“Extravagance… Pleasure… Effusiveness... Exuberance… These aren't ideas that we usually associate with Lent…” (Commentary on Gospel by Matt Skinner) And yet, today, we have this story during Lent about an extravagant event…
Today Mary offers Jesus an unusual and extravagant gift out of her love, her devotion, & her faith… Mary comes to the dinner table, takes down her hair, pours perfumed ointment onto Jesus’ feet, rubs the ointment into his feet, and then wipes the excess off with her hair…
We are not told why she does this… Yet we know much about the context of this action. We know that Jesus had just a few days earlier brought her brother, Lazarus, back to the land of the living from the land of the dead… Jesus had come to the tomb of Lazarus four days after he had died and called him forth – and Lazarus had come out of the tomb, still wrapped in all of his burial cloths.
Jesus had spent time with these three siblings in Bethany throughout his ministry. Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and Jesus are old friends. Other testimonies in the text tell us that Mary was devoted to Jesus - choosing to sit and listen to his teachings rather than helping her sister, Martha, prepare the meals…
After all the miracles, after all the healings, after all the stories of huge crowds being fed with just a few fish and a few barley loaves - Mary knows and believes who Jesus is… After Jesus called her brother Lazarus to come out of the tomb, a tomb where she and Martha had carefully laid his perfumed and wrapped dead body - Mary knows and believes who Jesus is… After she had hugged and talked and eaten with Lazarus, alive and breathing again after four days in the tomb – Mary knows and believes who Jesus is… Mary knows and believes that Jesus is the long awaited Messiah…
Mary and all the others with them in the dining room that night knew that by that very public act of raising Lazarus from the dead that Jesus had sealed his own death sentence… They had all heard the talk in the community…They knew that the authorities had given orders to arrest Jesus if he was found… Everyone at table that night in Bethany understood that Jesus’ days were numbered… Jesus had probably come to dinner that night under cover of darkness so he wouldn’t be seen…
So Mary knows that Jesus’ life is now in serious jeopardy…
They all knew that there were powerful forces at work in Jerusalem making plans and devising ways to get rid of Jesus. Jesus was perceived as a threat to both the religious and the political authorities… They wanted to remove Jesus from the center of attention… As the Passover drew near and all the crowds were coming to Jerusalem for the Passover holidays, the authorities hoped that they could remove Jesus from the spotlight so as not to upset the holidays…
Yet those at table that night knew that Jesus planned to go into Jerusalem – in spite of the threats to his life… Some at table that night understood that the end could be soon…. So Martha had prepared a special meal for their friend Jesus with their brother, Lazarus, sitting quietly by – clear evidence of God’s amazing power of life over death… They were gathered there to share a family meal together – eating and sharing stories as they had done so many times before…
But suddenly the ordinary becomes extraordinary. Mary gets a container of expensive perfumed ointment – the kind of perfumed ointment used only for preparing a body for burial… Perhaps Mary had used some of this same ointment to prepare her brother, Lazarus, for his burial just days before… Mary had been thinking about her brother’s rising from the dead and she was thinking about all that might come to pass for Jesus in the days ahead…
She had heard Jesus warn them all before that he would die… And so:
Mary kneels beside her Lord’s feet, anointing each of his feet with the perfumed ointment, rubbing the ointment into the dry and cracked feet of the man she believes and knows to be God’s son… And rather than waste any of the excess she unwraps her long hair and wipes those same feet with her hair…
What an astonishing thing! What a strange thing for a woman to do! The taking down of a woman’s hair was considered too intimate a thing to do for a respectable woman… The placing of ointment on the body, even the feet of another person, particularly one who was not her husband – it simply wasn’t done! She might have put oil on his head, but not on his feet! This was not the anointing of a king! This was clearly more like preparing a body for burial… It was considered outrageous that a single woman would touch and caress the feet of a rabbi…
Yet the only voice of protest comes from Judas… He complains that this costly ointment could have been sold and the moneys given to the poor… What an odd and unlikely voice to hear in this strange and extraordinary moment… The one person in the room who may know for sure that death is coming Jesus’ way in the days ahead protests about the cost of the ointment rather than the more painful reality that preparing the body for burial may be exactly what needs to be done…
And how curious that Jesus is the one who speaks up and warns Judas… Jesus says, “Leave her alone!” And then he affirms once again that indeed he will not be with them much longer.
