John 12:1-8

This Gospel passage captures a moment in the close relationship between Jesus and two of his friends who probably know each other quite well: Mary of Bethany and Judas, the apostle. Mary and Judas could not seem more dissimilar… except for one thing. If we consider this Gospel scene “forensically,” that is, if we do some detective work and look under the surface, we can pick up some traces of evidence that inform the complicated interaction here between these three: Jesus, Mary, and Judas.

This is a dinner party taking place in Mary’s own home, a home she shares with her sister, Martha, and brother, Lazarus, three siblings with whom Jesus has the closest of relationships.[i] The back story is that a week or so before this dinner Lazarus had become very ill. Jesus, the friend and healer, was summoned, but he was slow to arrive. Meanwhile Lazarus dies. Stone dead. Jesus finally arrives in Bethany and is greeted by Mary, weeping. She kneels at Jesus’ feet in deep grief, imploring him how Jesus could have prevented this tragedy of Lazarus’ death had Jesus shown up on time.[ii] Now it is Jesus who weeps. And then Jesus acts. Jesus miraculously brings Lazarus back to life. It’s nothing less than a resurrection![iii]

So we move ahead a few days to the Gospel lesson we have just heard. Mary is once more kneeling at Jesus’ feet; however this time she has tears of joy. Mary massages Jesus’ feet with nard, which is a scented oil, a perfume used for anointing and for burial rituals.[iv] Nard is wonderfully aromatic and extremely expensive. The amount of nard Mary uses with Jesus was worth almost an entire year’s wage for a laborer. So this is a very demonstrative sign… of what? For one, it’s a public demonstration of the depth of Mary’s gratitude and love for Jesus; secondly, this also signals Jesus’ own impending death, which is how Jesus defends what Mary has just done. Then there is a third layer of symbolism about this anointing.

Though anointing was typically used on a body at death; anointing was also used for healing in life; furthermore anointing was used in royal pageantry for the enthronement of a king. The Hebrew word Messiah means “the anointed one.” All of that is symbolized in Mary’s subservient, extremely grateful act of anointing Jesus’ feet, and with her hair no less. It was a profound sign. Was it provocative, sexually? That has never been the biblical scholars interpretation. This anointing occurred in an open space, within a very close sister-brother kind of relationship between Mary of Bethany and Jesus, and it was witnessed by Jesus’ closest friends and apostles. Among them a scornful Judas Iscariot.

In Holy Week, which we soon celebrate, we will hear a great deal more about Jesus’ apostle, Judas. If Mary of Bethany is single-minded, with a pure heart, Judas seems completely the opposite. He is unscrupulous, scandalous, calculating, two-faced. Judas’ duplicitous reprimand of Mary is lost on no one when he chastises Mary for wasting the precious nard that ought to have been sold to help the poor. It is Judas who is on the take, and everyone knows it, including Jesus.

Mary of Bethany and Judas Iscariot could hardly seem to be more different. Yet they have at least one significant thing in common: their personal need. They both have been followers of Jesus. Why? We don’t know. And this is where we do not have a “back story.” We know virtually nothing about Judas’ and Mary’s families of origin. We do not know how they were raised, nor about their aspirations, nor about their strengths and vulnerabilities, nor about their reasons why they chose to follow Jesus as their Savior.

Both Mary and Judas would have known how Jesus began his public ministry by saying that he was fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy “to bind up the broken hearted, proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.”[v] How did Jesus’ proclamation fit Mary’s needs? We do not know how she had been “broken hearted,” or “captive,” or “imprisoned.” Nor do we know this about Judas. We do know Jesus’ promise of salvation obviously had spoken to both of them. They both had had a desire and need to follow Jesus on his way.

But what happened to Judas? Why did he subvert his life to betray Jesus and go such a different way? We come up short on any explanation, which was true then and is true now. Why do people do bad things? Consider the appalling acts of violence and ignominy perpetrated by individuals down through history up to the present, including what appears today in our own media. No matter how much we know about a leader or perpetrator, we always have at least one jigsaw piece missing for us to complete the picture why he or she came to this. Why did this person set off on a path of deceit or treachery and with the tsunami of suffering and evil that followed? We never have the complete picture of other people, nor even of ourselves.

We planned our liturgy this morning to begin with a corporate confession of sin, as you know. We did not survey you in advance to see if this would be a helpful thing to offer you. We presumed it would be, this opportunity for us to confess our sins and amend our lives. It’s listed in the bulletin; you knew it was coming. We did the same thing last Sunday. For those of us who live here in this monastery, we have faced a similar invitation for confession of our sins every single day since last Sunday. Every day. Sin is so tedious. Sometimes it’s appalling. There are lapses every day, big and small. Don’t we know?

A century ago Simone Weil said “All sins are attempts to fill voids.”[vi] I find that quite perceptive. “All sins are attempts to fill voids.” What were the voids in Judas’ life? What was missing? We don’t know. What are the voids in your life? Even you do not have a complete understanding about the what and the why of your own life. Which is quite humbling. And it could be, or should be, quite humbling as we judge other people: both the people whom we are drawn to love and the people whom we are prone to hate. Jesus had seen something wondrous, some amazing potential in Judas which perhaps no one else had ever seen or known about him, maybe including Judas himself. And then Judas became a turncoat. Following his treachery, if Judas had not committed suicide, would Jesus have ever forgiven him?[vii] Of course he would. Look what happened with his fellow apostle, Peter, who also publicly betrayed Jesus.[viii] Jesus not only forgave Peter; Jesus said he would build his church on Peter’s leadership, the forgiven betrayer.

I was sharing a conversation with someone who was curious whether I had what they called “a personal relationship with Jesus.” They asked me if I was “saved”? “Yes,” I answered, “by God’s grace, I am saved.” And then they asked when I was saved, how long ago? I told them, “This morning, twice already.” I said, “I need a Savior every day.” Which is where the bad news precedes the good news. The good news of Jesus is that we are loved by God no matter what. For some people it will take a long time to know this. But God is not in a rush. God has all the time in the world – this world and the world to come – to save us from the hell of sin.

In the meantime, life on this earth is a mixed bag. Good and bad. Sometimes very good and very bad. Some days I am a victim; some days I am a perpetrator. You may know about that. And concerning the people we find to be a mean piece of work, there’s no virtue in denying it. In response to some people we may need to protest, rally, intervene, adjudicate, and shield the vulnerable. However, at the end of the day, everyone lives in a world that God so loves.[ix] Everyone is a child of God with whom God has desire to share eternity. And, even in times when we are confronting evil emanating from various quarters, we must also keep in mind – to keep at least in the back of our mind – that Jesus’ offer of salvation is not just for thems like us, but also for people whom we may find ignominious, who also need to be saved. Which is Jesus’ patient intent.

[i] John 11:17-44.

[ii] John 11:32-33.

[iii] John 11:1-44.

[iv] Nard is derived from the spikenard plant.

[v] Luke 4:16-21, where Jesus is quoting Isaiah 61:1-4f.

[vi] Simone Weil (1909-1943), French philosopher, social activist, Christian witness, and prolific author.

[vii] Judas’ suicide, remembered in Matthew 27:3-5.

[viii] John 18:15-18, 25-27; Mark 14:66-72; Luke 22:56-62.

[ix] John 3:16.