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."
I don't know if you've ever had movers move you, but they are very thorough. While you and I are reminiscing and trying to organize our lives, categorizing our boxes and living rooms and bathrooms and kitchens, the movers just want to get you moved. They want to finish up and get on to the next location. To this end, they will box up whatever is standing still. I might put the soap, the shower curtain, and the box of Q-Tips in a carefully thought-out box magic markered, "Miscellanous." The movers, on the other hand, are just as happy to put the plunger into the same box as the toothbrushes. The movers sweep through your house with a complete disregard of time and place. They leave sentimentality well outside the door. Their primary concern? Getting you relocated. They are as likely to wrap and pack a trashcan filled with used dental floss and tissue as they are the piece of pottery hand-thrown by a western North Carolina artist.
Even so, I was surprised when my entire home was empty and turning left out of my drive way. Years and years of memories were now heading west toward a place I didn't know well. You know the drill . . . I lingered. Even with the whole place empty, I wandered through the rooms, brushing my fingertips along doorknobs, window sills, and countertops. "I learned a lot about myself here," I told myself. At that moment, my foot brushed across a bump in the carpet. It was a puddle of wax the size of a coaster. Immediately, I remembered a dinner party. Around a farm table my friends and I sat talking about music, art, gossip. We told stories and laughed. Slowly, the candles melted and the wax followed gravity through the large gaps in the board, onto my cheap, light blue, condominium carpet. As my foot brushed across the imprint of that night, I lost it. Matthew was nearby, "You OK?" I was sad and teary. I wanted everything to return to the way it was. I didn't want to grow, move, change. The movers had left nothing in my home except this puddle of wax, a reminder of friends, warmth, and support. It made me wonder if I had made the right decision.
I wonder if this is how Jesus felt that night. He was at a dinner party with his friends. He was in the home of Lazarus, the friend he raised from the dead. He was in the home of Mary and Martha. You remember them, right? It is not his first visit. Yet Martha, true to form, is still busying herself with many tasks. And Mary - Mary with her long hair - is once again at the feet of her Lord. They are all there together. I'm sure a few candles were lighted and spilling down onto the floor. I wonder if Jesus thought to himself, "This is the last time I'll be here. . . . This is the last time things will ever look like this . . . I wonder . . . Is there a way to get out of this?"
Growth.
I can't imagine a more intimate Biblical setting than the one described in John 12;1-8. All of these people have come together. The entirety of Jesus' ministry surrounds him. And Mary, this woman, breaks open a bottle nard. The smell fills the room. It had to be overwhelming. For Jesus, the scent of the oil, the images of his friends, the presence of his betrayer - they had to overtake him and make him wonder what in the hell he had done. But, somehow, this intimacy feels appropriate. Jesus' life, his ministry, is based on closeness. None of Jesus' ministry was at a distance. The fact that Jesus was in a room filled with perfume, candles, and his worst enemy only reassures us that Jesus wants to be as close as possible. Jesus' trial and crucifixion didn't only happen in public - in broad daylight. It happened in the intimacy of his private life, too. His betrayal happens even as soft candles are lit, as food is being cooked, as drinks are being served by delicate hands, and when stories are being told among friends. I'm sorry that no part of Jesus' life was immune to humanity's rejection and betrayal, not even a casual dinner party with friends.
"I learned a lot about myself," Jesus might have said as he left that night.
"The smell of the fragrance filled the room," St. John tells us.
The sweet, wild smell of outdoors, of laughter and friendship, of bitter jealousy, of blood, wood, and contempt. "Let her do what she came here to do," Jesus said of his friend who washes his feet and dries them with her hair. "Pretty soon, all of this will be packed up, gone, a distant memory. The movers will come to sweep it all away."
Twelve years later, I still remember that cooled puddle of wax on the floor. It reminds me of the need to change and to grow and to move beyond what is comfortable. The memory of Matthew holding me on that spot on that blue carpet reminds me of resurrection. The movers can pack as fiercely as they'd like, but resurrection cannot be contained and squeezed into a box. It is like a fragrance filling the room and breathed deeply into the lungs and the laughter of friends - friends who come together on a Friday night to shoot the breeze, drink good wine, and dream about a world filled with beauty and love and wonder.
