The Last Week
Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. John 12:3
In his world, it had been almost a week. A week since their feet walked that holy road toward the holy town of Jerusalem. Of course, they didn’t know it, but every step they walked with him was holy ground. Holy dust stirred and settled on the feet of this Holy God, wholly man. Jesus.
Their first stop, (within almost spitting distance from the holy gates) was Bethany. There was a feast; a banquet in honor of Jesus with Lazarus by his side. This Lazarus, who had laid still and breathless inside the tomb for three days quietly silently lifelessly waiting for Jesus to arrive and call his name and invite him back to life.
I wonder if Jesus thought about this that evening… Lazarus, too, had waited in the tomb of death. Jesus would be there soon enough. But his body would be broken. Not so much by the power of sickness but by the ugliness and horror of the sin of men and women and you and me. It would be our sin that would kill him.
It would spit in his face and jam a thorned crown on his head. It would backhand him and mock him. It would strip him naked and tear the skin from his back with the first lash, ripping and slicing as the pain seared through his skin, scorching every nerve and dropping him to his knees as his blood streamed onto the ground.
Did his blood cry out to God as Abel’s had?
Could this King of Glory be bowed low to the evil of men? We haven't even gotten to the humiliation before the shouting crowds or the weight of carrying his own cross or the iron spikes in his hands and feet yet. The bones and muscles stretched to their limit in an effort to take yet one more breath. The sky turned dark as the sun refused to shine down on the depths of depravity where humans run all too quickly when given a choice.
But no. We are still here in the banquet room. There is candlelight and roasted lamb and freshly baked bread and sweet wine and the scent of perfume. There are the sisters of Lazarus - Martha, of course, serving, and dear sweet Mary who was never too busy to sit at the feet of Jesus, listening, listening, listening…
She alone has grasped what lies ahead. She alone can see past the king’s procession into the city through the East Gate. The shouts of “Hosanna! Save us, our King! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” amplify as the green fronds of palm branches meet the blue sky and their king comes to them gentle on the colt of a donkey.
She alone knows that it will be her last chance to love him, to touch him, to honor him, and to prepare his body for what is to come.
She pours the perfume on his feet. She offers him the best she has; in a culture of modesty, she uncovers her hair, loosens it – exposing herself in a room of men and lovingly, carefully cleans the feet of her Lord with her hair.
Jesus looks at her with gentleness as she is criticized for her careless abandon. “She is preparing me for my burial. When my story is told, this story will be told.”
Can it be almost 2,000 years later? Can we be on the other side of the world? Can we live in modern houses with asphalt roads for our cars and communicate electronically through the air by bouncing our words off satellites in the heavens? Yet, here we are, still telling this story of a Jewish Messiah who came to save God’s chosen people and a woman who has listened carefully and with great sorrow anointed his feet to ease the pain of his coming death.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. John 12:1-3 NIV
But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.” Matthew 26:10-13 ESV
Rachael Lampa - Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus
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