Quiet night before the war
Monday of Holy Week, March 26, 2018
They gave a dinner for Jesus in Bethany, where Lazarus was, and Martha served. Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil and anointed the feet of Jesus. She dried them with her hair. Judas the Iscariot said, “Why was this oil not sold and the money given to the poor?” But Jesus said to Judas, “Leave her alone. The poor you will always have with you. But you will not always have me.”
– From John 12
Jesus came here often to rest. Where better to go now, just a thirty-minute walk outside Jerusalem? Jesus might be waiting for events to draw him to the cross, but there are 168 hours in his week too. What does a messiah do all day?
Mary and Martha, Judas and John, Peter, James, Andrew and the rest surrounded Jesus with their their concern and their questions. Their ears were open and their hands ready to help him however he asked. Here is Martha fixing her cakes, serving any meal she can think to serve. And here is Mary, listening to Jesus with her heart.
The idea might have come upon her days before. She had nard left from her brother’s death. Lazarus lived again but Jesus, who called him from his grave, talks often about his own death. He has always spoken truth. Is he speaking truth now?
There is the jar of precious perfume, meant for burial, sitting on the dresser in her bedroom. Will she be giving it to Jesus’ mother after his death … surely not? But Jesus has been solitary and so silent, and when he does speak his eyes search the sky and fall away from them. She wants to show how much she loves him.
Could she pour the ointment on his feet tonight?
Can she walk between the men, sit at his feet and pull off his sandals? Will the men fall silent as they wait for their meal, and wonder at her? Will they try to stop her, shout at her, pull her away? As she imagines all these interruptions she comes back to Jesus’ face, drawn and sad. He is troubled.
She smells the food nearly finished. This is the right time so she stands up from her bed, takes the vase of nard and steps into the room. She walks around Thomas, pushes against Peter, and settles down beside the Master. She looks up at him. He sees what she is about to do. He smiles.
She pulls off his sandals, pours out the perfume and covers his feet with it. Its sweet dying scent fills the room. The disciples suddenly are silent, watching, and Judas cries out his complaint. Jesus, as in a dream interrupted, looks sharply at him. “Stop bullying her, Judas. She loves me. Leave her alone.”
Judas’ striving toward social justice is so different from Mary’s personal touch. Her hands drip with perfume and her heart pounds with joy. Jesus has taught her the way of mercy, and in this moment she returns the gift. As she dries his feet with her hair, she simply loves her friend. Jesus’ eyes fill with tears as he looks up and says to all of them, “You will not always have me.”
He will tell his disciples that again in the Upper Room, and he will promise them “even greater things.” Greater things don’t matter to Mary, or to Martha or any of them now except, perhaps, Judas. Judas will not give up his vision of Christus Victor in the flesh. But that will not be the path for Jesus.
Jesus’ battle is with the principalities and powers of the dark world. It is that battle in the spirit which he is about to win.
And then, Lord, I suppose you went in to supper. The food was delicious, the company fine, the conversation subdued at this near-to-last supper in your life. I will just sit here and watch, if you don’t mind. Knowing how much you love me, even now in these dark days. Being with you, I breathe deeply and my mind is still.
 http://www.davesandel.net/category/lent-easter-devotions-2018/
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1694
