This week we have arrived at Mark 14, in the final days of Christ's life before his execution. And though he knows the pain that is still to come for himself, he continues to show us what it looks like to walk faithfully on this wilderness path that we each journey on.
As Jesus reclines at the dinner table, a dear woman approaches him and pours a whole bottle of expensive perfume over his head. And in this scene, Jesus shows us yet more about how to live a life of joyful realism. Some of those who were present at the dinner (no doubt they were good and pious and serious people) became deeply angry when they saw this lavish and extravagant act. "What a terrible waste! This perfume cost a whole year's salary - it should have been sold and the money given to the poor!" This is a reasonable, maybe even a righteous, response. But Jesus offers an ethically tricky paradox in return: "Leave this woman alone. She's done something beautiful. And remember, I'm going to die soon."
Somehow the way of Christ that we are asked to follow makes room not only for the clear-eyed acceptance that suffering and death are real and unavoidable... but also that extravagant and inefficient acts of beauty along the way are (at least sometimes) the most holy and generous response.
(CCLI Streaming License #20713275)
24 авг 2024
