Philippians 3:4b-14 John 12:1-8
You may recall that this scene made it into the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. Judas, growing increasingly outraged at the direction things are going, just loses it here. He sings essentially the same words that are in the text. Meanwhile, Mary and a chorus of women are singing a soothing song to Jesus, urging him to relax: try not to get worried; don’t you know everything is alright now, everything’s fine. We want you to sleep well tonight. Let the world turn without you tonight.
In the play, Jesus needs soothing because he has become overwhelmed by the masses coming to him for healing. But in the actual biblical text in John’s gospel, if he needs soothing, we can probably attribute that to what has happened just before this text.
In the previous chapter, Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead. And for Lazarus and his family and a lot of others, this is cause for celebration. But, of course, not everyone is celebrating.
Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, they were good friends of Jesus, and had been for some time. Jesus stayed at their house when he traveled through town. Mary sat at his feet, drinking in his every word; Martha toiled away in the kitchen to prepare a feast worthy of their guest. Mary and Martha and Lazarus loved Jesus.
And Jesus loved them, too. But when he gets word that Lazarus is dying, he decides to wait before going to him. He said, It’s not the dying kind of sickness. But it was, and Jesus knew it. It seems like Jesus is setting up the situation where he will raise Lazarus from the dead.
When he finally does arrive in Bethany, Lazarus has been dead four days. His family and friends have already laid him in the tomb and sealed it. There is no question about this – Lazarus is most certainly dead when Jesus calls his name and Lazarus walks out of the tomb in his grave clothes.
All the people there knew they had witnessed something extraordinary. And, of course, word of this amazing sign gets to the religious authorities – the Pharisees and the Priests. Rather than rejoice at the power of God on display, they are worried about the potential for chaos breaking loose. And this is where Caiaphas, the Chief Priest says, “It is better to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” Now plans are underway. Jesus will be sacrificed.
The clock is ticking now and he knows it.
Now, in this chapter, it is six days before the Passover, Jesus is again at the home of Lazarus, newly alive, and Martha and Mary. And Mary sits down at his feet and pours out a pound of perfume and anoints his feet, wipes them with her hair. The smell of the perfume fills the house.
I wonder what it smells like.
The text says it is made of nard; spikenard, which is a flowering plant known for the medicinal properties of its oil. The oil has a therapeutic aroma that helps relax the body and mind. In ancient times it was regarded as one of the most precious oils. It was quite expensive, this nard oil; it was quite extravagant, pouring out a full pound of it on Jesus’ feet.
What does it smell like, this nard oil? To Judas, it smells like waste.
The scent of the oil raises his ire, and he voices his righteous indignation. The money spent on this could have fed the poor. But John can’t help whispering to his audience: Judas didn’t give a fig about the poor. He was an embezzler, stealing from the treasury. Even so, does he have a point? Was it wasteful to pour out a pound of perfume on Jesus’ feet?
Meanwhile, Martha is still busy fixing food, and Lazarus sits at the table quietly. You could almost forget that Lazarus was only recently dead and in the grave. Literally. Here he is, sitting at the dinner table with his family and guests. He is alive and, I imagine, happy about that. He doesn’t yet know that as he sits there the Chief Priests are plotting to have him murdered. In their minds, Lazarus is the problem. If he weren’t walking around alive, people wouldn’t be able to talk about how amazing Jesus is. They think that if they can just get rid of Lazarus, people will stop following Jesus and everything can return to normal. Lazarus doesn’t know that he will be dead again soon.
For now, he sits among his guests enjoying the aroma of the nard oil perfume. What does it smell like to Lazarus? To him, it smells like life.
Mary, I have always assumed, doesn’t let Judas and his rantings disturb her. She continues rubbing that oil she has poured out on him, using her hair; her head is bent down, her face in the thick of the scent. She is enjoying the smell of it. To Mary it smells like gratitude.
She is grateful for the gift Jesus has given to her and her family. Lazarus was dead and there was no expectation that he would live again. Yes, the sisters understood that Lazarus would rise someday – on the Day of Resurrection, the Day of Judgment, the end of time as we know it. But Jesus says to them, I AM the resurrection. I AM the life. Mary and Martha knew that they would have life through Jesus, and they bore witness to this truth that day when he called Lazarus out from the tomb. To Mary, this perfume she is filling the air with is the scent of her gratitude.
While Judas is filling the air with his self-righteous rants, Jesus speaks up in defense of Mary. “Leave her alone. She needs this for my burial.”
Now, it is hard to know how to take this. Because, in fact, she is not using it for his burial, she is using it on his living body. If it was for his burial, then she has, indeed, wasted it. But with these words, what Jesus has done is brought death back into the room.
To Jesus, this perfume is the smell of death. Because he knows that death is all around him and his own death is before him. The Passover is coming. He will travel on to Jerusalem for the festival, even though he knows there is a warrant out for him.
He knows that he must go on. He must walk into it. Because everything he has done has moved him in this direction, to this end. There is no turning back for him. The day of sacrifice is coming. As Caiaphas said, one man must die for the sake of many. It’s in the air.
It is the scent of sacrifice.
Strange, isn’t it? Thinking of all these things in terms of smell. The Apostle Paul used an unusual phrase in one of his letters, calling us “the aroma of Christ.” But it is a way of saying that we, as his followers bring him with us wherever we go – and not just in words. When we have Christ in us, we fill the air with him. Anyone will know the sincerity of our intentions because we carry the very aroma of Christ within us.
It is the scent of a lavish gift poured out to overflowing. It is the scent of his words and deeds, the scent of his crucifixion and resurrection. It is the scent of gratitude, the scent of sacrifice, the scent of death, and the scent of life.
In this reading from Philippians, Paul says there are so many things that used to be important to me but no longer matter. There are so many things I used to be concerned about but these things are now only rubbish. All that matters now is Christ crucified. Sacrificed. He said, all I want now is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. Like Jesus did, on his way to Jerusalem, I press on, Paul says, straining forward to what lies ahead: the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
As we move toward Holy Week, may you press on. May you breathe in the aroma of Christ, and may you fill the air with him.
