Holy Tuesday: The anointing at Bethany

 Opening Prayer

O Lord open our lips.
That our mouths may proclaim your praise.

O God, come to our aid.
O Lord, make haste to help us.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.

Almighty God,
you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you:
pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself,
and so bring us at last to your heavenly city
where we shall see you face to face;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

‘While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, ‘Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.’ And they scolded her. But Jesus said, ‘Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.’

[Mark 14.3-9]

 

A few years ago I used to share a garret flat in South London with a friend. Another friend gave me some church incense as a gift. I duly burned the incense, hoping it would make the flat smell nice (and rid the communal hallway of the smell of cat poo). Like the perfume in the ointment used in today’s Gospel reading the incense did indeed fill the whole flat with its pungent scent – incense is after all designed to fill Cathedrals with its aroma, it is NOT designed to be used in small flats or stairwells! For the next week everything smelt of incense, even the food I’d bought somehow tasted of it. (I’ve never made that mistake again.)

 

The story of the Anointing at Bethany is one of the most beautiful and intimate stories we have in the Gospels. The ointment used was costly indeed – Nard is a spice that comes from India, and would have been brought to Israel via the Silk Route at great expense. Yet despite its costs this unnamed woman shatters the jar (the word used suggests that in no way was the ointment or jar salvageable) and pours the ointment over Jesus’s head.

 

This anointing has a double meaning to it. In the first instance it represents the anointing of kings at their coronation, and the word Messiah (or Christ) means ‘one who has been anointed’.

Anointing also takes place after death and prior to burial. (Just inside the entrance of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem there is a marble stone set into the floor and covered with lamps. This is the Stone of Unction, the place where Jesus’s body was laid prior to his burial. See image.) In fact Jesus the anointing at Bethany is the only anointing Jesus will receive (according to the Gospel of St Mark) as it is the women who comes to anoint his body on Easter Sunday who will discover the empty tomb.

 

Finally, Jesus words to the gathered crowd that ‘you will have the poor with you always’ can sound brash and uncaring to our ears, and can make Jesus seem uncaring. It should be noted that Jesus is not using these words to justify the presence of the poor, rather he is reminding us of our call to care for the poor. The poor will be with us always Jesus is reminding us, the sale of this one jar of ointment will not change that fact. But in this moment, something of deeper significance takes place, and Jesus is anointed both as king, but also in preparation for his burial.

 

-        Quite a bit more takes place on Holy Tuesday than I have reflected on here. If you want to read further about the events of Holy Tuesday, then these can be found in Mark 11.27-13.27, which focuses both on the end times, but also on the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman forces in the AD60*. I have not included this portion of scripture for reasons of space and copyright restrictions.

 

*This is what Jesus is referring to when he refers to the ‘Desolating sacrilege’ in 13.14. The Roman authorities placed Imperial Standards (military flags) in the Temple, which were viewed as blasphemous by the Jewish people, and which led to wholesale rebellion, and the eventual destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, and the expulsion of the Jewish people from Israel.

 

Closing Prayer

Almighty ever-living God,

grant us so to celebrate

the mysteries of the Lord’s Passion

that we may merit to receive your pardon.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God, for ever and ever.