Christian Art | Mary Anoints Jesus At Bethany
The Gospel Of Saint John – Chapter 12 | Audio King James Version Bible | KJV
1 THEN Jesus six days before the Passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.
2 There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.
3 Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.
4 Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, which should betray him,
5 Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?
6 This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.
7 Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this.
8 For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.
9 Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there: and they came not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead.
10 ¶ But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death;
11 Because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus.
We have entered into Holy Week. In this reading of the Bible, Jesus prepares for his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. For now he has had to hide himself from the Jewish authorities. His preaching and miracles over the course of the previous eleven books of John (the Book of the Signs) has increasingly aroused the hatred of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish council, and they are determined to kill him. Jesus has retreated to the home of friends. Despite the danger, Martha, Mary and Lazarus wish to show him their friendship and hospitality. They share a meal. The love they show to Jesus is in marked contrast with the hatred of the scribes and the Pharisees and the betrayal by Judas.
As we have heard in our Palm Sunday reading, Mary anoints Jesus. In John’s account, she anoints Jesus’ feet and wipes them with her hair. This is a sign of great love and humility, which Jesus will offer to his followers in John’s account of the Last Supper. The ointment she uses is very precious, costing a year’s wages for a labouring man, and the whole house is filled with the beautiful scent.
We learn in these verses of John’s Gospel that Judas is a thief and a hypocrite prior to his ultimate betrayal of Jesus. He objects to using the ointment to anoint Jesus, when it could have been sold and given to the poor. This is outright hypocrisy. He does not care for Jesus. Rather, Judas is the person in charge of Jesus’ and the disciples’ money and he has stolen from the communal funds. Satan has long since entered into Judas’ heart.
Jesus replies by recognising Mary’s love and also by anticipating the Easter events of the passion, crucifixion, death and resurrection. It will be, he says, for Mary to show tenderness for our Lord’s crucified body by anointing him. He adds: ‘For the poor always ye have with you.’
This in no wise means that Jesus does not care for the poor. Rather he is quoting a verse from Deuteronomy (15: 11), with which all the people present and of Bible times would have been familiar. The verse reads: ‘For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.’ Jesus is, in fact, teaching us always to show mercy, love and charity to the poor.
The crowd now hear where Jesus is and flock to see him and also Lazarus, whom Jesus has raised from the dead. Perhaps they came through an initial spark of faith, perhaps more through superficial curiosity and short-lived enthusiasm.
Such is the perverse and self-seeking thinking of the chief priests, that now Lazarus is also in danger, because he serves as a living testimony to Jesus the Son of God.
‘What a shining piece of magnanimity is this “extravagance” on Mary’s part! Judas, on the other hand, laments this “waste” of so valuable a perfume; in his greed he had been calculating the price: it would have fetched at least “three hundred silver pieces”.
‘True detachment leads us to be very generous with God and with our fellow-men… Don’t be mean and grudging with people who, without counting the cost, have given of their all, everything they have, for your sake. Just ask yourselves, how much does it cost you – in financial terms as well – to be Christians? Above all, don’t forget that “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7).’ St Josemaria Escriva
The first step in overcoming addiction is to acknowledge the problem. This can be one of the hardest steps, as it requires us to admit that we have a problem that we cannot solve on our own. It can be easy to think that we can handle things on our own, or that we don’t want to burden others with our problems. But the truth is that addiction is bigger than we are, and it requires a concerted effort to overcome [ … ]
Jesus’ public ministry begins as John the Baptist’s concludes, John being imprisoned by Herod for speaking out against the immorality of Herod’s sexual relationship with his brother’s wife. Mission comes with danger, and John the Baptist was not afraid. Nor now is Jesus. Indeed, Jesus begins to preach with the very same words with which John had warned the people to beware of their sins: Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand [ … ]
