Day 33 - A time of preparation

According to the Revised Common Lectionary the Gospel reading for today is 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 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?" … 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."

Matthew and Mark both mention that the nard was in an alabaster jar, which is expensive in itself. This pound of nard was probably Mary’s pension plan as 300 denarii was about a year’s income for an average worker.

I checked on Amazon.co.uk, which offered at least eight books with the words alabaster jar in their title but no alabaster jars with nard. There was a picture of a 4” jar with a quarter ounce of spikenard oil but it is “currently unavailable”. It looks like money cannot buy it today! Ebay had alabaster jars costing up to £500! As for the (spike)nard, one can buy 10ml of it, at the cost of £849 per litre! I am not doing the maths on how much a pound of it would cost.

The main point of the passage for me is that Mary had been saving it for Jesus’ burial. (And yet Martha’s had not already been used for Lazarus. John 11) Yet Mary decided to pour it on him a week before he died – surely she did not know what was coming? According to the synoptic gospels, Jesus was not anointed just before he was buried, which is why women went to the tomb with spices on the morning after the sabbath. But in John 19 we read that Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus on the “day of preparation”. Nicodemus brought a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloe mix, anointed the body and wrapped it in linen cloths “according to the burial custom of the Jews” (John 19: 40). What was John’s intention is Jesus being anointed twice?

This passage invites us to think of Jesus’s death, our own deaths and the deaths of those close to us. Most of us delegate the washing of our loves ones after death to professionals. I wonder if we have lost something by not undertaking that last task.

Jesus, have I or would I spend my pension plan on serving you?

Father God, is this what you ask us to do?

Holy Spirit, speak to our hearts and make us generous. Amen.

Elaine Kinchin