You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. As the musky fragrance of the oil fills the house, Judas - the disciple who “keeps the common purse,” rebukes Mary for her scandalous generosity: “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” But Jesus silences him: “Leave her alone. The two sisters host a dinner party for Jesus, and it’s during the festivities that Mary breaks open her jar, anoints Jesus with spikenard (a scented oil worth a year’s wages) and wipes his feet with her hair. In John’s version, the woman is Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and the newly resurrected Lazarus. Each writer frames the event differently, to suit his own thematic and theological concerns, but the story at its core remains one of the most sensual, tender, and provocative in the New Testament.
A story of love enacted in fragrance.Īll four Gospels tell it - the story of a woman who kneels at Jesus’s feet, breaks an alabaster jar filled with priceless perfume, and dares to love Jesus in the flesh.
What does love smell like? What does hope smell like? What does resurrection smell like? On this fifth Sunday of Lent, as we draw closer to Jesus’s final week, and prepare to contemplate his suffering, we’re invited into a story of the senses.
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