“The house was filled with the fragrance of perfume”: a reflection

Last weekend Alexa and I went on a walk and came across this magnificent waterfall.

I don’t know about you, but I find that there’s something awe-inspiring about waterfalls. The power of the water as it crashes over the rock formations below. The faint mist that is visible for a matter of seconds before it quickly evaporates into nothing before your eyes. We could have stayed there for hours, contemplating the rich imagery of power and abundance, indicative of the creative goodness of God. But another couple had just arrived, so we willingly gave up our prime viewing spot.

As we were leaving, I asked Alexa, “did you notice the smell?” Walking back to the car, we both reflected on how remarkably distinctive the smell of the waterfall was, but how as soon as you’d smelt it, it had almost instantly disappeared. We both agreed how impressive it was, that from a good 5-10 metres away, we still managed to pick up the very faint but still very unique smell.

What an experience! The whole thing felt like one of those transcendent, God-moments. Where without realising it, immediately at least, you find yourself confronted by the goodness, maybe even the fragrance of God’s presence and glory in the world. Perhaps in an awfully convoluted way, my profound experience at the waterfall got me thinking about the scene from our Gospel reading this morning. Impressed by the delicate yet far-reaching fragrance of the waterfall, I started thinking about the extravagance of Mary’s offering of perfume. And what the generosity of Mary’s out pouring might mean for our worship of the one-called-Messiah.

Before we get there, though, there’s a lot going on in this relatively short passage, so, I thought I’d just quickly set the scene. About a week earlier, word had come to Jesus that his dearly beloved friend Lazarus was ill and dying. Against the strong counsel of his disciples, Jesus and his motley crew head to the town of Bethany, a village some 3 kilometres out of Jerusalem. When they finally arrive in Bethany, Lazarus had already been dead for four days. Hearing of their arrival, Martha, one of the sisters of Lazarus met Jesus on the road, shared the news of his friend’s death, and as the Gospel writer records, Jesus was moved to tears, before asking to be brought to his tomb. With a simple command, “Lazarus come forth,” Jesus raised his beloved friend from the dead, to the great joy of all gathered and to the glory of God.

The resurrection of Lazarus from the dead instigates a plot by the high priest, Caiaphas, to kill Jesus. At this news, Jesus and the disciples go into hiding, emerging again only when they could lose themselves among the great throng of people on pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Jewish feast of Passover. Knowing that Jesus would likely re-emerge, in the thick of night or in a dense crowd, the Jewish religious leaders and the temple guards were on high alert and had been given orders to arrest the self-acclaimed Messiah, Jesus, if they saw him. Which brings us to our reading from this morning.

The gospel writer tells us that Mary anoints Jesus’ feet. As you’ll likely know, there’s a tradition within the Hebrew Bible of anointing priests and kings as a symbol that these people are appointed by God to fulfil a certain divine function on God’s behalf. In this tradition, Priests such as Moses’ brother Aaron and Kings such as King David were anointed with oil on their head. In the time of Jesus, however, there was only one truly anointed one and that was Caiaphas, the high priest that I mentioned beforehand – the one who instigated the plot to arrest and eventually kill Jesus. Upon hearing that crowds had started to call Jesus ‘the Messiah,’ the anointed one, Caiaphas felt the very real threat of political and religious turmoil to his relatively unstable regime. As far as Caiaphas was concerned, whether Jesus was the Messiah or not was almost irrelevant. Because he was becoming a real nuisance, he had to be dealt with.

In John’s gospel, however, it really matters that readers understand that Jesus is the true Messiah. It is so significant in fact that there are two accounts of Jesus’ anointing. Jesus is first anointed in his baptism by John the Baptist where God appoints Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” But his second anointing is a little different. And brings us back to our reading from this morning. While Jesus and the disciples are gathered for dinner at the house of Lazarus, the one whom Jesus raised from the dead, Mary, the other sister of Lazarus anoints Jesus not with oil and not on his head. But with costly perfume that she lavishly pours overs Jesus’ feet. This customary act was an integral part of first century burial practices where mourners would prepare the body of the deceased with perfume, as a symbol of the honour mourners have for the deceased; an offering of thanksgiving to God for the life of their loved one. Curious though in this instance is that Jesus is still alive. So, why on earth does Mary pour perfume over the feets of a man still alive?

