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Scents of life and death
Monday, April 14, 2014
Monday of Holy Week
John 12:3
Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.
Mary and Jesus were both in tears. She felt his impending absence in her gut and could barely stand. Jesus’ felt her hair, her face, her tears on his feet, rested his hand on her head and loved her.
“A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench.”
Barely breathing but surely breathing, Jesus smiles at Mary as she looks up at him. She breathes again herself, and sighs in sadness and peace. Jesus is here now. He is alive. He is with us, and breathing on me, and smiling. We are home.
He will leave soon, and I shudder, knowing how many want to kill him. He knows too, and talks about his burial. He will be brought quickly into darkness. Jesus, who has brought out the prisoners from their dungeons, opened the eyes of the blind; still, his own eyes will be ruined with blood and beatings.
The one who gave us living water will be given vinegar to drink, and ridiculed by careless men. He is wounded for my transgressions and bruised for my iniquity. And by the stripes whipped into his back, I am healed.
This perfume is nothing, but it is all I have, and it is yours, Jesus. Its fragrance overcomes the growing scent of death just now, while we wait for the angel and know how much we’re loved.
Sensing your pain, Lord, there is nothing to do but pray. Pour perfume on your feet and pray. You take your towel and wash my feet, and I’m undone. Please let me just love you, and be held close by you, and give you all I have.
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1275
