Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; John 12:1-8

Lent 5 C– 3/21/10

Mary of Bethany’s story

It’s in the air: something is coming; everything’s about to change. Don’t you feel it? Like the approach of a distant army, or the rumble right before the earth quakes. Or maybe it’s not rumors of death and destruction. Like the scent of rain after a long drought, or the softness of spring air after a hard winter. Something new is about to happen, and my dear Jesus will be at the center of it. He will be “lifted up,” he says. Will they see him at last for what he is, and hail him as king? Or does he mean something else?

My sister Martha knows. She said it aloud just four days ago, when he came at last for Lazarus: He is the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God. The Messiah: the anointed one. But who anoints him? His Father, yes; but that can’t be seen or heard, smelled or felt. The high priest should anoint him: yes, in a few days at Passover, in the Temple before the multitudes singing hymns of praise. That’s how it should be. But it won’t be. What would the Romans do? We’d be doomed, unless Jesus called forth the multitude to fight, armed, and ready to die and to kill. He could do it, but he won’t. That’s not his way; he turned his back on it long ago. Anyway, the high priest wouldn’t do it; he wouldn’t anoint him anywhere, any time. Rumor has it that Caiaphas has told the inner council that Jesus must die, one man for the nation. I believe it, too: Caiaphas knows the game of political expediency, and plays it well. He would be as ready to sacrifice an innocent man for political ends as to sacrifice the lambs for Passover.

But it’s time. My dear one is about to face his final test. And, oh, I try to tell myself that I could be misunderstanding it all, but I know in my bones that he will die. He’s known it for months, I think – maybe years. Maybe always. He knew what it would mean to come back here to Bethany, right on the outskirts of Jerusalem, when the authorities want his blood. He came to save Lazarus. So now I have my brother back - but how will I live when he’s dead? I can’t imagine being in this world without Jesus in it. I wish there were something I could do for him… something, anything.

So – I will do something! It’s time! Martha proclaimed him as Messiah and Lord: she said openly what men were afraid to say. I will proclaim him as Messiah in deed. If the priests and the Sanhedrin will not anoint him, if no one in authority will dare it, then I will do it, woman though I am, and not even from a royal or priestly family. I have that flask of rare precious oil. I’ve hoarded it for years; I knew I’d want it someday – but what will I want it for now? My marriage? I can’t imagine wedding songs sung for me, not now – not in a world where my Love is dead. I’ll anoint him myself.

But how is it to be done? The high priest should anoint his head, crowning him with the oil of gladness. But I don’t dare; I’m not worthy, or holy, or ordained to do such a thing. His feet, then. Those beloved feet: so often I’ve washed them for him when he’s come to our house weary and footsore, and kissed them, too. And so often I’ve sat at his feet – he permitted me to do so, to be his disciple: I, a woman! And I’ve looked at his feet as he talked, wondering, somehow, that he trod the same dusty, rocky roads we do.

Yes, I know that’s right. I dreamed last night – oh, a terrible dream: the first part was confused, it was all blood and pain, and mocking voices, and death. Then, just for a moment, I saw his feet and held one of them. It was bloody; it was pierced through. Oh, God, I don’t want it to be true! I screamed, and woke up—but not in horror, but rather in a surge of inexplicable joy, and a kind of awed amazement. Something huge is about to happen, something… unimaginable.

So, his dear feet. I pour out my treasure on them, precious nard mingled with my tears; and gladly would I pour out my life as well. I pour out whatever dignity I had, and dry his feet with my hair. I feel his eyes drawing mine, and look up to his face: he smiles gently at me. Something passes between us, an understanding beyond words. And everyone notices that something is happening: it fills the air the way the fragrance of the nard fills the house. Silence, and sweetness, like a moment of heaven.

Judas breaks the spell, good old practical Judas. But maybe he’s right? Maybe the nard should have been sold, and the proceeds given to the poor, after whatever Judas thinks he needs for the common purse. I don’t have a brain for business; he does.

Oh, my Lord and my Love – thank you. He defends me; he understands it’s for his burial, and says so, though I can see that his words don’t make sense to most of the others. He knows I’ll need this act to hold onto.

And when you’re gone, my Love? What then? How can I live without you, who are my Life? Oh. Yes. When we can no longer see you, the poor will be with us, and we can serve you and love you in them, and maybe get a glimpse of you in some distressing disguise. “The bread and the blankets you give to the poor, you’ll find you have given to me,” he said.

I’ll try to remember in the days ahead, through… whatever is coming next. Something terrible and wonderful – some new act of God, I think. Passover is coming; but I feel in my heart that it will be a new kind of Passover. Remember what the Prophet Isaiah wrote? Don’t keep looking back on the former things – the way God made a way through the Red Sea. Thus says the Lord: I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth! I will bring my exiled people home! I who made a way through the mighty waters will now make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert – a way for the chosen people whom I formed for myself! That was long ago; and now it’s time! the hour has come for the new thing to spring forth from the mighty hand of God! I can’t see what it will be, but I feel it. It fills the air, like the fragrance of perfume, like rain after drought, like spring after winter – and like the rumbling before the earth quakes. But does my dear Lord have to die?

Tomorrow he will enter Jerusalem openly. The ordinary people will welcome him, I expect; there may even be a demonstration of some sort. The authorities will not like it, and they will not welcome him. They will seek an opportunity to kill him. He knows this; and I think he knows that they will succeed. And what then? All I see is darkness.

And yet… there’s that fragrance, that rumbling, those rumors of the new thing springing forth, something no one can even imagine yet. What could possibly be worth Jesus’ death? A new Exodus, maybe? Might God at last deliver us from that slavery more cruel than Pharaoh’s, the burden of sin and the shadow of death? Might there be a new Return from exile? Will God somehow make a way through the wilderness of a wicked world, and lead us home at last?

I will watch and wait; however dark it gets I will refuse despair, and hope in God. And oh, my dearest Lord, may nothing separate us, not shame or pain or death itself; may nothing separate me from your love.