Our Lenten Pilgrimage, Day 37

"The Lenten Pilgrimage" - Day 37

March 31st

Wednesday of Holy Week

      “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 where 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 had 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.”

      Mark 14:3-9

     Breathe in the soft aroma that fills the house.  The smell of the ointment of nard is sweet, inviting, warm.  Yet, it adds to the heaviness of the air in the room.   We’re two days away from Passover, two days away from the cross.  Mark’s unnamed woman has come to Simon’s Bethany house to anoint that tender, warm living body that will soon be cold and dead.

     And in her extravagant act of generosity and love, we catch a glimpse of the extravagant act of love that will soon be revealed on the cross.

Prayer

     Lord Jesus, in this tender act of extravagant love poured out upon you, we are reminded

     of your extravagant love revealed on the cross.  In the biblical scene before us, there is 

     love and anger, there's both life and death.  And in the midst of it all, we see your love on 

     display.  Like the woman in the story, help us to be vehicles of your extravagant love.  In your 

     name we pray.  Amen.