FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT APRIL 6, 2025

Prayer of the Day Creator God, you prepare a new way in the wilderness, and your grace waters our desert. Open our hearts to be transformed by the new thing you are doing, that our lives may proclaim the extravagance of your love given to all through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Gospel: John 12:1-8 1 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him. 3 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. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” 6 (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.) 7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

Reflections on the Gospel Reading John’s use of vivid detail brings out important contrasts that teach us about Jesus and about following him. These details likely encouraged people in the first community to hear John’s Gospel. These folk were expelled from their faith community. Their Temple had been levelled and their city sacked by the occupying Romans. Earlier in Bethany the stench of death staggered everyone after Lazarus was dead and buried. When Jesus calls for the stone to be rolled away from the tomb’s entrance, Lazarus’ sisters protest— the stink one one dead for four days would over power everyone. Lazarus was dead. Death comes to us all, and when we die, we stay dead. Except….

Just before Passover, Lazarus is very much alive and present at the family special supper his family is putting on for Jesus. Lazarus reclines with his friend, Jesus. His sister Martha, true to her nature and sense of hospitality tends to her guests.

Mary, also true to her acts of attentiveness and devotion to Jesus, breaks open a container of costly oil that she had been saving for Jesus’ burial. As She anoints Jesus’ feet, poignantly sweet aroma fills the house and mingles with the smell of food cooking and wine decanted. Any lingering stench of death is overcome…yet even now death takes no holiday.

Some of us read this story earlier in the week and wondered about the significance of Mary wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair. Women were never seen in public with their heads uncovered or their hair let down…even a family meal was considered a public event. Mary’s intimate act might scandalize some and she her self demonstrates a humility that onlookers can scarcely accept.

Mary’s hair would be softer than any cloth she could have used and it was the most personal expression possible as she dried Jesus’ feet. The oil now in her own hair and its aroma might have signified to her that her own life is bound with Jesus’ fate. As one commentator puts it, Mary obeys Jesus commands to love and serve even before he gives those instructions to his followers. Her devotion even prefigures Jesus’ own actions when he would wash the feet of his followers.

The contrast between Mary’s ministrations and Judas’ protests couldn’t be any more stark. We can concede Judas’ point that lavish expense could have helped many poor people have a meal today. He would have calculated that the oil’s cost was worth a year’s wages. John tells us that Judas had been embezzling, so it’s more likely that money would have lined Judas’ pockets more than it would have fed the poor.

What Jesus says next doesn’t dismiss the poor. The call to care for them would outlive Jesus in his earthly life. Maybe Mary’s prescience extends there too. Maybe Mary believes that love and service to Jesus would take on other forms and expressions even after Jesus’ earthly life ended. Maybe she sensed that now was the moment for the ointment to be poured out. Maybe “now” is also our moment for serving Jesus by caring for those who need it most.