In the name of God ☩ Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
One of the first lessons that a child is taught after it knows how to walk is “look both ways before you cross the street.” It’s good advice, as traffic comes from both directions. Holy Week is the liturgical time in which we would do well to take that same advice and “look both ways.”
Holy Week is the time in which we see the story of salvation played out before us and prepare to enter into the grace of God anew on Easter. And so we really do need to look both ways. We must look to the past and remember the many ways in which God has blessed and saved us in the past. Because God has brought us out of slavery in Egypt and God has brought us safely through this day, we trust that God provides for and sustains us. And though the salvation of God has been fully accomplished, it is yet to be fully realized on earth as it is in heaven. And so we also look to the future in hope. We anticipate and long for the day when the grace of Easter penetrates every heart and all people sing together praise to God. We have to look both ways.
This is what Mary in tonight’s Gospel reading from John does as she washes Jesus’ feet with perfume. And in this extravagant act of devotion, she models for us what it means to look both ways in faith.
It must be noted that Mary’s action is absurd, on many levels. For one, the value of this perfume was, according to scholars, something like $40,000 in today’s dollars. We believe that Mary and Martha were people of means, and actually were major benefactors of Jesus’ ministry. So it is not surprising that they could afford such costly perfume. What’s surprising is that Mary and Martha, while being wealthy, were not stupid. It doesn’t matter how little or how much money you have, using something worth that much money to wash someone’s feet is simply preposterous.
But then we have to ask, why was it they had a pound of costly perfume of pure nard just lying around the house? Very likely, this was the perfume that was purchased to anoint Lazarus’ body. You’ll recall that their brother, Lazarus, died, but then Jesus brought him back to life, and so the burial perfume would not have been needed. The point is, the perfume is to be used on dead bodies, but Jesus is very much still alive. Imagine you go to a friend’s house for dinner and your friend brings over a tape measure and starts to measure you. You ask “What in the world are you doing?” Imagine your response if the friend responded, “Oh, I’m just measuring you for your coffin.” This action by Mary is that startling.
As we have come to realize and as Jesus immediately recognizes, but Judas struggles to see, Mary’s action makes complete sense, as odd as it may first seem. And Mary’s action only makes sense because she is looking both ways. She is looking to the past and realizes who Jesus is – he is love incarnate, he is the fulfillment of the prophets, he is the hope of salvation. She has seen this in his feeding the hungry, in his steadfastness to God, in his healing of the sick, in his raising of her brother. While at the same time, Mary is also looking to the future. She knows that the Messiah will not enter into his glory before he is crucified. She believes Jesus when he has said that the Messiah will suffer, die, and then rise from the dead on the third day. And so, for Mary, Jesus, as the Word of God made flesh, absolutely warrants the lavish expenditure of this costly perfume and he also needs to be prepared for his impending death and burial because she understands that is what it means to be the Messiah.
As we all know, looking both ways is hard to do. Think about the end of a trip as you wait in an airport to return home. You think back on the wonderful time you had, and there is some nostalgia for it and sadness that it has come to an end. Yet, at the same time, you look forward to coming home and returning to your own bed and getting back to your church, your family, your friends, your life’s work. At once, you are neither on vacation any longer nor are you yet back home. You are in a place where you are looking backwards and forwards, and it is often unsettling place with competing emotions.
This is what Holy Week is – a place of looking both ways with mixed emotions. When we gaze upon the Cross on Friday we are see the convergence of past and future. As we move more deeply into this week, Mary serves as a faithful example for us of how we are to look both ways. We give all of ourselves to God, not counting the cost. We sit as Jesus feet in prayer and meditation. We embrace, not resist, the pain of death. The thing is, by using her hair as a towel, Mary is going to literally smell like death for a while. Holy Week brings us face-to-face with death so that on Easter morning, we will be able to laugh in death’s face and ask “Where, O Death, is your sting?” In order to do this though, we have to look both ways.
