April 6, 5th Sunday of Lent
Readings: Is. 43.16-21; Phil. 3.4b-14; Jn. 12.1-8
Theme: The Anointing of Jesus
The theme of anointing runs right through the Old Testament. It was a ritual ceremony which signified something or someone being made holy. In Hebrew, this concept of ‘holiness’ is designated by the word ‘Qedushah’ and to be holy is rendered by the word ‘Qadosh’. Holiness in Jewish theology is understood to be characteristic of God who is totally ‘Other’; separate from us. In the New Testament this understanding of holiness takes on a new meaning. For the writers of the New Testament, holiness is understood to be manifested by Jesus and he is preeminently ‘Emmanuel’: God with us. So, this ritual anointing of Jesus by Mary is loaded with significance as we turn our faces towards Jerusalem for the forthcoming celebration of the Passover with the Lord.
We might say that the anointing of Jesus by Mary in Bethany is the bestowal on Jesus of the divine favour through his election by the Father for the transformation of holiness. God will no longer be the supreme Other to us, he will become one of us in Jesus. This is why we have that rather abrupt saying by Jesus at the end of our Gospel passage, ‘You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.’ Someone unique has entered into the world and this uniqueness is the transformation of holiness as the outpouring of infinite love in Jesus.
This is an epochal transformation of the understanding of God which it is easy for us to fail to grasp because we can grow accustomed to a certain ‘domestication’ of Jesus as we follow him through the events of the New Testament. We might even be tempted to reduce Jesus to being simply human, as only pointing us towards God and not as being God himself. This is why this incident in Bethany is of great importance for us as we journey through Lent towards the events which will transpire in Jerusalem in the coming days. The highly expensive perfume, of a value of 300 denarii, made of pure nard, is pointing us towards this fact as Mary anoints Jesus’s feet and wipes them with her hair. The whole house is filled with the fragrance of this perfume as a sign that through the anointing of Jesus there will be a transmission of holiness to others.
But what is this holiness that is signified in this incident of the anointing of Jesus? In order to understand it, we need to realize what is meant by the sentence, ‘The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume’. The house in Bethany represents a new understanding of the temple, which in ancient cultures was considered to be a place where heaven was mediated to earth. So, for example, Mount Olympus in Greece was thought to be both the place where the gods met one another and also the place where heaven and earth met. This temple or sanctuary is frequently understood in the Old Testament to be the place of meeting, the ‘Tent of Meeting’ as in the case when Moses goes into the Tent to communicate with God in the Exodus 25.22. We will see this understanding of the temple transformed in the events which will transpire in Jerusalem as the death of Jesus on the cross will tear down the veil separating the Holy of Holies and the Holy place (Mt. 27.51; Heb. 6.19-20). The place where God dwells will be transformed by Jesus from the temple or sanctuary to Jesus himself and the community of believers who will be bathed in the fragrance of his perfume that will be his blood. This is the ‘chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise’ spoken of in the first reading from the prophet Isaiah.
In opposition to Mary who realizes this transformation of holiness, the Gospel passage contrasts Judas Iscariot. He symbolizes the resistance to Jesus as the Holy One who prefers to keep God at a distance and who has a transactional relationship involving money with the events which are to take place. He does not realize what God is doing in Jesus and so he reverts back to a view of God as the distant One. This is why Jesus expostulates him with the words, ‘Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial’. The forthcoming death of Jesus will be the collapsing of the separation between God and us. Holiness will no longer be separated from the realm of mortality and death. It will enter this place of mortality and transform it into the immortality of the divine life. This is why the veil in the temple will be torn down by the death of Jesus because no longer will God dwell outside of our mortal experience. He will accompany us as we enter with him into death, so that he can guide us out the other side into the new life of his resurrection. This is the ‘new thing’ that God is doing at the Passover. It is the ‘way in the wilderness and (the) rivers in the desert’ which Isaiah is speaking about in looking towards the coming of the messiah.
So, as we celebrate this final Sunday before Palm Sunday which will soon be upon us next week, let us ask the Lord to be made holy by him, so that we too can declare his praise for all the generations to come.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.