Love That Transforms

This fifth Sunday in Lent reminds us that our journey through this holy season will soon reach its culmination and our celebration of the Lord’s passion and resurrection, the most sacred time of the year. The scriptural texts before us today invite us to reflect on preparation for those holy days that approach.  The gospel passage from John, which we’ve just heard, tells of a meal that Jesus and his disciples shared with his dear friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus. During this gathering, Mary takes a jar of expensive ointment and lovingly anoints Jesus’s feet. Now, before exploring this passage in some greater depth, a few potential confusions need to be addressed. There are four stories of Jesus being anointed during a dinner, one in each of the four gospels, the details of which can all too easily become blended in our minds.

Mark and Matthew include a story that is essentially the same in detail as this one from John.  A few days prior to his death. Jesus is anointed by an unnamed woman, angering some unnamed dinner guests who ask why the money was not given to the poor. Jesus rejects their criticism and speaks of the good service the woman has done.  Luke, on the other hand, presents a much different account.  Early in Jesus’s ministry, he goes to the home of a Pharisee to share a meal, during which an unnamed woman identified as a sinner, comes with ointment, weeping and anointing his feet. The emphasis in that story is on the woman’s repentance and the forgiveness of sins that Jesus offers her. Now in the tradition of the Church, an unfortunate conflation of these stories led to the erroneous understanding that the sinful woman in Luke was Mary Magdalene, who in turn was the same Mary of this John story. Now that unfortunate blending contributed to the wholly inaccurate, but often cited, claim that Mary Magdalene, the great apostle to the apostles, had once been a notorious sinner, usually thought to be a prostitute. Let it be clear that such an interpretation is incorrect and must be rejected. May it also serve as a reminder of the necessity of reading this text before us on its own terms and in its own context.

For though similar to those other accounts, this story from John is given a unique setting that is directly connected to the story of the raising of Lazarus that immediately precedes it.  In that extraordinary narrative from John’s gospel, Jesus was summoned by his friends, Martha and Mary, to come to their sick brother, Lazarus.  But he died before Jesus could reach him. Martha, grieving, goes out to meet Jesus who makes this astounding assertion. “I am the resurrection and I am the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die will live”. Jesus then manifests the truth of his words by raising Lazarus from the dead, calling him out from the tomb. This stunning sign causes many to believe in Jesus and likewise proves to be the final straw for those among the religious leaders who were frightened by him and opposed to him. From that moment on, they planned to put Jesus to death. These events of that proceeding story are the necessary context for this dinner scene. We can only imagine the awe, gratitude and  love Mary and Martha must have felt toward Jesus who had given them this incredible gift. Their brother raised from the dead.

And of course, Lazarus himself was among those who sat at the table with the Lord, surely an altogether strange, unique, and wondrous experience for all who gathered that night. It is a scene full of contrasts that are intended to catch our attention. Perhaps the most immediate of those is the contrast between the recently raised Lazarus, and Jesus who knows that he will soon suffer and die.   The time for his glorification soon approaches. Mary alone is cognizant enough of that truth to act, and so she takes a pound of this costly perfume and pours it lavishly on Jesus’ feet, wiping them with her hair, as the fragrance fills the room.  That sweet smelling aroma reveals to us yet another contrast.  For the fragrance of that nard is to be juxtaposed to the odor of death that it was intended to mask. There is no mistaking that connection for Jesus himself says she bought the nard so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. Indeed, all four gospels attest that the faithful women brought spices and ointments to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ dead body. Mary knows what Jesus’ other disciples have not yet grasped. He will be with them but just a little longer, and the time was right for her to offer this pure and tender act of love and devotion.

