April 2: Monday in Holy Week

Pure Nard

A few days after he had raised my brother from the dead,
he came back and had dinner at our house in Bethany.
Martha served and Lazarus lingered at the table.
The smell of death was in the air.
We had been through all this recently so I recognized the signs.
No one could shake my intuition that he was doomed to die soon.
What could I do to serve him, to linger in his presence?
In my room, I still had a pound of expensive perfume made from pure nard which we had bought to anoint Lazarus for burial.

I went and got it.

With it I anointed Jesus' feet and wiped them with my long hair.
The house was filled with its fragrance.
It smelled like lilies and roses.  
Judas balked at my extravagance and questioned why
we had not sold the perfume and given the money to the poor.
Jesus told him to leave me alone, knowing I would keep it for the day of his burial.

It was the sabbath before Passover.

Who would have guessed that a week later I would be bringing the perfume to his tomb to anoint him for burial?
But once again I did not need to anoint a dead man.
He had been raised from the dead.
This was less difficult for me to believe than for the other women who had come with me. They were not from Bethany and had not heard of the miracle of Lazarus' return.

Somehow this was different.

It was as if he had gone to the other side of death only to redeem it as well. He did not come back to life as my brother had.We could no longer touch him.

He no longer needed sleep and food and work and friends to make him strong.

And yet the power of his risen presence transformed our lives. All we did began to center around him.Even though we continued to worship in the synagogue until it was destroyed in 70 AD., more and more we were drawn to the simple breaking of bread we had learned from him.Every meal became an expression of our love for one another. This table fellowship bound us as followers of the way.

He also enlarged our hearts.

Martha and Lazarus began inviting the poor and outcasts in the street to come and eat with us, washing their feet and waiting on them. We remember him in the breaking of the bread. Still, I cannot forget the feel of his feet, the gaze on his face, the lilt in his voice, the energy with which he walked and talked.

The faintest scent of lilies and roses touches my heart deeply.