daily java

Daily Java:

Six days before the Passover celebration began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus—the man he had raised from the dead. A dinner was prepared in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him. Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance. But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray him, said, “That perfume was worth a year’s wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.” Not that he cared for the poor—he was a thief, and since he was in charge of the disciples’ money, he often stole some for himself. Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” (John 12:1-8 NLT)

Two things:

1. It is always interesting how  you can hurt someone’s feelings without intending to.
2. Things are always clearer in retrospect.

Mary, Martha and Lazarus were fairly well-off. The Bible never really says so, but you get that feeling. And for some reason, it seems they never get married. I suppose that they could have been married and just all lived in a family compound, but you never hear of husbands or a wife.

In many of the movies about Jesus, of course, they are dressed like nuns, a kind of proto-order of devotees to the life and work of Jesus. Chances are they just all lived in the same house. Maybe Lazarus’ wife had died and maybe Martha’s husband and Mary moved in to be with them.

We don’t know. But whatever the circumstance, these were obviously very good friends of Jesus’.

Now they are having dinner. They are quite happy with the way things have gone. Lazarus had died and Jesus had brought him back to life. That would make anyone happy. Except I have always wondered how Lazarus felt being dragged kicking and screaming back to this world from heaven.

But they are having dinner for Jesus and in his honor.

Mary wants to honor him. She gets a jar of perfume made from nard. Wikipedia says about nard: Spikenard is a flowering plant of the Valerian family that grows in the Himalayas of China, also found growing in the northern region of India and Nepal. Spikenard rhizomes (underground stems) can be crushed and distilled into an intensely aromatic amber-colored essential oil, which is very thick in consistency. Nard oil is used as a perfume, an incense, a sedative, and an herbal medicine said to fight insomnia, birth difficulties, and other minor ailments. It also says that lavender is a from of nard.

Whatever it was, it was expensive. Mary had been keeping this for a long time. Maybe it was a gift when she was born, or for her wedding night or something else. But she chose now to break the alabaster jar it was in and pour it on Jesus’ feet.

But someone had to gripe. There is always someone in any group that has to spoil an occasion to gripe. Judas complained that they could have sold the perfume for a year’s wages and helped poor people. Here we are going on all the time about poor people and we waste a perfectly good opportunity to help them by pouring expensive stuff on somebody’s feet. Sure, Jesus is important and all, but still, that is a waste.

John, the writer, records in retrospect, that of course Judas didn’t give a fig for the poor. He just wanted the money in his sack. He was the treasurer, after all. And John says he was a thief.

I think it hurt Jesus’ feelings. It ruined the moment. What could have been so good was messed up by some whiny guy. Jesus was not some holy guy who sat around waiting for teaching opportunities. He was one who appreciated things done for him.

He told Judas that poor people were always going to be there. If you ordered your life around poor people, you would never get anything done. You would be running in place.

And besides, God did not send Jesus to feed poor people. He sent him to seek and save the lost. Feed people all day long and two things happen. One is that they die anyway sooner or later, and the second is you get a group of people who are used to trooping daily to a place where they will be fed. A welfare mentality.

So Jesus told him that this was for his burial. Of course, that stopped everybody dead in their tracks. What do you say then? That was a great way of making Judas look like an idiot, of nothing else.

And in retrospect, he was right. It was just about a week until he was killed. Mary didn’t know that, of course, but she was anointing his body for burial.

I would imagine she thought of that a lot later and was so glad she had done it. She didn’t get to when he died.

And Judas may have intended to hurt Jesus’ feelings. Discontents in a church get to the point to where they do not care whose feelings they hurt. They want what they want and everything else is beside the point. Complaining becomes a way of life.

Probably by this time, Judas had gotten to this point, and the others were probably wondering why. When he came out of the night and kissed Jesus on the cheek in the garden, they were probably not really that surprised. Hurt, yes. Shocked, maybe, especially at the way he did it. But surprised? Really? Probably not all that much.

And, of course, we still have poor people. But Jesus says that you cannot order your whole life around them. You order it around him.