Make Haste to Anoint

Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped them with her hair. – John 12:3 (NRSV) 

The extravagance of Mary’s act is what most people notice. The sheer amount of perfume she uses. How much it weighs. How it fills the house. How it angers Judas. 

Others notice that when it comes to Jesus washing feet, Mary does it first. Jesus experiences this tender devotion at her hands before he offers it to others just a short while later. We are blessed, and then we bless. 

I notice the timing. Things are speeding up, starting to hurtle toward the crisis. Mary knows this isn’t going to end well. This is her one chance to do this while Jesus is still alive. It has to count, this anointing. It has to last. He needs to still be able to feel this when they’re lashing him a few days from now. When he looks down from the cross at jeering faces, he needs to be able to remember hers looking up at him with love. He needs to still be able to smell this act when he’s on the cross. 

So she overdoes it. Dives to her knees; there’s no time for niceties when violence is headed your way. Uses the whole container of perfume; no reason to be stingy with love when the world is so generous with pain. Wipes his feet with her own hair instead of a towel; when it might be your last touch, you don’t want anything between you and them. 

Listen to what Mary knows: Make haste to anoint. Do it prodigiously, memorably. The ones you love may need the memory of it tomorrow. 

Prayer
Let me not be withholding of any tenderness that might help them survive tomorrow. Amen.

About the Author
Quinn G. Caldwell is Chaplain of the Protestant Cooperative Ministry at Cornell University. His most recent book is a series of daily reflections for Advent and Christmas called All I Really Want: Readings for a Modern Christmas. Learn more about it and find him on Facebook at Quinn G. Caldwell.