While some of the disciples perceive Mary’s act as tantamount to flushing money down the drain, Mary demonstrates that she knows more than she’s letting on. She likely knows that there is a warrant out for his arrest and that given the social and religious situation in and around Jerusalem at the time, that Jesus most probably doesn’t have long to live. She likely knows that because he doesn’t have many more days with them, she sees no reason in waiting to use the perfume that she’d been keeping for Jesus’ burial, and so without giving it a second thought lavishly pours the perfume all over Jesus’ feet in an act of extravagant devotion.

Now, I don’t know about but you, but you just know an act of wholehearted, devoted worship when you see one. So great is Mary’s love of Jesus that she not only pours the perfume, which Judas helpfully calculates as equating to a year’s wages for a man working the fields, that she not only pours the perfume all over his feet, but she also bends down and as though kissing his feet, wipes them with her hair. “And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”

As I stood in front of the mighty waterfall, just last Monday afternoon, I was thoroughly impressed, you could say I was satisfactorily whelmed with just how far-reaching the delicate, yet momentary smell of the waterfall was. And it got me thinking about how momentary, yes, but more importantly how far-reaching the implications of our own worship can be.

“The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”

What Mary did that day, in lavishly pouring out perfume and wiping the feet of Jesus with her hair was an acknowledgement that her beloved friend, Jesus the Messiah, who raised her brother Lazarus from the dead, was himself soon going to die. Premature burial rite for a man still alive, an anointing acknowledging the Messiahship of Jesus, and an act of whole-hearted worship all bound up in this scene of utter extravagance that filled the room with the most beautiful fragrance.

The brilliance and indeed the impact of this story is that Mary acted. The fact that she acted, and that she acted so generously, speaks volumes! The story wouldn’t nearly have been so canonical, so worthy of enshrining in Scripture if she’d simply spoken about the perfume she was going to wash Jesus’ feet when he died. No! The fact that she acted, without even using words, makes all the difference. Especially when contrasted to Judas. If there’s one takeaway from this reading, it’s that our worship inevitably spills out and impacts others, it fills spaces perhaps without us even knowing, more so through the things we do in the lives of others, than in the things we say. Actions are more impactful than words.

I listened to a podcast recently, where the host talked about the importance of Christians living out their faith in their day to day lives. If we preach a generous God, and we’re stingy in the way we love others, mean in the way we help others, and lavish in the way we spend exorbitant amounts of money on ourselves while others go hungry, then how are we living out the message that we preach? How are we as disciples following Jesus the Messiah? Which brings me to my final point. I can’t think of a more apt illustration for Christian discipleship than Mary, who in her grief lavishly pours out the finest perfume in worship and devotion to Jesus. But not only that, her worship and devotion had a ripple effect on all those who were gathered there that day. Because we read, “the house was filled with the fragrance of perfume.” And how can the smell of fine perfume not fill your every nasal cavity, linger there, and have a long-lasting effect? Mary’s act of worship and devotion speaks to our faithful witness.

I find it interesting that we don’t usually associate acts of witness with the sense of smell. But why not? I know there are some magnificent bakers in this room. What’s better than the smell of freshly baked cookies and bread? I’ve heard about the profound impact of a beautifully smelling gift and how transformative that’s been in people’s life. And I’m sure there are an infinite ways in which we might witness to the love of God for all humanity through the wonderfully smelling things in our lives that we craft, bake, or make?

In case you’re wondering why on earth you were offered rosemary stalks on the way in, I hope it’s starting to all make sense. My hope is that the smell of the rosemary will linger long enough as a reminder or a prompt for you to think about how, in what way, you can express God’s love to others in acts of deliciously smelling generosity. Or at the very least, to remind you of the impact a delightfully smelling thing can have in your life, brighten your day, and bring freshness to the mundanity of life. Such is the love of God for us and for the whole world.

My prayer for us this week is that we, following Mary’s example of extraordinary generosity and almost excessive lavishness, might we find our own way to witness to others through the wonderfully smelling things in our lives, the love of God, who loved the world so much that he sent his Son, to take away the sins of the world.

Kororia ki te Matua, ki te Tamaiti, ki te Wairua Tapu,
Glory to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Brett Reid.
Ministry Intern.