Holy Monday
England, ca. 1503–4. Peniarth MS 482D, fol. 15v, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.
John 12:1-11
The intimate scene of the dinner in Bethany, whether it was a thanksgiving feast for the raising of Lazarus or just spontaneous hospitality by these three great friends of Jesus: Martha, Mary and their brother, occurs during a series of events with cosmic proportions.
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.’
Mary anoints the feet of Jesus – the only part of his body in her reach, since unlike the quaint mediaeval illustration above, the men would have been reclined with their heads and hands around a low table, with their legs stretched out around. She used a fortune’s worth of a perfume: spikenard, which came only from the Himalayas (India) and would have been traded a great distance along the ancient “spice road.” It was worth almost a year’s salary of a labourer in the estimate of Judas – trust a crook to accurately value a luxury. A pound of spikenard today costs over $1100, but the equivalent value of a year’s salary would be 10 to 50x more. It was her love-gift for his burial, evidence that her sensitive soul recognized the deadly peril Jesus faced. The traitor cared nothing for the poor but was a thief – having already fallen far from grace for filthy lucre and now planning to betray Jesus to the Jerusalem cabal for just 30 denarii.
Into this charged conflict had been injected the extraordinary, astounding and very public calling back of Lazarus from four-days-dead in his sepulchre (John 11). That became a turning point for many in the community to fully commit to Jesus as Christ in direct opposition to the hierarchy.
When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.
[The use of the aggressive term ‘Jews’ in John’s gospel to designate the unbelieving temple leadership and their followers is highly controversial but probably reflects intense tension between Jewish synagogues and early Christian churches in the locales where this gospel was written or received.]
Hebrews 9:11-15. The Letter to the Hebrews gives us the mile-high view:
But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption….For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, because a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant.
Christian theology maintains that the confrontation between Jesus and the temple clique was – quite beyond human purview – part of a grand divine plan whereby Jesus became our sacrifice, enabling the event of redemption through his crucifixion on Good Friday as a complete fulfillment of the Passover, not celebrated in the Jerusalem temple, but enacted in the Father’s abode in heaven. In the true ‘temple’ of which the earthly structure was a mere shadow.
This event was an agony for Jesus as both suffering human and divine mediator. It caused utmost grief to Mary and all Jesus’ many friends and followers. It is unconscionably sad that, in history, this event also become a pretext for the persecution of Jews through blaming the decedents of the synagogues as ‘Christ-killers’. This serves as a solemn warning against practicing Christianity as a folk-religion without humility and in ignorance of theological understanding.
Indeed, it is a profound responsibility to be of those who are called [that we] may receive the promised eternal inheritance. May our lives be worthy of our calling, in this Lenten season, and ever after.
René Booré
Said Judas to Mary Sydney Carter, 1964 Performed by ValLimar Jansen and the choir of Christ the King Church
Kingston, Rhode Island, 2015
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