This year we’ve been doing the reverse-Advent-wreath-thing with our candles, blowing out one candle as we draw closer to Holy Week. As you can see, we’re getting close. There’s only one candle remaining lit. It’ll go out next Sunday, leaving just the Christ candle burning, although by Good Friday, even that light will be extinguished. We’re on our way to Easter, but the road is getting darker as we travel.
Today we’re in John 12, the beautiful story of Mary anointing Jesus. In John’s telling, this happens on a Saturday evening. The sabbath has just ended, and they’re breaking their fast over dinner. Folks are free to travel, and many have gathered in Mary’s home. Not that much time has passed from Jesus raising Mary’s brother, Lazarus, from the dead, and things are really heating up for Jesus. Word has spread about him. Some are drawn to this great teacher and miracle worker. Others are plotting how to get rid of him. Jesus knows this. For a time after raising Lazarus, he left for the wilderness north of Jerusalem, letting things cool off until the right time.
He returns with only a week left, and the story picks up with today’s reading. A day after Mary’s anointing, Jesus will enter Jerusalem riding a donkey. Our worship will focus on that next week. Five days later, Jesus will wash his disciples’ feet and establish communion. A day after that, Jesus will be crucified. So, merely a week after Mary’s action, Jesus’ body will be lying in the tomb.
What would you do if you knew the time was short with someone you love? Most of us never will have the opportunity to experience the preciousness of time, but I suspect most of us would act similarly. We’d do the things that we had pushed off, right? Maybe you have a bucket list (as in the list of things you want to do before you “kick the bucket”). I suspect you’d hit that list hard, not caring about the costs. In the time you have, you’d visit places you always wanted to see; you’d rent the sports car you always wanted to drive; you’d make the rounds to visit every one who was significant in your life.
I also suspect you’d say what you wanted to say. You’d say “I love you” to everyone you love. You’d share your opinions with those you were always scared to share them with. You’d offer all the wisdom you could to your family. You’d write letters and emails saying the most significant things you could think of.
When time is short, we live focused on the present, don’t we?
Each day is precious. Each interaction counts. Everything that wasn’t really important is pushed away, often showing us that those things were never really going to matter much anyway. What matters is here. Now.
This interaction between Mary and Jesus is beautiful precisely because it is laser-focused on the reality of what is and what will shortly be. All that matters to Mary is that Jesus is here now and that, with every ounce of her being, she wants to show Jesus how much she loves him.
Over his life, Jesus was almost always the giver, rarely the receiver. People came to him for healing, and he healed them. They came looking for God’s words, and he spoke them. They came looking for comfort and care and challenge, and he gave those too. I can think of only two times when Jesus was a receiver. The Magi bring Jesus gifts — gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These gifts are meaningful for who he will become for sure, but really, what’s a child going to do with such things?
The second instance is this one, where Mary gives Jesus an extravagant and meaningful gift. Jesus is well aware that his time is short, and he is capable of recognizing the gravity of what Mary is doing. He receives this gift with open arms. In the words of Chelsey Harmon, “Even the God who is Love can use some love.”
This is such a beautiful act of devotion. Jesus has known and loved this small family of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus throughout his ministry. There is a level of depth and trust among them that is only possible when people are open with each other. Except for her gratitude and love, no reason is given for what Mary does. Perhaps it’s a way of showing Jesus how much he means to her, particularly after bringing her brother back to life. It’s not until the end that Jesus connects Mary’s action with his impending death.
Mary takes a sealed alabaster jar filled with pure nard. To open the jar, she had to break it. This ointment was red in color and smelled like gladiolus. It had traveled a long way to get into Mary’s hands. Nard came from northern India, so it had traveled by caravan almost 3000 miles for this purpose. This bottle contained a Roman pound of the ointment, which is twelve ounces as we measure things. It cost 300 denarii, which was the equivalent of a year’s wages for a laborer. Mary had purchased and given the very best to Jesus — an extravagant gift that reflects her extravagant love.
But, let’s not simply focus on what Mary did. It’s an instance where Jesus receives the love and care of another. In the days to come, Jesus is going to need all the love he can get because everything is going to get hard and dark. He’ll need it to spend his final days with the disciples. He’ll need it to be arrested and stand trial. He’ll need it while hung on the cross, despised, mocked, and rejected.
Perhaps Jesus needed Mary’s love as much as she needed to show Jesus how much she loved him. We know that’s how relationships work, but I think we’re tempted to think our relationship to Jesus is different — that we always receive, and he always gives. When I need courage to do something hard, I absolutely rely on the strength of others to get through it. Karoline Lewis puts this so well. “You cannot do what you need to do, have to do, even want to do, without another saying, ‘yes, you can do this;’ without another loving you into your future.”
Extravagant love brings extravagant generosity. Mary does this in anointing Jesus — not caring a whit about the cost. She does it in wiping his feet dry with her hair — not caring that good Jewish women’s hair was supposed to be kept up in the presence of anyone who was not her husband. This public display of affection draws the scorn and surprise of even Jesus’ disciples. Here Judas scoffs that this waste could have done more good by helping the poor. (Although Judas’ heart is more in it for the money than in his actual care for others.) John wants us to understand Mary’s gift as an “act of generous love.”
As people seeking to know and love Jesus and each other, we have a bounty of resources that help us understand what love is in ways that far surpass what our culture thinks of love. In a letter, John tells us that God is love, so in coming to understand love more fully, we come to see God more clearly. In his first letter to the church in Corinth, Paul gave us these stunning words that have echoed through the years at weddings, funerals, and beyond. Paul writes, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
In Mary’s loving act — an act that helps strengthen Jesus to face the troubles coming his way — I see this kind of love. As the ointment’s aroma fills the room and Mary faithfully anoints Jesus, I see patient love. Kind love. Love that is generous and humble. Love that sees the other. Love that believes evil will not win. Love that holds on in the hardest times. Love that hopes and endures to the end.
It’s the kind of love we all need.
It’s the kind of love we all have access to, if only we devote ourselves to the way of Jesus as the first and only way in our lives.
Love like this takes wholehearted devotion. It’s a love that is present in the present. It’s a love that shows up even when things are hard. It’s a love that loves others into the future, even if that future is difficult.
So, I ask: Do we live this way toward God? Mary had the privilege of having Jesus — God-in-flesh — with her. But we have the daily opportunity to unite our hearts, souls, and lives with the God who created us, loves us, heals us, and calls us to the most excellent way of life. Do we reciprocate this extravagant love we have received? It’s part of the purpose of worship, so I’m glad you’re here!
We put this kind of love in action through the ways we love others. That, perhaps, is the clearest sign that we love God — that we treat everyone with the kind of extravagant love that God has for them. Not just some. Not just the worthy. Not just the easy-to-love. Everyone.
As we live these days, I pray that our lives would be marked by this kind of love and that our public displays of affection would reflect the deep and hopeful love we have received from the God we know in Jesus Christ.