Sometimes, when I read my Bible, I pause in the reading and say to myself: ‘This bit’s real.’ It would be fair to say, I have issues with Mary, because, contrary to what we are taught to say, Mary isn’t my mother. Rather: Mum is. One bit of the Bible-text says this: And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, “He is beside himself.” … And his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Mark 3: 21; 31-35.) Here she comes. She is in considerable distress. I can imagine that. I can relate to that. To save her boy from whatever he’s got himself into this time. And you’re not telling me there isn’t something inside that. Her boy is beside himself. Radical. Radicalized. Radicalizing. A misunderstood word. /ˈradɪk(ə)l/ adjective & noun. 1 Forming the root, basis, or foundation; original, primary. 2a Inherent in the nature of a thing or person; fundamental. b Of action, change, an idea: going to the root or origin; far-reaching, thorough. c Advocating thorough or far-reaching change. d Characterized by departure from tradition; progressive; unorthodox. ‘He has a demon! And he is mad!’ – thus ‘the Jews’. (e.g. John 10: 20.) Come home! It’s all she wants. His family want him back now. But it is an exclusive cult: there is an inside and there is an outside; and on the outside, they are not meant to understand, lest they be converted. He has defined himself as different from anything she was. Only at the end does Jesus say to his Mum – and with savage, bitter irony: ‘Woman, behold your son.’ And then he dies. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. We ask that we might find Mary in our hearts as a Yes! place for Jesus. It is also recommended that we pray to Jesus that we may be further in oneness with Mary. It is self-emptying, such that we only exist insofar as we are responsive to God’s Word. * Last term, and put-out to pasture, the old Archbishop Emeritus came over to stay for a few days and did the odd class with us. He spoke of Yes! as the meaning of Mary’s virginity. And we were not very nice about him. One or two took umbrage. One or two got the hump. In a sense, his Grace, the Arch, basically wanted to move anyone he’d ever known from a high-place – a mountain – received theological ‘truth’ – to an imminent, human plane. Earthing the spiritual. Recalibrating metrics of life’s believability toward a spiritual sense of things. He might have asked the impermissible question: what happened? His Grace described it. God’s love as a cloud. This descended upon Mary – and subsumed her. Within the cloud, Mary capitulated utterly. She became only and purely a response to God’s love. As he spoke, the Arch cradled her. He carried her in his lap – in his hands. His Grace was a consecrated bishop. He was faith. He sat squat, a rounded man, hands cupped and ankles crossed, fingers interlocked, with parted thighs. Rumpled, washed, speckled. A lifetime’s skin… There could be no doubt His Grace spoke through long-term personal relationship with Mary. It was Julian went for him: ‘So are you saying Mary was a Virgin? Or are you not saying Mary was a Virgin?’ Nasty. No, it wasn’t pretty. Julian twisting his silver ring. For a moment, what Julian had said to the Arch simply failed to communicate. No, for a moment, that dumped on the air meant nothing. Then His Grace said: ‘There is a range of possible meanings we may understand in the question of Mary’s virginity. For example, there are understandings of the word virginity entailed in the action of giving birth.’ Julian said: ‘Duh! So had she had sex or hadn’t she?’ Trigger words. No, it wasn’t pretty. On that went for a little while. At length, Julian’s point seemed reluctantly conceded. Then the Arch told us a new story, an additionally human event, the more to baffle us. Controversially, he told us that Mary could not have been Joseph’s first wife, for this would not have been the way of things in the society of that time. His belief was that Joseph must have taken Mary into his household through pity. That would be normal, he said, for Joseph to bring a young, vulnerable girl, who is about to have a baby, within his protection, not meaning to enjoy with her marital relations, but through kindness. ‘And this story of the inn and stable,’ the Archbishop said, ‘it can’t have been like that really. Joseph has travelled with Mary to stay with his family, at home in Bethlehem, and they don’t want Mary in their house, for reasons which I am sure we can understand. It must have been there was considerable resistance to Mary. But Mary gives birth, and who can resist a baby? That’s what happened. It must have been. ‘I’m convinced that must have been how it happened really.’ Later that term, toward the beginning of Advent, we met boys who had been here before, in Valladolid, and now were in regular seminary. They had heard and recited verbatim all the Archbishop had said to them. Their spot-on impressions of each of the fathers were scathing. […]