Mary’s actions however were not understood or appreciated by all those present that night. Judas, the betrayer, enters the scene revealing yet another contrast, that between him and Mary.  Judas raises what appears to be a legitimate objection. Why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii, that is about one year’s wage, and the money given to the poor?  The great value of the perfume is undeniable and can largely be explained by the fact that it had to be imported from a great distance from the holy land, all the way in the region of the Himalayas. The gospel writer, however, is quick to inform us of Judas’ ulterior motives. He was both the keeper of the purse and a thief. He was not genuinely concerned for the poor, but instead was concerned for himself and the ways he might have profited from the sale of such an expensive item. While Mary acted out of love, Judas’ motivations were entirely selfish and rooted in greed. Jesus’ response to Judas’ question might however seem a bit jarring at first.

‘You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me’. We might wonder, what would the response have been had the question come from someone with a genuine concern for the poor, anyone other than the thief, Judas. Speculate as we might, it seems the answer would’ve been the same, for here Jesus is drawing our attention to something else, to the uniqueness of that moment. To be clear, we’re not to understand these words in any way as a rejection of the need to be concerned about the poor or as justification for indifference to efforts to care for those who suffer from the grinding conditions of poverty. The entirety of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry was concerned with acts of mercy and love for those who were poor, isolated and forgotten. Jesus, of course, spoke of the impossibility of serving both God and wealth.  Of how difficult it would be for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Of the need of a rich young ruler to sell all of his possessions and follow him. We should hear then Jesus’ response to Judas as a recognition of lamentable fact of our fallen existence.  All the way back in Deuteronomy, that had said this, “Since there will never cease to be need on the earth, I therefore command you open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land”.

The all too obvious reality of poverty throughout history and in our own time proves the regrettable truth of Jesus’ statement. The point that he’s emphasizing in his dismissal of Judas’ disingenuous concern for the poor and in his defense of Mary’s actions, is the utterly unique circumstances of that moment. The time for him to suffer and die for us was close at hand. Mary recognized that and her act of love would not be taken away from her.  This story of Mary’s anointing of Jesus is presented to us on this fifth Sunday in Lent as a call for us to likewise prepare for the celebration of our Lord’s passion that soon awaits us.  When we return next Sunday, everything will be different. While we begin with rejoicing, with waving of palms and cries of ‘hosanna!’, we are then confronted with his betrayal, suffering, death and burial, as once again, Jesus is anointed with ointments and spices and his dead body placed in the tomb. In a moment when all seems lost, the light of the world, the resurrection and the life is dead and all we like sheep are scattered.

Although we know there is more to come on the third day, we must still walk the way of the cross through all that the week that we call holy and great holds for us. The invitation the Church offers us is to journey with our Lord, to not simply recall events of the past that Christ did for us, but to enter into those mysteries and allow God to transform us through them. As the opening prayer and the liturgy of Palm Sunday puts it, ‘we pray that we may enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts, whereby God has given us life and immortality’.  To enter the joy and power of his resurrection, we must enter too into his sufferings.  And that is an idea that St. Paul reflects upon in his letter to the Philippians. Although he has every reason to boast of his status under the law, he considers it as nothing. Regarding all as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, his Lord. He wants to know Christ in the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings, by becoming like him in his death. Here the apostle touches on a mystery that is at the center of our faith.

Following our Lord, staying close to him and his sufferings, in our own struggles and pains, is the means by which we are transformed.  From what seems to be weakness and defeat, God brings forth victory. From Christ’s death for us comes life. And that is something we must experience, not simply think about.  And so the journey of Holy Week invites us to do just that.  To enter into the mystery, to share his sufferings and to know the power of his resurrection that changes us, that produces from the seemingly random and painful struggles of this life, a hope that the world cannot give.

So during this most sacred time of the year that approaches, I pray that we might indeed stay close to our Lord, to join with Mary in offering him our love and devotion.  May we join as well with Thomas, who, when Jesus set out to raise Lazarus from the dead confidently said, ‘let us go also with him that we may die with him, for in dying with Christ, we will be raised with him to new life’.  Sharing in his sufferings, we will know the power of his resurrection and live as those who are filled with the light and love of our great God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to whom the honor, glory, praise, and worship forever endeavor. Amen.