Fifth Sunday of Lent
“Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair.”
Overview
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Today is the last Sunday of Lent. Next week is the start of Holy Week and the journey to the cross. In our gospel today, John 12:1-11, we see a woman anointing Christ’s feet with ridiculously, excessively, expensive perfume: responding out of love; pouring everything out at the feet of the one who pours everything out for us.
This story tells us that our faith, our lives, are not transactional, not about costs, or what could have been bought with the money. It is relational. It is about devotion and love; the recognition that all that we have is a gift, and the only appropriate way to respond is to give ourselves. The beautiful Old Testament reading, Isaiah 43:16-21, reminds us that God is a God of abundance not scarcity. Life may sometimes seem like a desert, but God makes rivers to flow even in the desert.
FIRST READING
Isaiah 43:16-21
Thus says the Lord,
who makes a way in the sea,
a path in the mighty waters,
who brings out chariot and horse,
army and warrior;
they lie down, they cannot rise,
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:
Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
The wild animals will honour me,
the jackals and the ostriches;
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
the people whom I formed for myself
so that they might declare my praise.
GOSPEL
John 12:1-11
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
