Fifth Sunday of Lent
“ Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume”
Summary
“When Mary anoints Jesus’ feet in John 12:1-8, she is criticised for her lavish generosity. Why waste this expense honouring one man when it might have been used to feed the masses? Jesus explains that she has kept this gift for his burial and yet she anoints him whilst he is still living. Perhaps, as she has witnessed her brother being raised from the dead, her action expresses her faith in the resurrection; that the cross will be a second Exodus, like that referred to in Isaiah 43:16-21, when her people were led to freedom. This is the exodus Isaiah promises, a new thing, leading to freedom for the whole of creation, giving us a new way of living. A way which honours every person as precious and valued, worthy of excessive love and lavish attention. Judas is wrong, not because he has dubious motives, or because he has a practical, utilitarian approach to how best to use resources but because he does not recognise that there are no limits to God’s love, that God also holds nothing back, but will pour out everything for love of us. Her extravagant devotion leads us to ponder how we respond to the limitless love God pours on us and whether we, like God, perceive others as also worthy of such lavish attention.
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 honor 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 12:1-8
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 reclining with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’s 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.”
