Anointing
Mark 14:1-11
Have you ever anointed someone with oil?
Photo by Jason Song on Unsplash
It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; for they said, "Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people." While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, "Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor." And they scolded her. But Jesus said, "Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her." Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. When they heard it, they were greatly pleased, and promised to give him money. So he began to look for an opportunity to betray him. - Mark 14:1-11
As a deacon, one of my duties is to visit the sick and the dying, and in the course of that visit, I may pray over and anoint the patient.
It is a solemn moment and also one that brings comfort and peace to the person being anointed.
You would think it would be stressful, since it is often viewed as a sign that death is near.
Jesus points to this fact in his rebuttal when the woman's act is challenged.
All four Gospels contain a version of this event, with one having it occur at the home of Martha and Mary earlier in Jesus' ministry, and one at the home of a Pharisee, also named Simon.
Because the woman in that case was described as a "sinful woman" it is believed it may have been Mary Magdalene, but she was not mentioned.
What I find interesting in Mark's account is how Judas reacts to the anointing. Jesus says he is being prepared for his death, and Judas immediately goes to surrender him to the people who will kill him.
What was his motive or intent in doing that?
Mark says it is an act of betrayal, but it is believed in other textx, not included in our Scriptures, that Judas may have been acting on Jesus' orders.
That idea is so shocking to us that we discount it, preferring to believe that Judas was a thief, and his motive was to gain money for his actions.
Could it be that Judas was the only one who understood what was about to happen to Jesus?
I bring this up here to make a point about our beliefs.
We have come to believe what we were told was Judas' motive in handing Jesus over, just as we were told that the woman in Bethany who anointed Jesus was sinful.
We believe these things because we have no other point of reference, but what if we did have other documents that say something different?
The early church disregarded those because they didn't fit the narrative.
Interesting.
When we study Scripture, we seek to understand what is happening in it. Why is the story told this way? We know the purpose of these stories was and continues to be to teach us about Jesus and his followers.
His life, death, and resurrection were so powerful that his story needed to be told. The leaders at the time called this heresy and disputed it because it was incisive, causing the people to rise up in protest.
Jesus came to show us we could and should live differently, that we should love one another as God loves us.
We tend to forget that when we get caught up in the details of our lives. Even those closest to him at the time were confused by what was happening. They sought a different kind of Messiah, so they struggled to interpret what they saw in a way that fit their narratives.
The truth is often difficult to see. Jesus taught us that.
Therefore, we acknowledge that the differences in the Gospel readings do not necessarily mean the stories are incorrect, but rather that the memories of these events are like all human memories.
The woman anointed Jesus out of love and respect for him. If that is all we take away from this, that is a lot.
She is saying to us, "Take a pause and see what I am doing. Do likewise to one another."
More to come...