 7 Jesus said, “Let her alone, let her keep it for the day of my burial. 8 The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.”
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
This passage describes what has to be the most unusual dinner party in history!
Imagine sitting at the table with a man, Lazarus, who until very recently – just six days previously, as a matter of fact – was dead. Dead and buried – in the grave for three days! People who were dead, stayed dead. Yet there he sits now, right next to you, asking you to please pass the bread. Incredible.
There had to have been – at least at first – an atmosphere of almost delirious festivity. Imagine every single one of the high points of your life all rolled up into one huge blowout of a celebration!
Martha, always the good hostess, was busy serving. The disciples and the other guests, are there enjoying the meal, and then –
Suddenly, Mary, Lazarus’ other sister, kneels down at Jesus’ feet and pulls out a jar of very expensive nard and starts to anoint his feet with it. That’s really unusual for several reasons.
The first has to do with nard itself. What is nard, anyway? “Nard” is an abbreviation of “spikenard,” which is an herb that produces a fragrant essential oil. The reason why it was so expensive is that it grows on at the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains, thousands of miles away. In order for Mary to get a jar of it, it had to travel from India by caravan through Persia, and from there to Palestine. That’s a distance of thousands of miles! And with each foot that it travelled, its cost went up significantly; so that by the time it came into the hands of someone like Mary, it represented a pretty considerable expense.
And she poured it onto Jesus’ feet! Every last drop. Scandalous! That would be like us taking a half a pound of Beluga caviar and feeding it to the cat!
The fact that it was Mary who is performing this anointing is another very unusual thing about this dinner party. Women never anointed men. That was just unheard of! Men anointed other men – the prophet Samuel anointed Saul to be the King of Israel, for example. Male Popes anointed male Emperors throughout Western history, for another. But a woman anointing a man? Didn’t happen. But that’s exactly what Mary does. And then she wipes his feet with her hair! It should be noted here, too, that such anointing was a common part of burial rituals – so, in addition to an act of love and devotion, what Mary does also foreshadows Jesus’ death.
On top of that, Jesus himself throws cold water on the whole evening by openly talking about his death, something that is generally not a topic of dinner conversation!
It was a night to remember, for sure! And we definitely know that’s true – because we remember it to this day!
But what did it all mean? What does it all mean?
Given that we’re dealing with the Gospel here, it will come as no surprise to you when I say that meant and means a lot of things.
First, we see the contrast between death and life. Lazarus was dead, and now he’s alive. The pall, the smell, of death still lingers about him. And Jesus, too, has just one more time spoken about his upcoming death.
But then comes of the smell of the nard – “permeating every nook and cranny of that room. That smell in contrast to the smell of death … The smell of love in the face of certain betrayal.
“The smell of extravagant love. Mary’s foreshadowed embodiment of Jesus’ commandment – ‘love one another as I have loved you.’”[1]
Second, we see in the interchange between Jesus and Judas the contract between the thoughts of the world and the thoughts of God. Judas has a point – that perfume could have been sold so that the proceeds could have been given to the poor. But Jesus tells him that there’s something bigger going on here. That something is the love that God is about to show the world when Jesus dies on the cross. So let Mary get on with it.
It’s possible that Mary had been planning to anoint Jesus with this nard for a long time – we’ve already seen how expensive it was, and it was so expensive because it was so rare. You didn’t just go to some street vendor and buy a jar. It required some forethought.
But find it and buy it she did. And she wanted to share it with Jesus… all of it… every last drop. She didn’t think of the consequences or the cost. That didn’t matter. The only thing that counted was showing her love for Jesus.
And she did so in an extravagant, unexpected, over-the-top way.
The lesson here is that God constantly does things in unexpected and extravagant ways, and he does these mind-blowing things through ordinary people, people like Mary, and people like you and me.
It’s all about the power of love.
Mary teaches us that if we’re going to give anything to Jesus at all, we need to give everything to him. If you’re a parent, you don’t reserve just a small portion of your heart for your children – you love them totally. Mary is telling us today that you don’t reserve a small section of your heart for Jesus. If you give him any of it, you give him all of it.
As our old friend, William Barclay, tells us, “Love is not love if it nicely calculates the cost.” Like Mary, “[i]t gives its all, and its only regret is that it has not still more to give.”[2]
Mary’s love is a reflection of God’s love, a love which cannot be controlled or channeled, as much as the Judases of the world would like. No great thing was ever accomplished by people who said, “Well, OK, I’ll go for it halfway.” Mary sets the bar much higher.
So where does this leave us, then? If we’re to follow Mary’s example, does it mean that we have to drop everything and become missionaries or enter a monastery or something?
Well, no. Mary didn’t do anything like that – she continued living in her house, she continued to live pretty much the same way she always had; nonetheless, her life was totally changed.
It’s the same for us. We still need to get up in the morning and go to work. We still need to be attentive and diligent parents. We still need to be contributors to society, however we understand that. The differences are more internal than external.
The main difference is one of dedication. It’s a question of intent. If we dedicate our lives to serving the Jesus who has called us, who has claimed us, in whom we live and breathe and have our being, our lives become transformed. They become greater than the sum of their parts.
We have before us today the choice of renewing our dedication to Jesus, or of giving in to what’s been called “The World.”
Sisters and Brothers, let’s follow Mary’s example!
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
[1] http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4554
[2] Barclay, William, The Gospel of John, Vol. 1, Louisville, Kentucky, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001