You may recall that this scene made it
into the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. Judas, growing increasingly
outraged at the direction things are going, just loses it here. He sings
essentially the same words that are in the text. Meanwhile, Mary and a chorus of
women are singing a soothing song to Jesus, urging him to relax: try not to get
worried; don’t you know everything is alright now, everything’s fine. We want
you to sleep well tonight. Let the world turn without you tonight.
In the play, Jesus needs soothing
because he has become overwhelmed by the masses coming to him for healing. But
in the actual biblical text in John’s gospel, if he needs soothing, we can
probably attribute that to what has happened just before this text.
In the previous chapter, Jesus has
raised Lazarus from the dead. And for Lazarus and his family and a lot of
others, this is cause for celebration. But, of course, not everyone is
celebrating.
Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and
Martha, they were good friends of Jesus, and had been for some time. Jesus
stayed at their house when he traveled through town. Mary sat at his feet,
drinking in his every word; Martha toiled away in the kitchen to prepare a
feast worthy of their guest. Mary and Martha and Lazarus loved Jesus.
And Jesus loved them, too. But when he
gets word that Lazarus is dying, he decides to wait before going to him. He
said, It’s not the dying kind of sickness. But it was, and Jesus knew it. It
seems like Jesus is setting up the situation where he will raise Lazarus from
the dead.
When he finally does arrive in
Bethany, Lazarus has been dead four days. His family and friends have already
laid him in the tomb and sealed it. There is no question about this – Lazarus
is most certainly dead when Jesus calls his name and Lazarus walks out of the
tomb in his grave clothes.
All the people there knew they had
witnessed something extraordinary. And, of course, word of this amazing sign
gets to the religious authorities – the Pharisees and the Priests. Rather than
rejoice at the power of God on display, they are worried about the potential
for chaos breaking loose. And this is where Caiaphas, the Chief Priest says,
“It is better to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation
destroyed.” Now plans are underway. Jesus will be sacrificed.
The clock is ticking now and he knows
it.
Now, in this chapter, it is six days
before the Passover, Jesus is again at the home of Lazarus, newly alive, and
Martha and Mary. And Mary sits down at his feet and pours out a pound of
perfume and anoints his feet, wipes them with her hair. The smell of the
perfume fills the house.
I wonder what it smells like.
The text says it is made of nard; spikenard, which is a
flowering plant known for the medicinal properties of its oil. The oil has a
therapeutic aroma that helps relax the body and mind. In ancient times it was
regarded as one of the most precious oils. It was quite expensive, this nard
oil; it was quite extravagant, pouring out a full pound of it on Jesus’ feet.
What does it smell like, this nard
oil? To Judas, it smells like waste.
The scent of the oil raises his ire,
and he voices his righteous indignation. The money spent on this could have fed
the poor. But John can’t help whispering to his audience: Judas didn’t give a
fig about the poor. He was an embezzler, stealing from the treasury. Even so,
does he have a point? Was it wasteful to pour out a pound of perfume on Jesus’
feet?
Meanwhile, Martha is still busy fixing
food, and Lazarus sits at the table quietly. You could almost forget that
Lazarus was only recently dead and in the grave. Literally. Here he is, sitting
at the dinner table with his family and guests. He is alive and, I imagine,
happy about that. He doesn’t yet know that as he sits there the Chief Priests
are plotting to have him murdered. In their minds, Lazarus is the problem. If
he weren’t walking around alive, people wouldn’t be able to talk about how
amazing Jesus is. They think that if they can just get rid of Lazarus, people
will stop following Jesus and everything can return to normal. Lazarus doesn’t
know that he will be dead again soon.
For now, he sits among his guests
enjoying the aroma of the nard oil perfume. What does it smell like to Lazarus?
To him, it smells like life.
Mary, I have always assumed, doesn’t
let Judas and his rantings disturb her. She continues rubbing that oil she has
poured out on him, using her hair; her head is bent down, her face in the thick
of the scent. She is enjoying the smell of it. To Mary it smells like
gratitude.
She is grateful for the gift Jesus has
given to her and her family. Lazarus was dead and there was no expectation that
he would live again. Yes, the sisters understood that Lazarus would rise
someday – on the Day of Resurrection, the Day of Judgment, the end of time as
we know it. But Jesus says to them, I AM the resurrection. I AM the life. Mary and
Martha knew that they would have life through Jesus, and they bore witness to
this truth that day when he called Lazarus out from the tomb. To Mary, this
perfume she is filling the air with is the scent of her gratitude.
While Judas is filling the air with
his self-righteous rants, Jesus speaks up in defense of Mary. “Leave her alone.
She needs this for my burial.”
Now, it is hard to know how to take
this. Because, in fact, she is not using it for his burial, she is using it on
his living body. If it was for his burial, then she has, indeed, wasted it. But
with these words, what Jesus has done is brought death back into the room.
To Jesus, this perfume is the smell of
death. Because he knows that death is all around him and his own death is
before him. The Passover is coming. He will travel on to Jerusalem for the
festival, even though he knows there is a warrant out for him.
He knows that he must go on. He must
walk into it. Because everything he has done has moved him in this direction,
to this end. There is no turning back for him. The day of sacrifice is coming.
As Caiaphas said, one man must die for the sake of many. It’s in the air.
It is the scent of sacrifice.
Strange, isn’t it? Thinking of all
these things in terms of smell. The Apostle Paul used an unusual phrase in one
of his letters, calling us “the aroma of Christ.” But it is a way of saying
that we, as his followers bring him with us wherever we go – and not just in
words. When we have Christ in us, we fill the air with him. Anyone will know
the sincerity of our intentions because we carry the very aroma of Christ
within us.
It is the scent of a lavish gift
poured out to overflowing. It is the scent of his words and deeds, the scent of
his crucifixion and resurrection. It is the scent of gratitude, the scent of
sacrifice, the scent of death, and the scent of life.
In this reading from Philippians, Paul
says there are so many things that used to be important to me but no longer
matter. There are so many things I used to be concerned about but these things are
now only rubbish. All that matters now is Christ crucified. Sacrificed. He
said, all I want now is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. Like
Jesus did, on his way to Jerusalem, I press on, Paul says, straining forward to
what lies ahead: the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
As we move toward Holy Week, may you
press on. May you breathe in the aroma of Christ, and may you fill the air with
him.
Photo: a spikenard plant
No comments:
Post a Comment