crashed out

the Jesus who does nothing . . .

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?’ (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.’ John 12:1–8

Bethany, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, was the home of Jesus’ close friends Lazarus, Martha and Mary.* So it should be no surprise that this was where he went when he arrived in Jerusalem. Here, in this final week of his life, he took time away from the crowds to relax with his friends.

There is something so good about being with long-time friends, people with whom you have grown up, and shared significant life experiences – like going to university or raising your children. I remember one time when I began to feel as if the threads were unravelling in my own daily life. I was extremely tired at the end of an intensely busy term at university, with a publisher’s deadline approaching, and some important meetings coming up in the weeks ahead. I was struggling to stay focused and just get everything done each day. I have learned a long slow lesson in life, though – that when I am that tired, what I need is not to work longer and harder to meet the deadline, but to stop for a break and recharge the batteries. So I called a friend – a fellow academic who lives in a remote house on the side of a hill. We have a lot of history in common; we both spent our 20s in the music industry, both became academics, and have both held posts as Deans and College Presidents. We have swapped notes on everything from raising kids to facing down ugly committee meetings, and there is a lot of affection between us. At the end of the day, I walked through their front door, and it felt as if a weight began to fall off my back. Why? Well, partly because I was ‘away from it all’ and I knew I could switch off from work for 24 hours. Mostly, though, it was because, unlike the kind of mental effort you have to put into meeting new people, with long-term, established friendships there is a level of deep relaxation that meets a fundamental human need.

This, I imagine, is why Jesus went to Bethany. At the end of a long journey, looking around the temple in the evening, and sensing that the day was coming when the pressure around him would come to a head, he went to find his friends (Mark 11:11). They did what they did best: Lazarus sat with him at the table, Martha served dinner, and Mary resumed her habit of sitting at his feet, listening to him talk.

I like the way that the emphasis here is on what others did for him. It is easy always to put the spotlight on what Jesus does for us, but this is another little glimpse into his genuine humanity. And on this occasion, there was an extra and unusual element in what Jesus received from his friends. He was used to their hospitality, eating at their table and bringing a crowd of friends with him. This time, however, Mary did more than just listen; she made an extraordinary gesture with a jar of perfume, something that was not only generous in the extreme but full of symbolism.

Virtually every shopping mall has a place selling imitation perfumes. They look and smell like the designer brands, but usually the smell does not develop in the same way and does not last so well. It was the same in the ancient world: nard was one of the most expensive perfumes available, and there were plenty of cheaper substitutes for it. Pliny the Elder wrote that nard-like perfumes were produced from no fewer than twelve different species of plant. Real nard, though, was made from the root of spikenard, a flowering plant that grows in the Himalayas, and was as expensive as it was rare. Nard was used in worship, being one of the eleven ingredients of the incense used both in the temple at Jerusalem and in temple worship in ancient Egypt. There was great excitement when a jar of perfume was found, still intact, in the tomb of King Tutankhamun. Analysis showed that it was indeed pure nard, confirming previous theories that it was used at royal burials. In some forms of traditional medicine, nard is used to treat emotional pain and deep-seated grief; it is also used in palliative care to ease the transition from life to death. Mary, then, anointed Jesus with this precious oil that was associated with grief and pain, an ointment that ushers in the time of death. With this nard, she was both anointing a king for his burial, and offering worship to him as God.

More than anything else, though, nard was known for its value, and Mary’s jar of nard was not just a little jar; it weighed a whole pound of nard – more than half a kilo. Imagine the size of two packs of butter – that quantity, in solid form, of one of the most expensive perfumes available. Whatever it symbolised in terms of worship and kingship, for Mary it represented her life’s savings, her dowry, her future, her pension, her security.

It is interesting, then, that Jesus simply let her carry on pouring it out on his feet. He did not stop her and say, ‘It’s okay, Mary, you don’t need to do that. I know you love me – but save some of this to look after your own interests.’ He just received her extravagant, over-the-top act of adoration. Perhaps this tells us something about Jesus’ own needs. He knew events were coming to a crisis, he needed to be loved and cared for by his friends at this crucial point in his life, and he allowed them to pour themselves out for him. If even Jesus needed that, how much do we need it? That might be worth remembering when we are tempted to be self-sufficient under stress.

We should also bear in mind that Mary’s act does not represent a daily habit of worship. This was a once-in-a-lifetime act of generosity, something she had never done before and would never be able to repeat. Perhaps she, too, sensed the enormity of what was to come and knew, deep down, that this was her last chance to express her love for Jesus. If we have something precious to give to God, which represents all that we have, then we too need a sense of the right time to give it.

If we are to give our lives in the service of God, then while we do need to be willing to offer everything we have, we also need to choose our moments. We can only pour out our life’s resources so many times. We need to know and understand the value of what we have – not just our possessions but our gifts and talents, our time, the welfare of our children and family, all that makes up our ‘fortune’. We often hear gospel messages about being willing to give more, and about not hoarding what we have, and these are good messages. But equally, if we keep on pouring out all that we have without a thought for the timing or the effect, we may find ourselves at a moment of great significance with nothing left to give.

*(note: there is some research that suggests Lazarus may only have had one sister, not two . . . For more on that, go back to my earlier post, Raising Lazarus)