Jesus understands the moment. He values that Mary offers him some comfort, some love, and some personal touch in that moment… An instant of life and death colliding… And we along with the others at the table are left to wonder…What will the days ahead mean for Jesus?
Will the smell of this perfumed ointment linger on as Jesus walks into Jerusalem for the Passover?
Will anyone notice that Jesus “smells” like death as the adoring crowds wave their palm branches and spread their cloaks on the ground as he rides into the city in the manner of a king?
Could Mary have imagined that the powerful smell of “death” would waft among the disciples as they celebrated the Passover meal in an Upper Room later that week? Was it possible that the perfume would waft among the disciples as they knelt and prayed with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsamane on the night of his arrest, after betrayal by Judas?
Could Mary have imagined that her anointing might have prepared his feet for his long and arduous walk through the city streets dragging a wooden cross after he was condemned to death?
Could anyone have guessed that this might be the only anointing that Jesus’ body would have before his death on a cross and his burial in a stone tomb?
We don’t really know what any of them thought that night… We can only guess….
We can only imagine that if Mary knows and believes that Jesus is God’s son then she might guess at some of what was to come… And others in that Bethany home that night might have guessed that the days ahead would be days of both elation and celebration of life as well as tension and grieving over death.
Jesus does seem to know something…
He seems to understand that at least some of this perfumed ointment had been bought for and kept at the house in Bethany in anticipation of his burial… Jesus says as much as he defends Mary’s actions to Judas when he says, “She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.”
Jesus seems to know that Mary anoints him in an act of extravagant love and devotion…
He does not want Mary harassed for her actions and he does not want Mary criticized for her extraordinary gift…
Jesus knows that his life is in danger with every passing hour… He knows that his life is in jeopardy and that the end of his life nears with every step closer to Jerusalem… It is hard for me to believe that anyone at the dinner table that night in Bethany did not understand in some fashion what Mary was doing as the fragrance of the perfume filled the house…
Mary offers Jesus an amazing and extravagant gift that night at her home… And we know that Jesus prepares to offer himself as an amazing and extravagant gift for us all in the days to come…
Mary offers an intimate gift of caring, the gift of touch, the gift of recognition and presence and comfort that Jesus will be hard pressed to find anywhere else in the coming days… Mary offers Jesus both a remarkably extravagant gift of healing balm and a powerful and intimate moment of comfort for a human body which will only receive abuse in the coming days…
One poet says of this moment: “The end begins with a woman who poured perfume upon his feet, She poured it lavishly, without counting the cost….” The poem concludes, “An extravagance of the heart is a fine and beautiful thing.” (Counting the Cost - Ann Weems)
The coming weeks are all about extravagance - God’s extravagance in gifting us his son…
As we move into these final weeks of Lent we each prepare for the events to come… We prepare for the triumphant parade into Jerusalem next Sunday with Jesus’ arrival like a king. Then we plunge into Holy Week with the Last Supper with his disciples, his betrayal and arrest, his mock trial and brutality, his desertion, and finally his terrible death on a cross and a burial in a stone cold tomb…
We know the story… We know the events… And we yearn for the empty tomb on Easter morning…
We yearn for the life beyond death that God has gifted us as the most extraordinary gift of all………..
Today Mary helps Jesus prepare for his future and all of the coming events.
Today we breath in a hint of the perfumed ointment that reminds us of a death to come…
Today we have are reminded of another Mary who will go to a tomb expecting to find a dead body that needs anointing only to find an empty tomb.
As we prepare for Easter to come we prepare to experience the real extravagance that comes from a God whose love is poured out without limitation…
As we prepare for Easter morning we breath in the perfumed ointment that Mary placed upon Jesus’ feet – a hint of the extravagant God whose love knows no bounds and who continues to do great things for us…
Let us go out rejoicing this day, knowing that we serve a God of extravagant love! Amen