Why?

Isaiah 43: 16 - 21

John 12: 1 – 8

April 6, 2025

Well, here we are – again – on the cusp of Holy Week. Next Sunday is the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. Next Sunday is the beginning of the Passion of Jesus. Next Sunday is the beginning of an emotional and spiritual roller coaster for Jesus and his followers – both then and today.

Next Sunday is the beginning of a series of choices – for Jesus and for us. How far will Jesus go? How far will we be willing to go? Peter will pledge to die for Jesus and yet, on the night of his arrest Peter will give in to community pressure and deny Jesus at the house of Caiaphas.

How about us? How many excuses will we employ so that we don’t have to walk the entire week with Jesus? It is so much more comfortable to just waive palm branches on Palm Sunday and then smell lilies on Easter. We will have to make decisions about how far, and at what cost, are we willing to travel with Jesus next week.

And yet, even before Palm Sunday, consequential decisions are being made. After watching Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, people have decided either to believe or to run to the Pharisees telling these adversaries of Jesus of what Jesus has done. The Chief Priests, Pharisees, and other members of the Sanhedrin have gathered and have decided that they have to finally deal with this threat, this Jesus. They call for his death.

Yes, critical decisions are already being made.

In light of this danger, Jesus has left Bethany and traveled to Ephraim – a wilderness town in the hill country of Judea. Those who have been on pilgrimage to Israel know Ephraim as the modern day Taybeh, a prominent Christian town roughly 13 miles from Bethany. To Ephraim, and now to Bethany, Jesus has gone to escape the spies of the Pharisees and those who seek to arrest him.

Now, six days before Passover – meaning the day before Palm Sunday, just next Saturday – Jesus has come to Bethany, to the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus for one final night and meal with his dear friends. We don’t know that much about Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha.

They were clearly people of some means, of some level of wealth. The family had been prosperous enough to own a cave tomb in which Lazarus had been placed. Mary had access to enough funds to purchase an expensive ointment made from pure nard, the cost of which was almost a year’s salary for the common worker. A celebration meal had been served and presided over by Martha. Interestingly, the Greek term used to describe Martha’s presentation of the meal was dioconia. It was a word that meant both service and, by the end of the first century when the Gospel of John was written, a word used to describe a council of church leadership – the Deacons.

Jesus has come, for a final night of fellowship with his dear friends, and decisions are being made. The grieving of Mary at the passing of Lazarus had moved Jesus. And now, after the raising of Lazarus, the powerful passion of Mary has moved her to spend a fortune on spikenard. Spikenard, often simply called Nard, was an oil made from shrubs on the hillsides of the Himalayan Mountains of China, India, and Nepal. As an imported oil, it was very expensive, although much cheaper knockoffs did exist. This, however, was the real stuff, the expensive stuff, the incredibly extravagant stuff.

As Gail O’Day, a professor at the Wake Forest Divinity school has told us, the home of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha; a home that was once filled with the stench of death is now filled by the fragrance of perfume – more importantly, the fragrance of Mary’s love and devotion.

In an act of stunning intimacy, Mary has unbound her hair - something no proper Jewish woman did in the first century – and used her hair in the anointing of the feet of Jesus. At her time, as part of the weeklong marriage celebration, the new bride bound her up on her head and, other than in private at home – was never seen with it down in public again. This was an incredibly powerful display of worship and adoration. The extravagant expense of the oil compliments the power of breaking cultural conventions in an act of praise and worship.

Such loving service has served as an exemplar for followers of Jesus for 2,000 years. Mary’s expression of discipleship is as powerful and consequential today as when it first happened. And in the face of such an example, the contrast of Judas is made just that much sharper.

By the time of the writing of the fourth and final Gospel, the betrayer of Jesus was clearly known and identified. The name Judas Iscariot was synonymous with the word betrayer. In the melodramas of the 19th and 20th centuries, the name or entrance of Judas Iscariot on stage would have been met with boos, hisses, and catcalls.

Judas raises a question that, if we are honest, many of us would have raised when faced with the extravagance of Mary’s gift. “How could you spend 300 denarii – almost an entire year’s salary – on a gift of such significance that would be here one minute and gone the next?” The words of Judas are accurate. Mary’s act of love was incredibly, even overwhelmingly extravagant. 300 denarii could have been used in life changing ways for the poor. The words of Judas were accurate even if his heart was not.

If Mary is an exemplar of discipleship, Judas is increasingly a traitorous heart.

Judas complains that the money could have been given to the poor; but what that really means was that the 300 denarii could have been given to him as the treasurer, the keeper of the disciple’s ministry funds. As such, Judas could have skimmed off a portion for himself. As the text tells us, Judas “used to steal” from the disciple’s communal purse.

Jesus rebukes Judas, “leave her alone,” he says. Mary’s act of washing and anointing the feet of Jesus as an act of love and service, eerily foreshadows the washing and anointing of the disciple’s feet by Jesus as an act of love and service. The perfume which has overcome the stench of death in the home of Lazarus will overcome the stench of death in the tomb of Jesus.

Jesus then says something that has troubled believers for centuries. “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” It is as though a binary choice has been given to the disciples. Expend your funds on me in worship and adoration or spend your funds on the poor. But, as 21st Century Believers, we forget to whom Jesus is speaking.

Jesus was a first century, devout Jew speaking to disciples who were also first century devout Jews. The first readers of the John were Jews or first century Gentile converts who would have become extensively familiar with Hebrew Scriptures. The faithful Jews of that day learned scripture by heart and so, what seems like a casual, unsympathetic dismissal of the poor in that day, actually needs to be heard in light of scripture that all of the listeners of Jesus would have known and immediately brought to mind.

From Deuteronomy 15:

7 “If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. 8 You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. 9 Be careful that you do not entertain a mean thought, thinking, ‘The seventh year, the year of remission, is near,’ and therefore view your needy neighbor with hostility and give nothing; your neighbor might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt. 10 Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. 11 Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’”

Listen now again to Jesus: “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” Jesus wasn’t telling his disciples not to care for the poor. They already knew, extensively, of their obligations to care for the needy, they would have had those directions memorized and inscribed on their hearts. The disciples knew exactly what they were supposed to do for the poor. But the question is, “Do we know what we are supposed to do with Jesus?” As Pastor Dawn Hutchings writes, “There’s the rub. How do we deal with Jesus?”

We have so many questions in front of us and I am not going to presume to answer them for all who take God’s word seriously. What decisions do we need to make about Holy Week participation? The disciples, as followers of Jesus, had no choice. But we do. Each and every day of Holy Week - but especially on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and on Easter - how far are we willing to walk with Jesus?

Jesus has turned his face towards Jerusalem and the events of Holy Week, and his resulting death, is an expression of love, service, and sacrifice. As those seeking to grow in our Christ-likeness, are we willing to turn our face towards the weeks, months, and years in front of us with a similar lifestyle of love, service, and sacrifice?

Mary has chosen to shower upon Jesus an extravagant love, worship, and discipleship. Is our love for Jesus so great that we can’t help but do the same? Will Mary serve as a life example for us as a true disciple?

Or will we follow the example of Judas, with our own agendas and a willingness to superimpose our will over God’s? Will we follow the example of Judas and feel free to skim resources that have been entrusted into our care when they could have been used in service to God and God’s people?

Finaly, the disciples knew of their scriptural obligations to the poor, that wasn’t the question. The question was, and is, what will WE do with Jesus?

Will we follow the examples of Mary….. or Judas? Love and adoration or self-centeredness and ego? Many questions rise before us as we come to Holy Week. How will OUR story unfold? Amen.